Stockholm Fringe Festival, with its line-up of all the weird and wonderful in theatre and performing arts, is back in September, and this year their programme is one of their biggest and most wide-ranging yet. So how to sift through it all and figure out what you want to see? It’s a tricky task, which is why we recruited probably the most qualified person possible to help us out with it – festival co-founder and co-director Adam J. K. Potrykus to pick out some of his personal highlights for us.
CHRISTEENE
There isn’t enough PUNK in Stockholm and punk is what you get with Christeene! We’ve been keen to book Christeene ever since her early musical gems back in 2012 that assaulted us via her NSFW Youtube videos. I think that the BASURA gig will help the audience to let go of their usual same same but different mindset. So many people ask what or who is Christeene? We think that Christeene is a cross breed of your dirty back alley, part art installation, part alien, part drag genius with a twist! Labelled as “Beyoncé on bath salts” whose repertoire includes family gathering friendly singalong hits like Butt Muscle, Fix My Dick and Tears from My Pussy, she’ll take charge over Slaktkyrkan during her Basura tour pitstop in ”Stockholm”. Dancers T-Gravel and Dawg Elf join her on stage with a fat dose of hairy gender bender sex energy focused on the universe’s centrifuge: Christeene! The same night Peaches is showing her film Peaches Does Herself and she will be interviewed in front of an audience by Tiina Rosenberg! Butcher Queen + Rasuul entertains after!
Sep 14, 18:00, Slaktkyrkan
PEACHES CHRIST SUPERSTAR
Was Jesus a woman? You bet she was! This is a dream come true! Probably our best booking ever! Electro-rock provocateur Peaches performs Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar in a reverent, revelatory one-woman tour-de-force at Södra Teatern! How often do you have the chance to work with your heroes? We do see as Peaches is a modern day hero in our eyes! ! I first watched Peaches live in London at various concerts and have been a fan ever since! Then our team had a chance to experience Peaches Christ Superstar at Brighton Festival a few years ago and we knew that this show had to hit the STOFF stage sooner or later. Our festival is dedicated to elevating loads of feminist work. Here we got one of the world’s most inspirational and independent feminist icons alone on stage with just a piano plus Norwegian superstar pianist Mathias Halvorsen. Peaches is the perfect antidote to the world we live in. Peaches for president!
Sep 15, 19:30, Södra Teatern
SHARKTANK
We love a great artistic journey! Amanda Doherty has visited our festivals several times with award winning solo work. We have super high hopes for whats she will bring to the table as part of Belfast’s The Movement Collective! For starters we expect the unit to deliver a great deal of humour on the Ö2 stage in SHARKTANK! Expect a satirical stab at the pressure cooker of life in the Arts and the fight to survive. A live audience, a lot of white clothing, a shared experience and a microphone. Six people explore the challenging balance of life as an artist and our own social anxieties. Throwing out the theatre rule book they want to talk to you about MENTAL HEALTH and life in the SHARKTANK!
Sep 12, 21:00, 13, 19:00, Ö2
SOAK
This show came to us by mistake! Isadora is part of a theatre company DADA FOR GIRLS that had to postpone their gig at STOFF 2018 due to a scheduling issues! The high artistic level of Isadora’s previous work made us curious about was she had on the way herself. And sure enough she had a new book coming! Soak is literally that. The artist, Isadora Vibes, is soaking in a bathtub while reading her poetry book that’s being published just in time for STOFF 2018! A very intimate and revealing performance for an adult audience As a matter of fact Isadora is one of the reasons why this year, for the first time ever, STOFF’s programme guide was censored by our publishing partner! If nudity is offensive to you then both STOFF and SOAK isn’t for you!
Sep 14, 15, 17:00, Ö2
GRACEFOOL COLLECTIVE
Women in charge! As mentioned before STOFF prides itself in elevating narratives written and produced by women! It was a no-brainer to put the award winning Gracefool Collective in the programme! Their latest creation “This really is too much” promises itself to be a raucous, provocative and laugh-out-loud funny, genre-busting performance that reveals the downright absurd realities of life as a 3-dimensional, high definition, water-drinking, salad-eating, WO-man in modern society.
Sep 14, 21:00, 15, 13:00, Teater Tre
Stockholm Fringe Festival, Sep 11-15, Various Venues. For full programme see www.stockholmfringe.com
Main Image: Sharktank by Eimear Owens
