Negotiating creative futures – professional identity formation of “behind and around the scenes” students

The article explores how performing arts students who are studying for careers “behind and around the scenes” (BAS) negotiate future career orientations and professional identity formation in relation to symbolically constructed meaning structures related to artistic work. The empirical data consists of biographical interviews with 20 BAS students from Sweden and Denmark and the interpretations draw on theoretical perspectives from cultural sociology, pragmatic sociology of critique and interactionist identity theory. The study identifies traces of, and intersections between, “bohemian” and “entrepreneurial” identity types in the students’ ways of adapting their future professional identities to future work in the context of public institutional theatres. However, through also critically challenging symbolically constructed meaning structures related to artistic work and identity, the study proposes three alternative identity ideals: “the flexible creative”, “the socially conscious performing artist” and “the sustainable artist worker”.