Some thoughts and research on dramaturgy in my las

[ondramaturgy]

On the definition of Live Art

Being a bit behind in the process of writing from where I initially expected and hoped to be, today I've decided to go back to the beginning of my research and deal with the definitions of Live Art and dramaturgy. Recentl I was thinking that I cannot use just any definition of 'live art', regardless of how contentious and sometimes vague they are. I wanted the definition I am using to to say something about my topic of research, to be applicable to it in some way. So I started looking at how do the different definitions contextualise Live Art. Finally, I went back to Nick Kaye's Introduction to CTR in 1994 (vol. 2:2, p.1-7) where he speaks of Live Art as "an attitude", "a term that invokes a particular way of looking at work", "a frame" through which a mix of different practices present themselves as 'live', i.e. time-based.  I think what is very useful in his concept is the fact that he doesn't think of live art as a sector, which is how I've understood most of Lois Keidan's definitions, but instead he sees it as an attitude, an approach, a spirit (?) of making work, which makes a possibility of "recognising it [Live Art] when you see it". And this is true somehow, you can recognise Live Art when you see it or read about it.  Now on to unpacking the can of worms this will open...

[ondramaturgy]

Dramaturgy in the context of our artistic proposals focuses on how a piece articulates all of its elements as well as on its artistic purpose. Every piece fits a question we ask. However, it is not important to answer it but to propose certain elements and materials and to let the audience make its own arrangement. So we are not looking to tell anything to the spectators but we prefer to produce doubt about the scenic reality that they perceive. This lack of resolution is important as it creates movement in the perception, the thinking of the movement.

Geisha Fontaine & Pierre Cottreau, quoted in 'Dramaturgy - Mobile of Ideas', published in Scores no.0, autumn 2010, pp. 37-47

[ondramaturgy]

Trash (and time again) A favourite dream was that all the material used in a particular project could be ‘weightless’, trash, nonsense or throw-away, but that somehow the arrangement of these pieces would make them sing. Pure dramaturgy. An art of unfolding. The dream that somehow the fact of its arrangement alone would make the show a hundred or a thousand times more articulate than any of its raw materials. Thinking this way, performance for us was always closer to certain schools of painting or musical composition than it might have been to drama. Less a case of narrative structure than an art form based on the dynamic deployment of pictorial and non-pictorial elements across the surface of a stage, building layers, contrasts, echoes, repetitions over duration, or simply: the structured unfolding of text, action and image over time, or more simply: doing time. Pure dramaturgy. Making shape out of seconds. This fantasy show constructed from trash would resist scrutiny, so that any part of it, if pulled from the ‘mess’, would seem unsubstantial, weak, disposable, even absurd, but once placed back in the whole would continue to play its part in the confoundingly articulate structure. In some ways, perhaps, each show we have ever made has been an attempt to realise this fantasy. Some more overtly so than others.

Etchells, Tim. (2009) Doing Time. Performance Research. Vol.14, Issue 3, pp. 71-80  

[ondramaturgy]

Dance Dramaturgy

I found a great article on dance dramaturgy today. It's provided me with some food for thought and I'd like to share some quotes that I found most engaging. The full article can be read here. What does a dance dramaturg do? "I feel that I help translate ideas that could be linguistic, mathematical, or scientific into another form and try to create a ground with the choreographer where our mutual obsessions can interact." ( Hildegard de Vuyst)  If I enter in the studio and the work being done at that moment requires a critique, or an expansion, of the visual field, I obviously have "to enter" with the eye. The thing is that I can reinvent this eye. For instance, I can make it listen. Or I use it to lick and taste the scene. So, to summarize: I enter in the studio as dramaturge by running away from the external eye. Just as the dancers and the choreographer, I enter to find a (new) body. That's the most important task of the dance dramaturge -- to constantly explore possible sensorial manifestoes. (Andre Lepecki)

*** "I feel that it works best when I'm not really needed somehow, when I'm not the embodiment of something that is missing. Because if feels like if I'm not necessary in fact then I have a sort of freedom and a playground to stand on." ( Hildegard de Vuyst)