XwomXnseX | Liv Hanne Haugen

XwomXnseX / STEAM

Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.

- Oscar Wilde

It is said that the female body hits a sexual peak in the mid-40s. So what happens when three dance artists and women aged 48-57 explore both what they have experienced and what they have been told about sexuality?

XwomXnseX is based on a series of solos, independent and occasionally fused, based on experiences - personal, collective and shared. The stories include being queer, hormonal changes, not interested in sex and discovering new sexuality. Different stories about both personal and social traumas and desires based on their own sexuality.

The performers use the the English term womxn, to highlight the inclusion of trans and non-binary people in their narrative, and to avoid the stereotypical portrayal of gender and sexuality in the language they explore in the project.

There are two different format of this project, one for the Black Box and one for the sauna, called STEAM. In STEAM the collaborators dive into the mythology of water, transformation of fire, stories of sexual surprises and created a community of women sharing stories in the sauna.

From this research we create a participatory sauna ritual with performative actions that leads sauna goers through sensory states enhanced by essential oils, mood music and refreshments.

STEAM is born out of the research for the XwomXnseX stage performance, which focuses on the performers’ experiences of sex/uality and change. Wanting to share more stories, and being in Tromsø, above the Arctic Circle in Norway to create XwomXnseX, they host saunas.