New Dramaturgy Katalin Trencsényi Is a London-Based Dramaturg
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New Dramaturgy Katalin Trencsényi is a London-based dramaturg. She gained her PhD at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. As a freelance dramaturg, she has worked with the National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, Deafinitely Theatre, Corali Dance Company and Company of Angels among others. From 2010 to 2012 she served as president of the Dramaturgs’ Network. For her research on contemporary dramaturgical practices, she was a recipient of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas’ Dramaturg Driven Grant. Bernadette Cochrane is a lecturer, dramaturg and director based in both Australia and the United Kingdom. She completed her PhD at the University of Queensland. As a freelance director and dramaturg she has worked for several independent companies in both Australia and the United Kingdom. She co-convenes the Translation, Adaptation and Dramaturgy Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research and edited a special issue of Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance which focused on the work of the IFTR’s Translation, Adaptation and Dramaturgy Working Group (2011, Vol. 4 No. 3). This book was supported by: Also available from Bloomsbury Methuen Drama Affective Performance and Cognitive Science Edited by Nicola Shaughnessy Postdramatic Theatre and the Political Edited by Karen Jürs-Munby, Jerome Carroll and Steve Giles Theatre in Pieces Edited by Anna Furse Theatre in the Expanded Field Alan Read New Dramaturgy International Perspectives on Theory and Practice Edited by Katalin Trencsényi and Bernadette Cochrane LONDON • NEW DELHI • NEW YORK • SYDNEY Bloomsbury Methuen Drama An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 © Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the authors. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4081-7709-9 PB: 978-1-4081-7708-2 ePDF: 978-1-4081-7711-2 ePub: 978-1-4081-7710-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To the memory of Marianne Van Kerkhoven (1946–2013) Contents List of Illustrations ix Foreword New dramaturgy: A post-mimetic, intercultural, process-conscious paradigm Katalin Trencsényi and Bernadette Cochrane xi Acknowledgements xxi Part 1 Towards a New Theory 1 Dramaturgy in ‘Postdramatic’ Times Joseph Danan 3 2 Dramaturgy as Ecology: A Report from The Dramaturgies Project Peter Eckersall, Paul Monaghan and Melanie Beddie 18 3 Respect and Perspective: Art, Structure and Ownership Alan Lawrence 36 Part 2 Text 4 Telling Stories Across Forms: Interview with Brian Quirt (artistic director, Nightswimming, Toronto) Yolanda Ferrato 53 5 Towards Performed Dramaturgy Duška Radosavljević 68 6 Disruption as Revealing the Essence of Truth Gad Kaynar in conversation with Ruth Kanner 80 Part 3 Devising 7 The Feeling of Devising: Emotion and Mind in the Devising Process Jackie Smart 101 8 ‘A Way of Listening’: Interview with John Collins (artistic director, Elevator Repair Service, New York) Ana Pais 115 9 The Appliance of Science: Devising, Dramaturgy and the Alternative Science Play Alex Mermikides 125 viii Contents Part 4 Dance 10 Time and a Mirror: Towards a Hybrid Dramaturgy for Intercultural-Indigenous Performance Rachael Swain 145 11 Going ‘Au-delà’: A Journey into the Unknown. Reflections of a Choreographer and a Dramaturg Lou Cope and Koen Augustijnen with contributions from Annie Pui Ling Lok 164 12 Re-Membering Zero Degrees Guy Cools 180 Part 5 Spectatorship 13 Porous Dramaturgy and the Pedestrian Cathy Turner 199 14 Dialectical Theatre and Devising: Dramaturgy as a Dialogue between the Author and the Audience Pedro Ilgenfritz 214 15 Acts of Spectating: The Dramaturgy of the Audience’s Experience in Contemporary Theatre Peter M. Boenisch 225 Afterword In lieu of a conclusion Katalin Trencsényi and Bernadette Cochrane 243 Notes 245 Contributors 261 Index 269 List of Illustrations Figure 1 Sous l’écran silencieux by Joseph Danan (théâtre des deux rives, Rouen, 2002, dir: Alain Bézu), with Marie Lounici and Frédéric Cherbœuf. Photography: Grégoire Alexandre. 14 Figure 2 Kristian Messere in Harmonia by Ned Dickens from the City of Wine cycle. (2009, dir: DD Kugler). Photography: John Lauener. 65 Figure 3 Bombardment from Discovering Elijah (Ruth Kanner Theatre Group). Photography: Gadi Dagon. 87 Figure 4 BloodLines cover art showing the composer’s blood counts. Image courtesy of Milton Mermikides. 130 Figure 5 Charting white blood cell counts. Image courtesy of Milton Mermikides. 131 Figure 6 Pascal’s Triangle. Image courtesy of Rod Pierce. 136 Figure 7 Trevor Jamieson and Yumi Umiumare in Burning Daylight (Marrugeku, Broome, 2009, dir: Rachael Swain). Photography: Rod Hardvigsen. 146 Figure 8 Dalisa Pigram’s solo in Burning Daylight (Marrugeku, Broome, 2009, dir: Rachael Swain). Photography: Rod Hardvigsen. 153 Figure 9 Trevor Jamieson as a ghost in mourning in Burning Daylight (Marrugeku, Broome, 2009, dir: Rachael Swain). Photography: Rod Hardvigsen. 158 Figure 10 The ‘flocking’ scene in Au-delà. (les ballets C de la B, Ghent, 2012, choreography: Koen Augustijnen). Dancers: Fatou Traoré (half pictured), Koen Augustijnen, Claudio Girard, Florence Augendre, Gil Ho Yang. Photography: Chris van der Burght. 176 x List of Illustrations Figure 11 Alfonsina by (LAB Theatre, Auckland, 2010, dir: Pedro Ilgenfritz). Photography: Cleide Oliveira. 219 Figure 12 Watching ourselves watching Hans Kesting as Mark Antony in the Roman Tragedies, (Toneelgroep Amsterdam, 2007, dir: Ivo van Hove). Photography: Jan Versweyveld. 235 Foreword New dramaturgy: A post-mimetic, intercultural, process-conscious paradigm Katalin Trencsényi and Bernadette Cochrane The termnew dramaturgy is deceptive in its auto-descriptive simplicity. New dramaturgy is suggestive of expansion and reinvigoration but, as a description, it lacks exactness. It implies a demarcation between and a differentiation from an ‘old’ (traditional) dramaturgy. The term suggests change but does not identify the nature of that change. In fact, ‘new’ could be easily replaced by words such as ‘open’,1 ‘expanded’,2 ‘contemporary’,3 ‘slow’,4 ‘porous’5 or even ‘postdramatic’.6 The adjectival accretions have been accompanied by the emergence of new terms such as dance dramaturgy, visual dramaturgy, new media dramaturgy and neologisms such as mediaturgy. These articulations signal the need for a vocabulary with which to express the fundamental shift in the dramaturgical landscape. Dramaturgy, having been freed from its historical association with Aristotelian poetics or considered only as an attribute of a dramatic text and/or textual analysis, gradually reconfigured itself by the late twentieth century, and has become synonymous with the totality of the performance-making process. Dramaturgy is now considered to be the inner flow of a dynamic system. With new strands of dramaturgical work (devised theatre, dance, new-circus, performance art etc.) emerging, new material with which to work (gained from improvisation, chance, interdisciplinary stimuli or new media), and changing relationships with both space and audiences – the practice has not only expanded, but it has also been transformed. xii Foreword The term new dramaturgy is a collective noun. New dramaturgy does not replace traditional dramaturgy; it incorporates it into a wider paradigm. The paradigm of new dramaturgy is not a stable one; it acknowledges the multitude of theories and aesthetics, and the diversity of practices (some sympathetic, others clashing) that coexist within our expanded contemporary theatre, dance and performance field. These ideas inform the way we think about theatre and the way we make theatre today – regardless of genre or location. They are in continuous dialogue and interaction with one another, and are in constant motion. The reason that these, sometimes contradictory, ideas and practices deserve a collective noun is that they share three characteristics: they are post- mimetic, they embrace interculturalism and they are process-conscious. We understand by ‘post-mimetic’ that the work acknowledges and recognizes the decline of mimesis as the dominant dramatic model and, by extension, the decline of representational theatre culture. This acknowledgement doesn’t necessarily mean refusal, or the absence of representation, nevertheless, it acknowledges a distancing (sometimes melancholic, sometimes ironic) from the mimetic theatre tradition. By ‘interculturalism’ we understand that we no longer live in a monolithic culture, but are surrounded by multiple value systems and cultures which are often intertwined, and between which we negotiate; and this is reflected in the processes and the products of theatre- making. We include in our definition of interculturalism the increased hermeneutic