MÄRIT

This performance is a work in progress and moves between past and present, childhood and friendship, war and time, in a community where not everyone has a place—then or now. Dancer Destiny af Kleen flows through the music, weaving between the story and the forest.

On stage, we see Destiny af Kleen, with music by BK Sannerud and Johan Söderberg, moving images by Johan Söderberg and artwork of Beate Poikane and  drawn and painted by Anna Fors. The script is by Malin Nord, with direction by Kajsa Isakson.
Set in the 1940s in the village of Sikås, Jämtland, six-year-old Ingrid and her three-year-old sister Eva form a friendship with Märit, a woman who is an adult on the outside but a child on the inside. In a time when society views those with disabilities harshly, Märit is seen as different, and the village seeks to mold her into someone who won’t stand out or bring shame to her family.

Kajsa Isakson

Credits 

Märit is a free adaption of  Inga-Marie Eriksson’s novel (1965) by Malin Nord

On stage: Destiny af Kleen, www.dansplatsskog.se, www.yodestiny.com and Monsterlandskap - Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
Director: Kajsa Isakson
Choreography: Destiny af Kleen and Kajsa Isakson
Visual Artist: Johan Söderberg
Visual Art: Beate Poikane
Music: Johan Söderberg, BK Sannerud
Illustrator: Anna Fors

The performance Märit is open to the general public
Date & Time: Monday, June 2, 17:30–19:00
Location: SKH, Valhallavägen 193 (Subway: Karlaplan), Studio 3
Free entrance
To reserve your place, email publik@uniarts.se. with the number of attendees, date, performance title, and your name. A confirmation will be sent to you once your booking is confirmed.

We warmly welcome secondary school classes to the performance Märit
Date & Time: Monday, June 2, 10:00–11:30
Location: SKH, Valhallavägen 193 (Subway: Karlaplan), Studio 3
Free entrance
To register your class, please email publik@uniarts.se. You will receive a confirmation once your booking is complete.

The performance is based on the novel Märit by Ing-Marie Eriksson (1965), dramatised by Malin Nord in 2024.

A Work in Progress – Märit

“Maybe it was the force of the train that had driven straight into her. She had become the train, and now she was bursting her way forward.”
 – Ingrid, character in the play Märit

This open rehearsal forms part of an ongoing artistic research project that takes place through the act of rehearsal itself. The process becomes a method for asking how focus, perception, and neurodivergent ways of being shape expression, presence, and collaboration.

Märit is a play by Malin Nord, based on the 1965 novel of the same name by Ing-Marie Eriksson. Set in 1940s Jämtland during World War II, the play focuses on the character Märit, who has the body of an adult but the cognitive abilities of a child. Märit lives with her mother, Augusta, and older brother, Valle, in the poorest part of the village. 

Society's harsh view of people with disabilities leads to Märit being hidden away by her family and rejected by the community. Branded with derogatory labels such as “idiot” and “animal,” Märit is confined to a shed.

Ingrid, six, and Eva, four, move to the village and befriend Märit, who is strong enough to break branches and carry the children on her shoulders. 

The children use Märit as their muscle, playing with and manipulating her, both kindly and cruelly. They take Märit to see a passing train, which sparks a longing for freedom within Märit. Inspired by this glimpse of escape, she later flees barefoot into the forest, trying to run away. However, she is caught, sterilized, and confined to a psychiatric institution. 

The children, overwhelmed with guilt, believe they are responsible for what happened.

Told through Ingrid's perspective, both as a child and an adult, Märit explores memory and the search for truth. Ingrid writes in the present to reclaim Märit's story, but whose truth is it? And who has the right to tell it?

The play also touches on the real-life defamation case against the author of the novel, Ing-Marie Eriksson, who was charged for revealing the truth behind Märit. It's a story about history, freedom, and the weight of the past.

“Märit was the most hidden person one could imagine."
– Ing-Marie Eriksson, author of the novel Märit

The stage adaptation of the novel Märit is written by Malin Nord and directed by Kajsa Isakson, with choreography and dance by Kajsa Isakson and Destiny af Kleen.

This performance explore themes of exclusion and the experiences of those who exist outside neuronormative frameworks. At its center is Märit, a young woman whose very being questions these norms. Rather than providing a didactic portrayal, the performance allows Märit to simply be—a presence that does not need to conform to neurotypical standards. The body and space become vessels for memories, emotions, and conflicts, with the stage serving as a site that resists neuronormativity.

The work dissolves linear storytelling, instead using associative approaches. Present-day Ingrid—the narrator—confronts memories from her past, while music, soundscapes, and choreography act not as mere illustration but as a physical language of Märit’s presence and the invisible structures of neuronormativity. Through the neurodivergent gaze, we witness an alternative story—one that highlights different ways of experiencing and expressing the world. Märit’s path challenges restrictive societal norms, showing how physical freedom allows her to break free from these confines.

The performance embodies the past within the present, revealing how the social structures and memories that shape us continue to influence us, even when we think we’ve moved past them.

Kajsa Isakson is creating a stage adaptation of Märit, based on the novel by Ing-Marie Eriksson and the theatrical version by Malin Nord. In her work, she focuses on Märit’s story through a more-than-human perspective. Together with Destiny af Kleen, she explores how difference—whether cognitive, physical, or emotional—can carry strength, not just be something to hide or “fix.” At the same time, she is aware of the risk of turning Märit’s difference into something strange or exotic. She wants to show her full humanity—her strength, her struggles, her resistance—without reducing her to a symbol or outsider.

The stage work is not told as a simple, straight story. Instead, she builds a sensory and physical world where Märit’s presence is felt not only through words, but through silence, gesture, breath, and movement. Her story is embodied—living in the space between memory, exclusion, and resistance.

Through this approach, she explores how society’s rules continue to shape our bodies and lives, even when we believe we’ve moved past them. The stage becomes a site of both memory and resistance.

She wants to challenge the audience to think about who we allow to belong, who we push away, and what it really means to be free.

BIO 

Stagedirector, storyteller, choreographer, and sound artist. Crafting multisensory, cross-disciplinary experiences in collaboration with fellow artists. Exploring tactile, audiovisual, and neurodivergent narratives. Founder of The Neuroqueer Stage Art Revolution. Art is my compass, stories are my method.

Kajsa Isakson is a director, choreographer, playwright, She is movement-based and works to twist and turn the world, connecting realities, stories, history, and thoughts.
With over 30 years of experience in performing arts, sound art, choreography, and radio drama, she explores the intersection of neurodiversity and artistic expression. She is currently pursuing a master's degree in performing arts at Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH).

Kajsa aims for further academic research – she already has methods and will refine them because artistic research needs her. After researching in her own way and working practically on the floor, she now wants to take the next step forward. And continue making her art in harmony with artistic research.

Her research explores the possibilities and energy within neurodivergent performance art. She is particularly interested in storytelling, choreography, and dramaturgy, and how these can shape creative processes. 

A central part of her practice is creating neuroaffirmative environments – for both artists and audiences. By using hyperfocus and stimming as artistic methods, she develops working approaches that empower both the individual artist and the collective expression within the performing arts.

Currently, Kajsa is also rehearsing the work "Märit" by Ing-Marie Eriksson, for the stage by Malin Nord, in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Destiny af Kleen. In this work, she focuses on multisensory experiences with both verbal and non-verbal expressions. 

Pictures from the rehearsal process by Märit


Destiny af Kleen och Kajsa Isakson

Destiny af Kleen

Foto: Hanna Edh