STAGES/SCENER – booklaunch and performance

In connection with the publication of STAGES/SCENER by Forlaget bastard, the artist group I-IR has developed a performance reading of the text, which will form part of the book launch at Husets Teater during the CPH STAGE Festival on May 28, 2026, from 5–7 PM.

As a text, STAGES/SCENER unfolds as a series of charged visual fragments. Each stands as a complete scene in itself, moving from the intimate to the infinite, from the interior of the body to the social corpus, from the everyday to the divine. It begins with a cleansing and moves through a choreographed progression toward emptiness, where everything dissolves. The stage, once populated, now stands empty; only the witnesses remain.

At Husets Teater, the text is brought to life in a performance by the author Jonathan Bonnici and actor Line Svendsen. Performed in English and Danish—interwoven, overlapping, colliding—the voices shift between dialogue and dissonance, clarity and cacophony.

STAGES/SCENER is a performative text in which the page becomes a stage. Although it functions as a theatrical text, it is in no way diminished by being read. In this case, the reader becomes director, scenographer, and actor, composing the piece in their mind’s eye. STAGES is an original text in English by Jonathan Bonnici, with a Danish translation by Lise Margrethe Jørgensen. The book is published by Forlaget bastard and produced by Forlaget bastard and Institute of Interconnected Realities, with support from the Danish Arts Foundation and Pavillon K.

STAGES/SCENER is the third publication in Forlaget bastard’s series of performance texts. The series is developed with the ambition to create a space for exploring, developing, strengthening, and highlighting the performance text in its many diverse forms as its own mode of writing and literary genre.

Forlaget bastard is a specialized publishing platform and distribution channel dedicated to performance texts from Danish experimental theatre, performance art, choreography, interdisciplinary artistic practices, and aesthetic intersections. In doing so, Forlaget bastard continues and expands the purpose of the critical platform bastard.blog, which aims to strengthen and create a forum for practitioners and audiences engaged with these scenes and fields.

The event is FREE, but registration is required.

The book will be available for purchase at a special price, and wine and snacks will be served.