Sex Education II: Fight

The series of lecture-performances entitled Sex Education II confronts and reminds us of the importance of acquired rights and the advancement of medical science. Fight is a journey through time and space: from the initial stage in Unity Square we journey into 1940 and into the body of a model woman somewhere in former Yugoslavia—a woman without education and rights, living as an object used to satisfy male sexual urges, perhaps even pleasure. In the cold and dark cellar at The New Post Office, the actress lists plants that help terminate a foetus. If they fail to work, there is a selection of acids that can be consumed. Should even this fail to work, you can try a feather from a rooster’s tail, a parsley root, horseradish, a knitting needle, or a hanger. [...] The scenes of the lecture-performance Fight offer much more than described above: the engaged and in places witty performance by actresses Sendi Bakotić and Vanda Velagić (both from Rijeka, Croatia, but their families originating from every part of the former Yugoslavia), Tijana Todorović’s and Lene Lekše’s set and costume design, and small live interventions by director Tjaša Črnigoj. The accompanying text to the performance, which in its concept and with arguments supports the need for Sex Education II, reads: “In a time of the retraditionalisation of society and politics, which questions the right to safe abortion and contraception all over again, it is far from clear that women’s bodies belong to them alone—something that we still and once again need to fight for.”

In lines with the feminist principle, the theatre narrative constantly intertwines the personal and the political, reminding us how we take the rights which are the result of the long and persistent fight of our sisters for granted. Our journey through The New Post Office spaces, through historical and collective memory, through the experiences of the previous generations of women and through our personal history, tells us the story of how we should not stop and settle for the world in which we currently live in. We can lose everything we have gained in a heartbeat. This is why it is necessary to remember those times, but also to gain an awareness of the current situation. In fact, in Croatia the vast majority of gynaecologists exercise the right to conscientious objection and abortions are often performed against payment, and in Slovenia it may happen that gynaecology will be excluded from basic health insurance. With its format, Sex Education II reminds us of the activist extent of theatre [...], which finds it function mainly in its ability to change society through aesthetics. All those of us who followed Sex Education II all the way to the end certainly found ourselves at least a tiny bit changed by this feminist school.