Dramaturgy as a name and a concept was not part of my early training, or even my early thinking as I began to explore the possibilities of narrative in choreography and dance as a nonfiction art form. And later still, it didn’t come up in conversations with other choreographers or even within the cross-disciplinary conversations I was having with theater and opera makers in the Washington, DC, area where I had settled. It turns out, though, that I was thinking dramaturgically, and we were talking that way too, we just didn’t name it. We were busy researching for and through our work in many ways, and shaping and re-shaping with earnestness, urgency, and experimentation.
If dramaturgy is research, then
it’s a shared function between the dancers/performers/designers and me.
If the research is external to the practice in the studio, then
I embark long before the rest of the team, but the rest of the group joins in once we have gathered.
If the research is internal, then
it’s the group’s job to sift the research with me to find the data that is explosive, curious, magnetic, worthy, personal, shocking, fresh, absorbing, etc.
If dramaturgy is shaping, then
it’s my purview, and this is a constant job.
If dramaturgy is inquiry, then
it’s never-ending. It informs everything.
If dramaturgy is about seeing, then
I like to paraphrase Charles Darwin: Observe with and without reason.
If dramaturgy is narrative building, then
it operates in the making of and in the spaces in between the lives of the makers who enter the space to work. The stories are everywhere and the decision to employ any aspect of that story-charged space is a constant opening and closing, saying yes and saying no, wishing/hoping and denying.
If the dramaturgy is going to enter the dance space, then
the role of the body is key.
If dramaturgy is going to depend on the body for some of the direction of the work,
then embodiment becomes a tool.
If dramaturgy supports decision-making, then
we will spend a lot of time in the unknown where investigation and assignments provide fodder and possibility.
And if dramaturgy ultimately supports the audience’s experience, then
being able to handle the competing loyalties of any given work is a critical skill.
If dramaturgy sustains the ongoing nature of making something, then
staying open to influence is one of its functions.
