Sugar : Facing the Danish national history first hand

Sugar : Facing the Danish national history first hand

By Anna Gerda Nielsen and Amalie Glimø Christensen

“Many thinks that the Danish colonialism in the Danish West Indies, were more human and gentle, than other colonial countries” (Det Olske Orkester.dk)

The performance Sugar forms a critical picture of Denmark’s self-understanding as a slave nation. The play takes place a stage not like the ones you are used to. There are no walls or “backstage”, and the scene is surrounded by the audience. The floor of the stage is made to be the scenery, the background and also the effects, as the pictures in this blogpost will show. What is shown on the stage is being projected from a projector from above. This form of stage and use of scenery allows the stage to come alive.

This scene shows the Danes arriving in African coast, before bringing African natives to St. Croix to work as slaves. Here the stage is moving, the waves of the ocean become a part of the scene, and the audience feels the movement. (Photo from the Facebook page of Det Olske Orkester)

The performance takes us back to Denmark in the 17th century, where the Danes travelled abroad. We are presented to the slave captain, the priest, the bookkeeper, the doctor, the plantation owner and the poor ship boy who goes to Africa to sail enslaved people to St. Croix.

Our expectations for the play, were that our nations actions and doings in the 17’th and 18’th century during colonialism would be displayed and expressed. In this we were not wrong. The performance was centred on the treatment and the objectification of the enslaved Africans during their transfer to and working conditions on the sugar plantation. Even though we expected this specific focus, we were still surprised at what we witnessed. We were confronted with a cultural encounter between the Danish culture in the 17th and 18th century and our own modern culture. At Cultural Encounters and the courses we have here, we have read and been thought about the Danish and Danish West Indies relationship, and the conditions of the enslaved Africans. But seeing it presented in front of us first hand in a very expressive and brutal way makes it more of a reality.

The play shows the Danes capturing the African natives, which was done forcefully and inhumane. The stage and use of the projector from the top allows the effect of seeing the blood from the slave being dragged across the map. (Photo from the Facebook page of Det Olske Orkester)

In the scenes where the Danes captures the African people for slavery, we noticed that the actors who played the Africans, wore bags over their heads. This particular choice of representation of the enslaved we find very interesting. In one way we find, that it contributes to a distance between the Danes and the Africans. It may also represent how the Danish colonists viewed the African people as faceless and objects. On a different note, we also discussed how the bag over the head was an ethical choice of the producers, since they avoided the conflict of having Caucasian actors appear as Africans.

This picture shows “the slave dance”. The play also included the treatment of the enslaved Africans, who worked from morning to night, and had no rights. (Photo from the Facebook page of Det Olske Orkester)

After seeing the play, we talked about the reflections and thoughts that the act had brought up. We both felt that it in some ways contributed to a change in our attitude towards the Danish history and colonial past. It also made us be more critical towards contemporary political ways of dealing with this past. Seeing this play gave us much more than just information.

Can acts like “Sugar” enable a difference in the Danish discourse when it comes to our colonial history?


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