Work in Progress Showings MA Performing Arts as Critical Practice 2025

This is not their final showings, those will take place in May at Malmö Theatre Academy, CKC (Community Kultur Centrum), Malmö Stadsteater and at Konträr in Stockholm at the end of April.

Each student in the MA has their individual artistic profile and practice, which they have transformed, deepened, expanded and reflected during the last two years in the context of their MA studies, developing collaborations with peers, and partnerships locally and internationally. Their master projects are an outcome of this journey, and the final presentations will be shared with audiences in May.

In April you are all invited into their studios to witness the work-in-progress previews of these projects.

Dates and locations

Work in progress showings

April 9 at 16.45: Filip Pawlak at Skånes Dansteater 
April 10 at 18.00: Monirah Hashemi in Studio B, Malmö Theatre Academy
April 14 at 18.00: Laura Stasane in Studio B, Malmö Theatre Academy
April 15 at 15.00: Sall Lam Toro at Community Kultur Centrum
April 16 at 18.00: Zsófi Rebeka Kozma in Studio B, Malmö Theatre Academy 
April 16 at 20.00: Dina Gordon in Studio A, Malmö Theatre Academy

Note! Please pre book a spot by sending an e-mail to Jan Michelsen with which shows you would like to see: jan [dot] michelsen [at] thm [dot] lu [dot] se 

Final Performances

April 26 – 29: Maryam Hashempour at Konträr, Stockholm
May 9 at 19.00 and May 10 at 17.00: Filip Pawlak in Studio B, Malmö Theatre Academy
May 15 at 19.00 and May 16 at 15.00 and 19.00: Dina Gordon in Studioscenen på Malmö Stadsteater 
May 16 at 19.00 and May 17 at 15.00: Zsofia Kozma in Studio B at Malmö Theatre Academy
May 20 at 19.00 and May 21 at 15.00: Jurrien van Rheenen in Studio A at Malmö Theatre Academy
May 22 from 15.00 – 19.00: Durational show by Sall Lam Toro outside CKC (Community Kultur Centrum)
May 22 at 19.00 and May 23 at 17.00: Laura Stasane in Studio B at Malmö Theatre Academy
May 22 at 19.00 and May 23 at 15.00 and 19.00: Monirah Hashemi at Studioscenen på Malmö Stadsteater
May 24 at 15.00: Maryam Hashempour in Studio B at Malmö Theatre Academy

About the Work in progress showings

April 9 at 16.45 at Skånes Dansteater, Östra Varvsgatan 13A

Filip Pawlak – Can you help me?

After all, we deserve it, don't we? We've earned it with our hard work. Our dreams were not exorbitant, just to always have something to put in the pot, to have enough money to regularly change the bedding in which we sleep with someone close to us, to get a job that allows us to fulfil our potential. Good job! Well done! I am proud of you!  

Can we recall our first successes and failures? Our first steps, tying our own shoes, a rhyme memorised in kindergarten? What is left of them in us? In the performance Can you help me?, Filip Pawlak will ask about the qualifying skills necessary for a happy life and what we think about when we sigh deeply when tired after a day's work. 

Within the framework of his work, he tries to distance himself from his own biography, while at the same time attempting to notice, from a distance, the symbolic moments that have conditioned his perception of disability, hisy east European working-class background, his non-heteronormative identity, but also the hope that he hold in art.

April 10 at 18.00, Studio B, Malmö Theatre Academy

Monirah Hashemi – As the Stars Fall

As the Stars Fall, is a work rooted in personal memory, yet it speaks to a global reality. 

It emerges from the margins—from the untold stories, the silenced voices, the narratives denied by culture, community, and state. 

This autobiography is an act of resistance—a contribution to the collective voice of millions of women around the world who are reclaiming their right to tell their own stories. Stories that have long been controlled, edited, or erased by patriarchal structures.

As the Stars Fall, refuses silence. It gives space to the lived experiences that society often refuses to see or hear. It is an offering—a gesture of defiance and solidarity—for every woman who has dared to speak, and for every one still waiting to be heard.

April 14 at 18.00, Studio B, Malmö Theatre Academy

Laura Stasane – In Their Eyes (working title) 

With autobiographical stories of human-animal encounters as a starting point, I have been exploring our connection to nature and everything else alive around us. This work continues my research into ways of addressing environmental crisis and my interest to unfold narratives through non-verbal means with performers, audience and things sharing the same space.

Created in collaboration with Artūrs Čukurs (Riga), Fredrikke Hooge (Copenhagen), Ulla-Britta Westergren (Malmö)
Mentors and supervisors: Tanja Hylling Diers, Edit Kaldor, Rósa Ómarsdóttir (Reykjavik)

Image by Laura Stasane

April 15, 15.00, Community Kultur Centrum, Lodgatan 3B Malmö

WATER STIRS OUR GRIEF: A CHOIR OF TEARS – Sall Lam Toro

A site specific sound installation with a live performance happening unfolds in a harbor, in Malmö in collaboration with Community Kulturcentrum, Amalia Geray, Auria Paz and Skrot based on the first chapter of my MA thesis - “WATER STIRS OUR GRIEF: A CHOIR OF TEARS ”. The chapter becomes an ecoerotic sonic meditation on water as a primordial element of a (meta)physical garden of revolt based in Copenhagen where an array of voices speak and scheme this garden into existence surrounding different aspects of life around it. 

From an affective perspective, I am establishing that water as an element is also connected to the emotive in the biopolitical sphere, evoking water as an element that stirs active grieving. This grieving has the potential for the political and collective action against violence, injustice.

April 16 at 18.00, Studio B, Malmö Theatre Academy

Zsófi Rebeka Kozma – What if the state (working title)

My MA project explores workers’ conditions and unionizing in Malmö, Sweden through thematic research and the development of a new working method on staging data, culminating in a full-length interactive performance. I’m departing from my experience in working at a bar in Möllenvangstorget, a historically significant site for Malmö’s labor movements. I approached my bar job as an Artist-in-Residence position, gathering data and asking the question how performance can intervene in reality.

I’d love to see students, teachers, employees, employers, trade union representatives and anyone who goes to bars at my work-in-progress showing.

April 16 at 20.00, Studio A, Malmö Theatre Academy

Dina Gordon -  Lose again. Lose better.

I am further exploring my interest in archetypal characters and the narratives they unknowingly reveal about society and our personal desires. This through the consistently re-emerging theme of self-improvement. Can we breathwork away a deep sadness? Can we cold plunge away suicidal ideations? Can we red light therapy away time? Should we start a podcast?

To me, these gestures appear almost like a mask. And I am curious to see what we are prepared to endure in order to keep it on. When do we give up. And what comes after.

The YouTube channel dwelling, self-published author and dynamic therapy advocate, invites you to a workshop in how to locate, understand and overcome what's keeping you from unlocking your full potential. Dress comfortably and bring water.