Kai Eng fPhD Thesis
description
Transcript of Kai Eng fPhD Thesis
Thesis for fake doctoral degree (f.Ph.D.)
Stockholm 2011
Dramaturgy and manipulation of emotions from a dance perspective
Kai Eng
Sveta’s School
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Abstract
Dramaturgy is historically associated with the representation of dramatic elements on stage, and
originates from the field of theatre. It can be defined on its most basic level, as the art of composing
a performance. While the current trend of hiring professional dramaturgs for dance productions
seems to imply that choreographers are not dramaturgs, there is a lot of dramaturgy that naturally
has to happen during the production of any performance, be it focused on dance, mime, or theatre,
and whether there is a dramaturg present or not. In this thesis, I investigate the dramaturgical
aspects of four performance projects that I have been involved in. In each project, different
elements of a performance were composed and arranged so that there would be a meaningful
context for the events happening on stage. The textual content was reduced, where possible, to a
minimum, so that the dance language may be the dominant language during the performance. In the
resulting performance projects, there were many instances where dance, rather than text, was used
to convey meaning. However, text remained a central force for making the performances cohesive,
and was also used to manipulate emotions in the audience. I also investigated the use of humour in
performance-making, as well as the relationship between improvisation and composition. Taken
together, this thesis highlights various aspects of combining dance and text to create performances
that conveyed meaning to the audience and engaged their emotions.
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List of projects
I. Don’t Let the Shrink Shrink You
Kai Eng
Karolinska Institutet (January 2010)
II. House Hole
Kai Eng, Sviatlana Viarbitskaya, piak
Fylkingen (June 2010)
III. My Mind is Pie - a Horredy
Kai Eng, Sviatlana Viarbitskaya
Moderna Dansteatern VALVET Open (November 2010)
IV. The Prayer
Kai Eng, Martin Eklund
M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2012 (February 2012)
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Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Dramaturgy past and present ………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
1.2 Dramaturgy as applied to dance theatre ..…………………………………………………………………….. 5
1.3 Dramaturgy done by the choreographer ..……………………………………………………………………. 5
1.4 Thesis-specific definition of dramaturgy ..……………………..……………………………………………… 6
1.5 Manipulation of audience emotions ………………………………….……………………………………….… 6
1.6 The use of humour ..……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6
1.7 Improvisation and composition ……....…………………………………………………………………………… 6
2. Aims ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8
3. Methodology
3.1 Project I ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9
3.2 Project II …………..………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9
3.3 Project III ……….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9
3.4 Project IV ……….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9
4. Results and discussion
4.1 Mix of dance and text to contextualise dance …………………………………………………………….. 11
4.2 Dramaturgic approach from a dancer's perspective …………………………………………………… 12
4.3 Manipulation of emotions through specific use of happy expression
during sad scenes …………………………………………………….……………………………………….……….. 13
4.4 Generation of humour through a choice of non-performance ………….……………….……….. 15
4.5 Differential roles for textual and movement language ……………………..……………….……….. 15
4.6 The improvisation process, and its relation to choreography …………………………….……….. 16
5. Conclusion and future perspectives ………………………………………………………………………………….. 19
6. Acknowledgements ………………………………………………….……………………………………….……………… 20
7. References ………………………………………………….……………………………………….…………………………… 21
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1. Introduction
1.1 Dramaturgy past and present
Dramaturgy is a process by which dramatic elements are represented on stage, and traditionally
belonged to the field of theatre. The theatre dramarturg may do research on the historical and
socially pertinent aspects of the play, and help to refine the script or assist the director in any other
way so that the meaning and context of the play becomes clear when the play is brought to live on
stage. In the field of dance, dramaturgy can be argued to already have been present in ballets such
as “Swan Lake” (Traub, 2011), where there are dramatic elements, such as a storyline, along with
protagonists and antagonists, embedded within the structure of the dance performance. As modern
dance became popular, dancers and dance-makers sought to represent movement itself as a
legitimate language carrying its own valid meaning, and dance came to exist independently without
the need for a “story” or dramatic elements to support the movement language. However, in recent
years the use of dramaturgy in dance has become increasingly popular and at the same time the
definition of dance dramaturgy has expanded to become broad and nebulous (deLahunta, 2000).
Today dramaturgy for dance is far from being confined to creating a storyline or making a piece
more understandable for an audience. The nature of dance performances is also such that very often,
storylines do not play a major role.
1.2 Dramaturgy as applied to dance theatre
Professional dramaturgs are employed by such companies as Wuppertal Tanztheater, Les Ballets C
de la B, and DV8 Physical Theatre, which all work in the fields of dance theatre or physical theatre.
These companies heavily use a devising process to guide the making of their work, and dramaturgs
assist by providing ideas, translating ideas of a specific type (linguistic, scientific, etc) into a
performable form, and generally providing insight as the first audience of a given work-in-progress
(Eriksen, 2001).
1.3 Dramaturgy done by the choreographer
Choreographer Michaela Meschke, whom I met at Stockholm Fringe Festival 2011, regards herself as
a choreographer who works with dramaturgy. During the introduction to her workshop on “playing”,
she explained that she would like to have a session where we can just meet and play with one
another, because as a choreographer she is often caught up in dramaturgical work and it often gets
too serious – there is no space for letting loose and having fun. I took this to mean that
dramaturgical work is “boring, serious work” and I interpreted this using my own experiences. While
choreographing dance can be intuitive, motivated purely by the body’s desire to move and the
mind’s ability to structure movement into aesthetically pleasing patterns, dramaturgical work seems
to be less intuitive, less “easy” and flowing. For me, when I try to arrange performance material into
a sequence that makes sense in the context of the overall performance, I have to be logical and
brutal – I have to remove material that does not fit, and I have to come up with solutions for
loopholes that only become apparent when the different parts of the show are seen together as a
whole. The work of dramaturgy thus seems to be the structuring work done at a more macroscopic
level than the structuring of movement sequences (that which the choreographer finds natural and
is used to), and encompasses all the different media involved within one performance project.
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1.4 Thesis-specific definition of dramaturgy
To clarify the scope of the present thesis, a definition of dramaturgy needs to be applied to the
thesis. In this thesis, I broadly define dramaturgy as “the art of composing a performance” and I use
the term synonymously with what some may refer to as “artistic choice” in composing a
performance.
1.5 Manipulation of audience emotions
An important aspect of performance art is its communication with the audience, and communication
may of course not only affect the intellect but also the emotions of the audience. There are various
schools of thought regarding the manipulation of audience emotions, many stemming from
theatrical or film practice. “Grow in the dark” by Peder Bjurman and Leif Jordansson, is an
experimental theatre piece that will be performed at Moderna Dansteatern from 30 September to 2
October 2011. It seeks to investigate the non-manipulation of audience emotions by using a mouse
to control the playing of potentially manipulative music. Here I quote the musician/composer Leif
Jordansson speaking about “Grow in the dark”:
When I compose for a film I can decide how the music will work to give the film a push in a certain
direction and together with the director I can manipulate the audience to feel what is going on or
what will happen. This is pure manipulation and the audience are there because the want to be
manipulated. That’s the idea of film. But what if the manipulation is done by a mouse in a box who
accidentally steps on a trigger that will start melodramatic music or an audio file with sitcom
laughter. (Jordansson, 2011)
In this thesis, I will discuss the work that I have been involved in that aimed to do the opposite of
“Grow in the dark”. Rather than remove the element of intentional manipulation, the work was
intentionally manipulative, and in this thesis I attempt to dissect in detail, a particular method that I
used for the manipulation.
1.6 The use of humour
The three most famous theories of humour (Krikmann, 2007) are the incongruity theory, where
humour occurs upon the realisation and resolution of incongruity; the superiority theory, where
humour is a way to make fun of outsider groups and establish superiority amongst the joking group;
and the relief theory, where humour functions as a mechanism for the release of sexual, or dramatic
tensions (e.g. comic relief is effective within a movie when inserted into a sequence that has a high
level of suspense and tension). The use of humour in my work has fallen into both the “incongruity”
and “release of tensions” categories. The intentional use of humour within a performance requires
the performer to be able to convey the humorous element effectively. As a choreographer and
dramaturg I have found that I enjoy using humour to not only entertain but also provide
psychological relief, and humour is a consistent part of my work. Since I am a dancer, I am not
necessarily good at telling jokes, but I have found some ways to be funny that require minimal acting.
1.7 Improvisation and composition
Improvisation has traditionally been used by music composers as a necessary route towards
composition. When discussing composition, the musician/composer Martin Eklund said that “all
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composition comes from improvisation” (personal communication), recognising the importance of
improvisation. While historically, some composers have gone as far as to believe that improvisation
has no value apart from it being the method through which composition is achieved, the advent of
jazz music changed the status of improvisation and made it commonplace for improvisation to be
used directly as performance. Today, improvisation as both a starting point for research and
composition, as well as performative in its own right, has entered the spheres of theatre and dance.
Interestingly, Ivar Hagendoorn argues that dance choreographers can generate complexity in a
dance piece only up to a certain extent, as complexity is limited by the choreographer having to
communicate the complexity to the dancers (Hagendoorn, 2002), highlighting the enormous amount
of complexity improvisation, as opposed to choreography, can generate.
I investigated the relationship between composition and improvisation in a series of workshops
initiated and conducted by Sviatlana Viarbitskaya, “Unmaking House Hole” (Viarbitskaya, 2011), and
in this thesis I will discuss a model of different modes of improvisation derived from this workshop.
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2. Aims
The general aims of this thesis are to increase our understanding of the process through which a
performance may be made, with an emphasis on dramaturgical and compositional choices, and to
enhance our understanding of the effect the dramaturgical choices have for the intentional
manipulation of audience emotions.
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3. Methodology
The overarching methodology for all four projects was to choose a theme for each project, and
abandon the theme during the course of evolution of the project. Details for each project are
described below.
3.1 Project I
A theme for the performance was chosen, and a linear narrative was written so that all parts of the
show, including dance sequences that specifically dealt with certain topics, would fit into a linear
storyline. The narrative served as a way to immediately start rehearsing certain parts, and the
rehearsing of those parts generated ideas for many dances and other performative elements that
were not originally intended as part of the show. These new ideas were inserted into the structure
of the show, changing the show radically from what it was originally conceived to be. Many elements
that were originally intended were removed from the show since the other elements that had
appeared by chance were judged more effective and interesting. The sequence of the different parts
of the show was continually revised. The final performance appeared to be a montage and not only
did not have a storyline, it also appeared not to have an obvious theme.
3.2 Project II
A brainstorm session was conducted after Sviatlana Viarbitskaya suggested the theme of “Family”,
and a very rough draft of proposed scenes emerged. Sviatlana Viarbitskaya, piak and I then
independently composed different units of dance or theatre, sometimes according to the rough
draft, but mostly according to inspiration relating to the theme of “Family”. The scenes that were
eventually made were thus very different from those stated in the first draft. We rehearsed all the
units without knowing exactly what the beginning, middle or end of the performance was. We finally
arranged all the scenes in as logical a way as possible when we felt we had enough material, and
fortuitously discovered a vague storyline that existed within the scenes. We also created extra
material to link the scenes together.
3.3 Project III
The original agreed-upon theme was “escaping reality”. But we had no real method, and I first
devised a short sequence related to teenagers who would do a complex greeting ritual that was
extended from a simple handshake into a sequence of high-fives, low-fives, bumping shoulders and
so on. I also had a vision of Sviatlana Viarbitskaya appearing as a man, and I had other ideas floating
around, that I wanted to emulate from other performances I had watched. One of these was to
speak in canon (like in a musical canon, where a phrase is started by one voice, and then a
subsequent voice starts the same phrase after a certain measure of time). With some brainstorming
I managed to combine the list of things I wanted to try, into a short piece.
3.4 Project IV
I had a given theme (Art and Faith) and I had to design a show that I knew could not deviate from
this theme (since I already promised the festival curators that my work had this theme). This was
hard for me because I became very goal-oriented and wanted to generate material that was
obviously in line with the theme, while previously I had gotten used to generating almost-anything-
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in-the-world and letting it fall into place. I approached the project by making a storyline that I
thought fit with the theme. Once I started rehearsing, the storyline became obviously useless, and
when I encountered dead ends, I let myself choose something else that might not be obviously
linked to the theme.
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4. Results and discussion
4.1 Mix of dance and text to contextualise dance
In each of the four projects, dance was given a context, a reason for its existence. The dances never
existed in a vacuum and were never solely about the composition of movement; they were not
purely exercises in aesthetics.
Sometimes, the context of the dance was shown through the movement vocabulary and the
accompanying music. For example, in Project II, sharp and contorted movements were danced to
violent music. In Project III, extended, flowy movements were danced to romantic music. While
dance exists independently of music, dance is commonly set to music, and thus the setting of
context with the aid of music is a fairly widespread practice.
Other times, the context for the dance was outlined by text or theatrical elements. For example, in
Project I, a poem about flight was recited while a light, playful dance was performed. In Project IV, a
dance based on the physical gestures of prayer was performed right after a show-and-tell session
where I spoke to the audience about different bodily positions for prayer.
A question arises as to whether dance as a language is insufficient. Why does dance need to be
contextualised, with the help of music or text? Can dance not speak for itself? My view is that the
dance language is definitely not insufficient and rightfully exists on its own without a need for
justification. It can certainly speak for itself. However, the ability to read the dance language and
understand it at a personal level depends on the audience’s previous encounters with the particular
movement language in question. With the presence of a context, the movement language can be
relegated to play a secondary role to the contextual premises within which it is transmitted. The
contextual premise may help an audience unfamiliar with the particular movement language to
enjoy a performance, and thus may help to bring dance into the sphere of attention of audiences
who rarely watch dance. Through these encounters audiences may gain experience with certain
movement languages, thus re-establishing the dance language to the primary language.
Another point is that dance, being visually engaging, is necessarily affected by the amount of visual
elements produced. Dancers’ bodies are used to produce the visual aspects of dance, and it
necessarily follows that the fewer the number of dancers on stage, the less bodily, spatial and
temporal permutations and combinations are available. Thus a dance that is a trio will theoretically
have more potential permutations and combinations available to it than a dance that is a solo. The
number of dancers on stage might thus set a limit on how varied, and indirectly, how engaging the
movement language becomes.
This view of movement language needing to be varied and thus engaging, is of course dependent on
the assumption that dance is to some extent, visual entertainment, and being entertainment it
needs to be varied rather than monotonous. From the point of view of dance as art, particularly the
point of view that dance should be art that seeks to question art, it is not necessary for dance to be
entertaining. But if one supposes that dance has some entertainment functions, then the fewer the
number of dancers, the less varied the dance language becomes, and thus the contextualisation of
dance helps to provide a support function, making the context itself a content of the dance, and
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increasing the amount of things the audience may notice about the dance so that the dance
becomes more entertaining.
Each of my projects had very few performers (maximum of three), and three of the projects were 45
minutes long or longer. Given that I had so few performers, and such long performances, I felt it was
necessary and natural to provide some context for the dances, so as not to bore myself or the
audience. Danjel Andersson of Moderna Dansteatern once said he was “not afraid to be bored”
(personal communication), which is an interesting point of view. I would not go so far as to say I am
afraid to be bored. But I admit that I am reluctant to be bored, and even more reluctant to be boring,
towards myself (as I am also my own audience) or towards others (audience) that I rightly or wrongly
assume may be like myself. Thus the decision to have contextual set-ups for my dances is a personal
choice.
4.2 Dramaturgic approach from a dancer's perspective
In my projects, choreography and dramaturgy combined to create a number of scenes. The resulting
scenes have characteristics that might be attributable to my dance background.
Firstly, the resulting scenes seemed to be more self-contained than in a traditional theatre piece, i.e.
many parts could be performed independently of the other parts of the same show. For example,
fragments of Project I have been performed independently of other parts of the show on two
occasions, and fragments of Project II have been independently inserted into the improvisation-
based piece “Unmaking House Hole” (Viarbitskaya, 2011). This might be because in a more
traditional theatre piece, the series of events unfolding on stage may follow a storyline, even if the
storyline is non-linear. In my projects, the final storylines were very vague, and this is because
storylines did not exist in the rehearsal process until extremely late into the process. Thus, the
starting point of the projects might have been storyline-based (as outlined in the Methodology
section), but almost immediately, the focus shifted to individual parts of the show, rather than the
overall themes or plot for the entire show. The projects were scene-based, rather than story-based,
and this might be because as a dancer, I did not have much background in theatre-making or writing
stories. It could also be due to the fact that I was inexperienced and had never made any full-length
pieces prior to 2010. Thus the easiest and most familiar way for me to work was to immediately dive
into the short scenes.
Secondly, another effect of coming from a dance background was that my scenes depended much
more on “showing” than “telling”. Physical movements were used much more than text. In Project II,
one of the characters comforted another character by putting her hand on the shoulder of the one
being comforted. In Project III, the relationship and dependency between the two characters was
shown through a dance where the characters followed each other, touched each other, or escaped
from each other. Concurrently, words were highly reduced. For Project III, I wrote substantial
amounts of text for the dialogue between the two characters, but during the rehearsal process,
more and more text was eliminated, until only the absolutely necessary remained. Admittedly, one
of the reasons for this could be that as a dancer, I am still not comfortable or confident enough to
deliver too many spoken lines on stage.
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4.3 Manipulation of emotions through specific use of happy expression during sad scenes
Throughout my work on the four projects that constitute the basis of this thesis, I consistently paid
attention to potential audience reactions. In particularly, I was concerned with potential audience
emotions.
I had noticed, when I watched DV8 Physical Theatre’s “To be straight with you" (DV8 Physical
Theatre, 2008), the character of a boy who cheerfully skipped rope and smiled, while telling the
audience about how his father and brother almost murdered him upon discovering that he was
homosexual. I was emotionally affected by this scene.
Subsequently, for Project I, I had created a dance that had a theme of suicide, and during a practise
session, I was performing this dance when I noticed the look of tension on the face of one of the
audience members. To try to dispel the tension, I smiled. Then I realised that by smiling while acting
out the actions of suicide, I had accidentally created something more gruesome, instead of dispelling
the tension.
These two episodes left me with a sense that I could perhaps purposely increase the gruesomeness,
the horribleness, of scenes if I performed horrible or sad events in a happy way. I subsequently used
this technique in all the four projects of this thesis. In Project I, I performed a dance with a mostly
sad facial expression, but put on a smiling expression whenever explicit suicide actions were mimed
during the dance, as already mentioned.
In Project I, I also did a dance where at first there was a sexy or erotic style, but subsequently the
character would masturbate and sob at the same time. After this scene of high tension and negative
emotions, I performed an extremely happy song about the benefits of self-injury (“Self Harm is Very
Nice”) while waving a big knife around. The melody was very cheerful, and the chorus of the song
encouraged the audience to “Take your knife out and cut with me, cut with me, cut with me”, and I
smiled a lot.
In Project II, I created a song that started very sadly, with sad lyrics about a girl who trusted her
father and went to her father whenever she was sad and needed comforting. The song describes
how the father would comfort the girl by kissing or hugging or having sex with her. The sister of the
girl enters the scene and sings along with the girl, confirming the situation to be true. This part of the
song was performed in a very sensitive, sad way. Then, the father enters the scene, and suddenly all
three characters smile, laugh and dance. They do a happy routine, complete with synchronised leg-
kicks, singing cheerfully about incest and insisting that “Family is for Sex”.
In Project III, a psychiatric patient who feels like she cannot tell the difference between reality and
her imaginations, begs a doctor to save her from her insanity. The doctor responds by showing her
his penis, and together they perform a happy song-and-dance sequence about how wonderful the
doctor’s penis is.
In Project IV, a woman is standing on the top of a building ready to jump off and kill herself. Her
husband arrives and starts to sing a tender song, asking her not to kill herself. It is at first sincere,
gentle and kind, but changes to be a happy, lively song about how the rich husband can afford to pay
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for the wife’s mental health bills, and if she wants electric shock treatments, or a lobotomy, she just
has to ask and he will pay for it.
The most effective use of the technique, to produce strong audience emotions, was found in Project
II, judging from audience reactions. Two audience members left the room after the scene, one of
them saying that she was afraid of what would happen next in the show.
Interestingly, the technique in Project II also produced mix results, where some audience members
were shocked and silent, while other audience members laughed along with the performers, when
the performers started to sing the happy part of the incest song. It could be that the laughter was
due to a recognition of the absurdity of the situation (“incongruity theory” mentioned in the
Introduction), or due to a release of tension that had been built up during the sad part of the song,
much like how comic relief works in movies (see Introduction, Section 1.4 and Results, Section 4.4
for more on humour).
I also realised that the technique did not work very well in Project III, because the psychiatric
patient’s suffering was not portrayed convincingly enough in that project. The audience merely
laughed at the comical song about the doctor’s penis, but mostly did not feel horror or sympathy for
the psychiatric patient. During the post-show discussion, I asked if the audience felt sympathy, and
one person said she did, a little bit. So there was some reaction, but not nearly as much as in Project
II where people got up and left the room. I concluded that a convincing state of suffering was a
necessary precondition for audience members to feel horror or sympathy when a sad, emotionally
disturbing scene suddenly turned happy and even more emotionally disturbing.
I am not sure which emotions are aroused in the audience and I have tentatively identified them as
sympathy and horror. These emotions might arise due to the stage character’s apparent inability to
recognise a traumatic situation as a traumatic one, instead responding to it with happiness. It is
interesting that this situation should provoke a response. In real life, if we encounter people who we
think ought to be unhappy or traumatised because of events that have happened to them, but
instead respond positively to traumatic events, we might stubbornly assert our points of view and
think that the “victim” in question is in denial and has not yet realised how victimised he or she
really has been. An interesting and purely speculative question outside the scope of this thesis is
whether someone who might be less prone to asserting victimhood on others in real life, might feel
less sympathetic towards the stage characters in these performance projects, and react with more
laughter (due to the absurdity of the situation) than sympathy or horror.
Another interesting question is whether the technique can possibly be used effectively the other
way round: perform a happy scene in a horrible way, to make it more happy. I think it is possible. For
example, on YouTube there is a Happy Birthday song sung by Satan, which I think exemplifies this:
It’s your birthday, happy birthday,
People dying everywhere, people living in despair, on your birthday.
Happy birthday. Hahahahaha…
(Train of Thought Sketch Comedy, 2006)
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4.4 Generation of humour through a choice of non-performance
In Project I, one of the scenes is a pseudo-scientific PowerPoint presentation about a novel method
for the measurement of the volume of a pair of human buttocks. The scene is performed with
complete seriousness. This choice was deemed funnier than performing the scene in any
exaggerated, hyper-scholarly, bombastic or eccentric style.
The choice of non-performance could be directly related, as alluded to previously, to my background
as a dancer instead of an actress. It was probably easier for me to perform the presentation in a
normal, non-performing way, than in any exaggerated way that required me to “act”.
However, it is notable that the choice of non-performance in this case was designed to afflict and
manipulate the audience (as I judged it funnier and more engaging for the audience if I did not
“perform” the scene), as opposed to other styles of non-performance where potentially the desire
may be to not manipulate the audience.
4.5 Differential roles for textual and movement language
Interestingly, while the dramaturgical focus of the four projects emphasised dance and physical
actions, and de-emphasised text, sections of text (sometimes in combination with movements, such
as within a song-and-dance sequence) were vital for the manipulation of audience emotions within
the four projects. The need for text to help to set a convincing context within which the horror and
sympathy of the audience can be engaged, points to a key issue: is dance inherently less emotionally
engaging than text, or context that is achieved through text (i.e. some kind of back-story that is told
through words)? While I believe that dance language itself is a language capable of transmitting
information and meaning, there is a partial conflict that arises when in each project I believe I would
not have achieved much emotional engagement from the audience if I had only used dance
exclusively without words.
The dance language, while meaningful and rightfully an independent language, affects several kinds
of audience reactions. Gerald Siegmund in his article “The Desiring Body in Dance” (Siegmund, 2005)
expounds the three fundamental levels on which perception of dance occurs: the symbolic, the
imaginary, and the real. Briefly, the symbolic aspects of a dance performance deal with the overall
context in which the performance is set and may encompass metaphysical aspects of the
performance, for example the physical venue of the performance and the expectations of the
audience that they are going to watch a performance. The imaginary deals with how dance speaks to
our imaginations and desires; how during the watching of a dance performance, our minds fills in
gaps that are left empty in the dance show. Finally there is the level of the real, where the physicality
of the dancers’ bodies and the rawness of physical actions speak directly to the audience.
While Siegmund describes three fundamental levels on which dance perception occurs, he does not
mention whether any of the levels may have a higher intrinsic priority over the other levels. Granted,
a choreographer may, through intentional design, emphasise any of the three levels more than the
others. Conversely, an acute theoretician may choose to focus on any of the three levels more than
the others. Yet, is there a dominant level on which dance tends to be perceived, that is widespread
in a large number of dance performances? Intuitively, I would argue that in a pure dance piece,
which has movement as its main language, the real level, followed by the imaginary level, are the
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strongest levels on which communication and perception are achieved. This is often the cause of
dancers and choreographers not being able to put to words what their dances symbolise – the
dances in fact do not symbolise anything concrete, but exist to be perceived in terms of sensations
linked to the physical body, as well as in terms of personal imaginations.
Conversely, text-based material communicates and is perceived most strongly on the level of the
symbolic. Words can symbolise events or phenomena, in a way that dance cannot. We use words to
describe and understand everything around us, from identifying a type of fruit to explaining why the
sky is blue. We use words when we engage in dialogue with others, when we discuss art, science or
politics; and the meanings, and nuances of meanings, generated by words are deeply embedded
within our collective socio-cultural heritage.
Thus, text and dance serve as diametrically opposed communication tools that complement each
other by getting perceived on different levels. Therefore despite a dramaturgical bias towards
choosing dance over text, in each of the four projects of this thesis, text remained a central and
indispensable tool for providing a meaningful context for the performance. Since, as mentioned
previously, text was also vital for audience emotional engagement, a question arises as to whether
perception at the level of the symbolic (which text strongly deals with), is more emotive than
perception at the level of the real (which dance strongly deals with). What is emotive is of course
very subjective, but since the symbolic is by definition tied to our understanding of society and our
personal relationship with the world, it follows that this level of perception might tend to be more
universally emotive in the average population, than the perception of musculature, posture, and raw
physical movement, which today remains somewhat the specialised domain of practitioners and
analysts of dance, sport, and related fields. Thus dance is not inherently less emotionally engaging
than text in any direct sense; it just communicates on a different level than text, and the level on
which text communicates probably tends to trigger more emotional responses for the majority of
audience members.
4.6 The improvisation process, and its relation to choreography
Throughout the four projects, each piece of dance was choreographed so that there was very little
space left for improvisation during the performance. Of course, each dance was executed with a new
freshness each time it was performed, and the attitude was to perform the dances as if they were
improvised, but that is a different issue. The actual bodily movements were already decided upon,
before the performances. It could thus be argued that the four projects were “heavily
choreographed”.
“Unmaking House Hole” (Viarbitskaya, 2011) was a workshop held at Fylkingen, Stockholm, in March
2011. The workshop aimed to de-construct “House Hole” (Project II) by inserting improvisation
sequences throughout a score which was based on the material found in “House Hole”. Although
“Unmaking House Hole” is not formally a part of this thesis, my participation in “Unmaking House
Hole” and my comparisons between “House Hole” and “Unmaking House Hole” were helpful for
developing my ideas about improvisation and how improvisation relates to composition, or
choreography.
I arrived at the concept that improvisation can be done in different ways. There is not only one style
or method or approach, when one improvises. Rather, there is a whole spectrum of different ways
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one could approach improvisation. Together with Martin Eklund, I attempted to characterise the
different ways one could improvise, and Figure 1 below illustrates our model for describing, and
broadly classifying, different modes of improvisation. The model applies to a range of performance
arts including dance, theatre and music. Potentially, it could also apply to the visual arts, but I will
focus on performance arts for this thesis.
Figure 1. Model for different improvisation modes.
In the model shown in Figure 1, we have classified improvisation modes into four main categories:
Expressive, Performative, Exploratory, and Compositional. The categories are defined based on two
axes, the vertical axis being speed (the speed at which choices are made) and the horizontal axis
being application of judgement (the degree to which judgement and selection are exercised on the
available choices). Table 1 below further describes the different characteristics of each improvisation
mode and provides examples for each mode.
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Improvisation Mode
Speed Application of judgement
Improvisation is directed towards:
Examples
Expressive High Low Expression of emotions
- Dancing at a disco without controlling what it looks like (for example when drunk) - Banging on the piano without controlling what it sounds like (for example when angry)
Performative High High Performing the improvisation to a certain “standard”
- Jazz musicians - Performers on the TV show “Whose line is it anyway”
Exploratory Low Low Discovery of the new; enjoyment of the unexpected
- Improvising without any audience, and without any goals in mind
Compositional Low High Achieving composition through improvisation
- Process of traditional choreography - Process of traditional music composition - Potential process for composing devised (scriptless) theatre
Table 1. Differences between improvisation modes and examples for each mode.
It is worth noting that there are no good ways to measure the degree of application of judgement,
and potentially the measurement of the speed at which improvisational choices are made can also
be problematic, since it is hard to measure speed of response if the response is silence, inertia, or
some kind of conscious choice of non-response. Thus the variables on both axes are not easily
measurable, and the model is not meant to be a viewed in any quantitative or practical sense, but
rather is intended as a theoretical model for the classification and further understanding of
improvisation.
The present model for describing modes of improvisation takes us away from the classical view of
improvisation and choreography as dichotomies, and brings us towards a broadened view of
improvisation where there is a spectrum of possibilities related to improvising, and the
choreographic tendency merely lies within the field of improvisation and is a part of it, rather than
opposite of it.
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5. Conclusion and future perspectives
The main results of this thesis can be summarised as such:
- In the four projects, dance was contextualised with the help of music and text, to prevent
dance from being inaccessible or boring to the audience
- My dance background contributed to dramaturgical approaches that increased the degree to
which scenes were self contained, as well as limited the use of text
- Audience emotions were successfully manipulated by contrasting horrible contexts with
happy performance expressions
- Humour was successfully generated through non-performance, an easy approach for a
performer with dance rather than comedy/acting background
- It was recognised that dance and text communicate on different levels and the level at
which text communicates might tend to be more emotive for most of the audience
- It was recognised that there are multiple approaches to improvisation, and a model for
different modes of improvisation was derived
Several questions remain unanswered in the field of dance dramaturgy. Despite the length of this
thesis, what is dance dramaturgy, really? Actually, what is this thesis all about? Do unicorns exist? (I
think so.) Why does time fly? Importantly, the current generation of dance- and performance-
makers should work together to address the issue of (insert trendy issue here) for the benefit of
society at large.
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6. Acknowledgements
This work would not have been possible without the support and friendship of my supervisor,
collaborator and friend, Professor Sviatlana Viarbitskaya, whose expertise, open-mindedness,
intellect, and kindness, have combined to help me mature not just artistically, but also in life.
Professor Viarbitskaya, I don’t think you will ever understand just how much you have helped me. I
thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I thank my collaborator piak, who has a different background, and a different approach to
performance, than me, and thus provided many valuable insights, which I am still in the process of
learning from. I believe that one day in the future, I will be able to synthesise these insights into
something good and wonderful.
Last but not least, I thank Martin Eklund, whose calmness and artistic confidence inspire me to
believe that it is not so important to be labelled a “professional” or not; all that matters is that I
continue to make art, and continue to enjoy and love art.
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7. References
deLahunta, S. (2000). Dance Dramaturgy: speculations and reflections. Dance Theatre Journal .
DV8 Physical Theatre . (November, 2008). To be straight with you. Dansens Hus, Stockholm, Sweden.
Eriksen, A. H. (2001). Dance Theatre & Dramaturgy. Retrieved 25 September, 2011, from
Department of Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London:
www.mediafire.com/?zzjmzzi3zvj
Hagendoorn, I. (2002). Emergent patterns in dance improvisation and choreography. Proceedings of
the International Conference on Complex Systems .
Jordansson, L. (15 September, 2011). Silence manipulation and humour. Retrieved 27 September,
2011, from Grow In The Dark blog: http://growitdark.tumblr.com/post/10234382951/silence-
manipulation-and-humor
Krikmann, A. (2007). Contemporary liguistic theories of humour. Retrieved 25 September, 2011, from
Electronic Journal of Folklore: http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol33/kriku.pdf
Siegmund, G. (2005). The Desiring Body in Dance. Space and Composition (pp. 24-36). Copenhagen:
NordScen – Nordic Centre for the Performing Arts & The Danish National School of Theatre –
Continuing Education.
Train of Thought Sketch Comedy. (2 April, 2006). Happy Birthday by Satan. Retrieved 27 September,
2011, from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM5Y5OnZdU4
Traub, S. (February, 2011). Dance Dramaturgy - a Critical and Discursive Practice. Retrieved 25
September, 2011, from Goethe Institut, Dance Scene and Trends in Germany:
http://www.goethe.de/kue/tut/tre/en7179326.htm
Viarbitskaya, S. Unmaking House Hole. Sveta's School / The Family, Stockholm, Sweden.