Lehmann, H. and Primavesi, P. (2009) Dramaturgy on Shifting Grounds. Performance Research, 14(3) 3-6.

• “The current development of theatre and performance takes place in changing cultural landscapes, defined by new media technologies and new perceptional habits.” (3)
• “contemporary dramaturgy is facing a challenge: to develop creative ideas in the cooperation with authors and directors; to ensure the quality of theatrical work based on a fruitful communication process within the production team; to invent helpful concepts for season schedules and for cultural institutions in general; to enhance unconventional modes of exchange and discourse; to build up European networks and to use them effectively” (3)
• “distinctions between theatre and performance are increasingly blurred” (3)
• “the practice of postdramatic theatre demands new styles and competences of dramaturgy” (3)
• “a constant dynamics of crossover and interdisciplinary art, of physical and choreographical theatre takes place that no longer necessarily needs dramatic texts to which a dramaturgy in the traditional sense could be applied” (3)
• “the traditional hierarchy of theatrical elements has almost vanished: as the text is no longer the central and superior factor, all the other elements like space, light, sound, music, movement and gesture tend to have an equal weight in the performance process.” (3)
• “new dramaturgical forms and skills are needed, in terms of a practice that no longer reinforces the subordination of all elements under one (usually the word, the symbolic order of language), but rather a dynamic balance to be obtained anew in each performance.” (3)
• “The changing realities of a global media culture […] have to be regarded as an important context for performing arts in general and in particular for the new emphasis on physical theatre, dance, body, music.” (3-4)
• “theatre […] will have to develop various strategies of playing with the difference and tension between live and recorded’ (4)
• “the dramaturg should no longer be defined as the controlling power of the theatre […]the dramaturg may instead become a negotiator for the freedom of theatrical experimentation and risk” (4)
• “dramaturgy needs to reflect upon and respond to altered ways of perception and participation, to rethink the position and the possible functions of the spectator” (4)
• “What is essential may rather be a new way of thinking media, techné, technology as new possibilities to conceptualize spectating, viewing, witnessing, participating beyond the simple dichotomy of subject and object” (4)
• “how the theatrical situation (the co-presence of performer and audience) and the role of the spectator (as voyeur, witness and participant) are changed by the use of media technologies” (4)
• “Dramaturgy in dance and performance art is therefore not confined to the narration of stories through elaborated movement. It may also work on structures of physical and spatial relations, among the performers and between them and the spectators.” (5)
• “More important than the dramaturg is the dramaturgy, collective whenever possible.” (6)
• “the dramaturg of the twenty-first century will need to be open-minded, ready to accept the job as a position on shifting grounds and to question the categories that used to define the art of theatre.” (6)
• “it is a quality of contemporary theatrical work often to transgress our traditional definitions” (6)
• “Successful dramaturgical practice within the theatre institutions of today demands a productive flexibility, a capacity to shift grounds oneself and to switch from an argument based in literary knowledge to an argument based in visual arts or in music, from choreography to document, from the strategy of presenting something in front of an audience to a strategy of communication.” (6)
• “Dramaturgy needs the development of a number of skills and competences – but among these skills is the capacity to renounce skills altogether, to be open and sensible to unexpected changes in the process of rehearsal and production” (6)
• Heideggerian Gelassenheit: “the calmness to let things happen without imposing one’s own ready-made concepts on a word in progress” (6)

My notes:

• The dynamic balance obtained anew each performance is apparent in An Oak Tree, where the introduction of a new actor each time changes the dynamic balance which needs to be found. Crouch refers to this in the text (sometimes they clap etc.)
• Difference in tension between live and recorded: In An Oak Tree this might be seen as happening in the tension between the liveness of the interaction between Crouch, the new second actor and the audience, and the ‘record’ that is the script. In Am I Dead Yet the incorporation of material written by that night’s audience into the piece as part of song might similarly represent.
• “rethink the position and the possible functions of the spectator” – both perfect/useful examples
• “changed by the use of media technologies”: AIDY – Use of mics as barrier between spectator and performer? Crouch does this too as the hypnotist with slightly mechanical speech into mic.
• Dramaturgy “collective wherever possible”: AIDY does this sort of collective dramaturgy with its use of a bit of the real (the local paramedic or first-aider coming to demonstrate CPR), the use of the notes etc.
• “transgress traditional definitions”: Both do this. An Oak Tree obviously – has contention around the second-actor conceit etc. etc. – see writing on Crouch and controversy is apparent. In AIDY critics had a hard time defining it – is it theatre? Is it music? Is it a sort of cabaret? Some didn’t like it for this.