"Background Fucker" is an autobiographical performance that tells the story of one man growing up in the Wild Wild East of the 1990s.

The performance moves on the border between memory and myth and explores Barbara Lehtna's childhood, which is shaped by the collision of two opposing worlds. On the one hand, the American self-made-man-ideology, suddenly screaming on TV screens, demands the children of this time to be freer, more successful and more Western than their parents. On the other hand, newly found and strongly idealized national values ​​dictate a society where narrow gender roles and heterosexual expectations prevail.

One of the symbols of that time is the cowboy in jeans with a wide hood, familiar from movies, cigarette packs and advertisements, who fits well into the masculine society of the time, where the right of the stronger pays. For Barbara, he is first just a character she meets through midday reruns of the series while sipping Kellogs on the couch at the end of every school day in front of the TV.

Soon, however, the cowboy becomes a kind of role and a tool that helps her cope with ever narrowing gender norms and pressure to perform. Unnoticeably, the cowboy begins to take up more space in Barbara's body with his demands and increasingly radicalized advice, and even though it is easier to blend into society as a cowboy, it inevitably means suppressing her real desires and wishes.

The performance examines whether and how it is possible to leave behind the survival strategies acquired in childhood and what to do with the feeling that you have been a background character in your life all your life.

Barbara Lehtna is a theatremaker and performer from Estonia. Her artistic processes have been primarily focused on exploring self-representation and expression of queer and female bodies within the liminal post-Soviet spaces. Barbara’s works are built upon a cross-disciplinary approach to working within different performance practices such as theatre, opera, and dance. Her processes often involve inquiring into personal archives, everydayness, and humor.

In 2021 she graduated with an MA degree in Performance Practices from ArtEZ University of Arts in the Netherlands and she has started her fellowship at Amsterdam University of Arts as a part of the DAS THIRD Cycle Research Group. Barbara believes that art should be intimate and always political.