School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemDecentred perspectives: dramaturgical developments in dance( 2014)This thesis investigates dramaturgy in the development of contemporary dance. It examines how dramaturgy, which has previously functioned as the structuring of text and narrative practices in theatre, has been transformed in its alignment with dance. Using case studies from modern and contemporary dance, observation of rehearsals, and interviews with dance dramaturgs, my research develops the terms ‘decentred dramaturgy’ and ‘body dramaturgy’ to demonstrate how the practice of dramaturgy augments dance. In the process I argue that to acknowledge the particularities of dance dramaturgy enables us to open new dramaturgical considerations in theatre. To do this the thesis examines how the epistemology of dance has moved dance practice towards dramaturgical innovations that reconsider the frame through which to engage with performance. It argues that a comprehensive dramaturgical perception of dance incorporates a review of how experience and reception of performance can be an embodied as well as a culturally relevant experience. It considers how the role of dramaturg contributes to the discourse of dramaturgy and examines how the role of the dramaturg broadens the perspective of dramaturgy to include the conceptual as well as the practical aspects of the process and the production. The thesis concludes that the term ‘decentred dramaturgy’ – that works with as well as from simultaneous and multiple perspectives – best describes the approach to understanding and articulating a dance dramaturgy.