Dance

In the focus of reflection. The term dance dramaturgy seems to be helpful when describing a new, multi-disciplinary and complex practice in contemporary dance.

Dramaturgy is currently booming in contemporary dance. Symposiums, academies, lectures and workshops are involved in a discourse about current developments in contemporary dance dramaturgy. Seminars on dance studies are attempting to clarify the issues. It seems that a 200-year-old term requires a kind of new formulation. Dramaturgy in contemporary dance is – quite amazingly – becoming a feature of artistic productions and practices that actually have nothing to do with drama itself. This raises the question as to why a term that has long since discarded its subject still lives on.

Reconstruction: dance and its connection to drama.

Dance dramaturgy, like acting dramaturgy, revolves around the dramatic aspect, consisting essentially of how people behave in various situations. As the doctrine of character, effect and the formal principles of drama, dramaturgy was originally a section of Poetics (Aristotle). In the course of time its actual sphere proved to be in the conflict area between portrayal and drama. In this the interpretation as a strategy of realising dramatic structures played a central role. The action woven into the dramatic text, into the libretto or into the musical score was portrayed by the performers on stage.

Dramaturgy moved into dance with the beginning of the ballet d’action. This evolved from the forms of the court dance, since geometric images of the celestial order or of the balance of power between the state and its sovereign had lost their significance in terms of content. Jean-Georges Noverre formulated the first dance-dramaturgical principles in his “Lettres sur la Danse” (1760). He advocated the enactment of plots in ballet, claiming that ballet should unfold through dramatic action without subsiding into inconsequential dance scenes. With further articles on the theory and practice of the art of dance, as well as with numerous detailed scenarios of his ballets, Noverre compiled a first work on the basic principles of dance dramaturgy, which attempted to clarify key questions concerning the kind of portrayal, character and role, representation and embodiment, dance techniques and expression.

The innovative development of a dramatic concept brought dance recognition as an art form in its own right. The ballet d’action, which reached its zenith in ballets such as La Fille mal gardée(1789), or in the comprehensive repertoire of the romantic ballets such as Giselle (1841) or Swan Lake (1877), remained for over a century an inspiration for reforms and revolutions in dance.

Portrayal crises and societal upheaval – new challenges for dramaturgy

In the first third of the 20th century, Free Dance, Modern Dance and ballet reforms tried to liberate themselves from the dominance of dramatic action by establishing the dance movement as an independent language in its own right. Numerous articles testify to this – for example by the protagonists of Free Dance such as Rudoph von Laban, Mary Wigman, Valseka Gert, or by representatives of Modern Dance such as Doris Humphrey or Martha Graham, José Limon or Merce Cunningham. As in stage acting, music and film theatre, new forms of portrayal also emerged in dance, and with this new forms of dramaturgy which, however, by no means renounced dramatic principles.Thus in dance theatre and in the American post-modern dance of the 1970s the influences of film dramaturgy (montage) and of the Epic Theatre (alienation) were evident. The “Gestus des Zeigens” (gesture of showing) and the references to societal order systems gained significance with regard to the content of these dance formats.

Ousted? Process and performance – a new situation for dramaturgical thought

In Folge von In the wake of structuralism and post-structuralism the whole world became a symbol, and hence dramaturgy had to serve the symbol and its significant components. Yet if everything can become a symbol, and the symbols refer to nothing beyond themselves, then the world becomes indescribable and one’s own actions can no longer be communicated. Narration is replaced by simulation. This is a new situation for the dramatic element. How can performances and theatres develop if they are no longer committed to the portrayal of action?
The dramatic art becomes a performance. In the centre is the act of portrayal itself in which all material is of equal value: text, music, dancers, actors, bodies, space, time, light etc. The viewers also find themselves in a new position and become witnesses of a stage event. Perception processes and qualitative means of theatrical effect move to the centre of dramaturgical thought. There is criticism of the “As If” and of the portrayal possibilities of actions and action connections. The performative trend featured prominently in artistic productions that wished to be understood as a non-hierarchical, ongoing process. With these process-oriented working methods dramaturgy itself has been set in motion.

Committed to new contents: objective function and individual practice

Contemporary dance dramaturgy has proved to be a complex field of action. Dramaturgy in contemporary dance has changed and developed into a critical and discursive practice. It concerns itself with the supremacy of the visible and invisible, with meanings and transformations, with inner organisation and control, with points of omission and with traditions. It heeds the communication and ethics of the work interests in the process as well as addressing institutional affairs and the view of the spectator. Dance-dramaturgical thought is functional and not bound to certain persons. Contemporary dramaturgical work, however, demands an attitude that corresponds with the artistic work process and develops respectively its own and subjective methods of dramaturgy.