Susanne Vejdemo
personal homepage
Hobbies
I'm passionate about a lot of things - after all, if you're not passionate about a certain activity, why do it?
Arduino
I've recently begun experimenting with arduino. When you want to learn a new skill, it's always useful to have a concrete goal.
Being a scifi geek, I decided to try to build a replica of the Voight-Kampf machine in Blade Runner. It's a lie detector that's used to differentiate androids from humans in the movie, and I thought it would be fun to have a machine that could use sweat (electric conductivity) to try to discover lies, and that measures the pupil dilation of the subject. The documentation is all in Swedish, but you can follow it here.
Impro theatre - larp
Nordic Larping is a form om improvisational theatre, quite different from Continental or American LARPing. Or so I hear: I've never tried the Continental or American LARPing traditions, but they seem to revolve around improvised martial arts competitions? Nordic Larping is a quite different matter - impro theatre, but with an established foundation. You can listen to Johanna Koljonen talk about it here: Youtube.
A Nordic Larp play is an impro theatre play where everyone present has a character, but there is no script. There is only a well established premise.
Here are some of my recent projects
Now Listen Young Lady
This short 2 person nordic larp is about Mothers and Daughters and the idea of what a Woman is, and should be. It's published in the Gamewrap journal.
#Feminism entry
One of my larps was published in the #Feminism larp anthology. The larp has since then been played by players in many different countries during larp festivals, and I'm very happy that it's gotten such a positive response. The name of the larp is "So Mom I Made this Sex Tape", and the larp begins with a daughter character telling her disapproving mom this line.
Players assume pre-written roles of 3 to 5 women in a family. They are all opinionated feminists, but from different waves of feminism, and they all have markedly different opinions on sex and sex work. During the larp, the players have to defend their character's opinions, regardless of how they themselves feel about the subject IRL. The characters argue it out, discussing what feminism is all about. After the larp, the players get to discuss the experience.
Suffragett!
Together with Daniel Armyr, Siri Sandquist and Cissi Billskog, I produced and directed Suffragett!. The project was done in collaboration with the Hallwylska Museum in Stockholm. Suffragett is a larp for 50 players, where the players get to assume pre-written roles of activists in the Swedish Votes for Women movement in 1917. The characters all belong to different factions within the early feminism movement - from religious purists, to stalinists, to anarchists, to noble women - and during the larp they had to try to work together to create a demonstration in Stockholm in 1917.
Grandma's Tiara / The Ancestral Farm
Two drama and relationship larps about traditional female (Tiara) and male (Farm) gender roles and concerns, and the relationships between mothers & daughters; and fathers & sons. 6 generations (3 living, 3 ghosts) of a family get together during a family emergency. These larps have been played in at least 4 different larp festivals in Sweden, and is being translated to Finnish for a Finnish larp festival. You can read more about it here.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
In 2011 I produced a Nordic LARP version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer night's dream together with Love Sjögren, Stefan Björk and Constance Bell Long. The production had 40 players, and all material can be found (in Swedish) here.
Once More with Passion
Together with Elli Åhlvik I staged this production, involving 18 players and lasting 8 hours. OMWP investigated conflict, and how basic conflicts remain the same, no matter the setting. Using a single non-varying manuscript, players staged three consecutive LARP sessions using different genres: epic fantasy vendetta, modern day custodial dispute and fin de siecle tea party.
Frizon
In 2010, I and my good friend Daniel were co-directors for the larp Frizon, which had the tag line "A larp about personal choices". It was both an adventure larp, where the participants would hike for several days with no firm base, and a philosophical and political larp centering around the cultural memories of genocide. The characters' parents' generation had been involved in a war in which genocide and abuse had taken place, and we wanted to explore how guilt and anger is inherited through generations. The larp website is here: Frizon. It's in Swedish, but send me an email if you want more info on it in English.
30-årskrisen / Mid-life Crisis!
I and the wonderful Onni and fantastic Sofia, were co-directors for the larp "30-årskrisen". The title translates as "Mid life crisis" - and that was the theme of this dark and humoristic larp. All players took on characters that had some sort of mid life crisis, and they were all invited to the same party. The larp had three scenes: introduction, crisis and resolve. The setting was a birthday party for the character Lennart, who celebrated his 30th birthday before he was going to set off and sail around the world. We did a lot of scenes in "black boxes", where we played alternate futures or pasts with specific players. It was a blast!
Books
Here are some of my favourite short stories:
Let The Bugs Work Themselves Out by Luna Lindsey
Original here: http://www.grumpsjournal.com/jue3_5/stories/jue3_5-lindsey.html
Less formatted copy here: http://www.susanne.vejdemo.se/LetTheBugs.html
We Have Always Spoken Panglish by Suzette Haden Elgin
Original here: http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/Story-Panglish.html
Less formatted copy here: http://www.susanne.vejdemo.se/Panglish.html
Susanne
is a Swede living in New York. She has PhD in linguistics, is a former editor at LinguistList, an impro theatre enthusiast, and wife of Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson
Contact
You can email me at susanne squigglysign vejdemo dot se or skype me at "susvej". I'm also on Facebook.