HN: Hi. Good morning. We’re at a different space today. Well, with every session it was already different by mere topics, lengths, breadths of topics that were discussed yesterday. But today we are back in this cozy library space. Some of you may be familiar with it… Those who came to ADN last year. Again, let’s try this: good morning! [crowd echoes morning]
We are going to be more casual for this session. If you follow ADN since last year, or even the year before in Singapore, we have a mixed bag of formats of presentations, keynotes, forums, and roundtable discussions. We also try to give space to different ways of presenting; different ways of talking about dramaturgy. One of the things we’ve always tried to do is to include smaller bite-sizes presentations called ‘working group sessions’, where we will highlight particular topics focused on one or two questions and we break up into groups to discuss. This will be followed by a mini-presentation from these subgroups to tell us about their findings or to tell us about the results of their discussion.
Today, we just have a two-hour session titled “Continuing Topics in Dramaturgy”. For the next two hours, we would like to introduce six speakers. It’s a bit of a challenge – we need to make sure we keep track of time – but everyone’s views are important, and we want everyone to have the time and space to speak. The reason why I am suggesting this kind of format this time around is that many of us are new to the field of dramaturgy. Yet, we are trying to do things. We are beginning to understand it. By understanding it, we are trying new things out. Perhaps we do need quite a bit of time to talk about where we are and what we are doing.
We have six speakers of all kinds of experiences… I would say all kinds of fields: from theatre to dance. I just want to quickly introduce our six speakers who will present their experiences and their work methods; or even some of the ideas on dramaturgy in where they are located. It is quite exciting as we have people from Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, and India; if you could raise your hands or stand up when I call your name and say “hello” to everyone.
We have with us today: Virkein Dhar, an independent dance choreographer from India. More than that, she is also the artistic director of the Gati Dance Festival – more known as IGNITE. I am going to keep this quite brief so that the speakers could also then fill in the gaps and tell us what they are doing. Then we have Bilqis Hijjas from Malaysia… Oh sorry, you’re not... As you can tell I am still half-sleep [laughs]. We have Yoshiji Yokoyama. [Applause] He comes to us with great experience and he is currently a dramaturg with the Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre. He regularly engages in quite a few international exchange programs. He is also a very active producer and he will be talking to us about some of the things that he has been up to lately. Then we have Janice Poon from Hong Kong (HK). [Applause] Janice is based mainly in the theatre but is also what she calls a ‘cultural practitioner’ – we’ll probably hear about that later as well. Additionally, she lectures playwriting and is the Academic Coordinator at the School of Drama with the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts. She will be telling us a little bit about her program, and some of the projects she’s involved in on a practice level with the Hong Kong arts scene. We also have Jae Lee Kim. Where is Jae Lee? Jae Lee presented a very interesting paper yesterday. Today, she’ll probably just talk briefly on what else she’s involved with. Jae Lee is a dramaturg from Seoul, who has worked with the Korean Contemporary Dance Company. She is now with the Department of Dance at Sungkyunkywan University in Korea. We also have Taufik Darwis from Indonesia. Taufik comes from Bandung whose background is in the theatre but he has gone onto curating for the Indonesian Dance Festival. He started some dramaturgy projects in Bandung. If you were here yesterday, Ugoran Prasad was talking about working on a project with Taufik as well. On his own, he started things in Bandung and he travels to Jarkarta for meetings with the curation team for the Indonesian Dance Festival. Lastly but not least, we have Kei Saito. [Applause] Kei Saito comes to us from Japan as well. He is with the BIRD Theatre Company and a producer. He will be talking about his experience producing and the rule of dramaturgy and dramaturging in what he does. Now, we’re going to keep this quite casual, so we haven’t sorted out the order of who’s coming up to speak. Would anyone like to volunteer to start us off? There is a Question and Answer session at the end of the discussion. Thank you, Janice. Thank you so much.
JP: My strategy is to sit back and relax when listening to the other presentations after I speak. [Laughter] Remind me of the time if I overrun, but I’ll keep it short.
A brief introduction about myself: I’m now teaching playwriting at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. I joined them last September so I’m very new to the faculty. I practice as a dramaturg and a playwright. I have also been directing in the past twenty years. I first got to know, or encountered, dramaturgy back in 2006 when I was working in a company called Theatre Ensemble, the late PIP theatre. The theatre company has closed – hopefully, it is not about my dramaturgy. I established a literary department for the company and that was the first literary department in the HK theatre history. I learned dramaturgy or the establishment of the department from a Chinese dramaturg: Lin Ke-huan – maybe some of you know him. I learned a lot from him. My first encounter is based on his practice in China where they call themselves literary consultants; that’s how they called it “wen xue gu wen”. He worked in the National Youth Theatre company in Beijing.
I established the literary department for the theatre company back then in 2006 and I worked there for two to three more years. During that period, if you think marketing is broadening, your audience or spectators... the literary department is doing something about deepening the artistry of the company. Briefly, my scope of work involved dramaturgy in the productions and positioning the company in the theatre field in HK. I was also involved in archiving and publications as well. They all call me the encyclopedia in the company [laughter] because whenever they have a problem or a question, they will come up to me as though I have to answer: that’s how I work in the company.
Later, I worked as a freelancer; a freelance dramaturg and playwright. Before becoming a full-time artist in the theatre field, I worked as a cultural journalist. I am not sure if my practice as a dramaturg was influenced by my journalistic background. My dramaturgical approach is based on the following items: when I am a dramaturg for a project or production, the first response or mission that I give to myself is to enhance the production team’s knowledge and understanding of the topic through research, interviews, and text analysis – that’s the primary mission that I gave to myself; second, is to contextualize the creative materials; third, to develop discourse for social intervention; and the fourth, because I am the playwright, I’m usually involved in writing or composing the performance text usually when I’m involved with the production. These four points or areas continue in my practice as a dramaturg, whether I’m a company dramaturg, or in a production, or other projects that I’m going to introduce later on.
These are some of the production photographs to keep you awake. Because I’m a playwright and director, I work as a dramaturg in my own production – I can share a bit more if there is time later. The third thing I want to share is that I heard a lot about ‘what is dramaturg’ and ‘what is dramaturgy’ yesterday. When I recalled the time when I first traveled to us 7-8 years ago, I hear people who dramaturg or work as dramaturg describe themselves as the defender or they speak for the playwrights. They work with playwrights most of the time and they don’t work as those European thinking on productions that involve constructing the structure and other aspects of the production. They really speak for the playwright especially when they are absent in the rehearsal room. When I was in London, I encountered a lot of dramaturgs. They work a lot on play development and work closely with playwrights. Some of them, because they work with European theatre companies as well, started to work with the composition of theatre production or dance productions. So, there might be some geographical differences in the understanding of how a dramaturg works even in Western countries. Hence, whenever I identify myself as a dramaturg in a project or production or a decision, I will find myself involved in shaping the content or the composition of the project. Let’s say or example, if you want to engage me to research for production, I’m happy if you would call me a researcher; or if you want to engage me to give text analysis of a classical play, I’m very happy when you name me as a literary consultant. When I find myself in a position as a dramaturg, in a project or a production, I know that I’m shaping that project or production by contextualizing; by developing the discourse; by relating the [contemporality 14:43] of the production; also, giving input on the artistry of the project and production, especially the ‘why here’ and ‘why now. So, these are some of the reflections of my practice.
Last but not least, I want to introduce the latest project that I worked on in HK, which is a 3-year project where I co-curated with my colleague at West Kowloon. You might be very familiar with some of them… How can I change to the PowerPoint… I co-curated this project with Low Kee Hong – many of you know him. He’s the Head of Artistic Development (Theatre) in West Kowloon Cultural District Authority in HK. And also, Anna Chan who’s the Head of Dance, Performing Arts, in West Kowloon Cultural District Authority as well. It’s a 3-year project where we are going to focus on the practicum of dramaturg. For the first year this year, which is going to happen very soon in March, we are going to kick off with dance dramaturgy, so we will be involved… This is not mine… [pause] I just want to show you the front page of the website so when you click to [‘Press Covers’ 16:22], you can identify and find information on this page. In March, we will have a dance dramaturgy workshop by Tan Fu Kuen and Arco Renz – some of you know them. In July, we are going to invite the head of dramaturgy from Schaubühne in Berlin. He is going to give us a weeklong workshop on the adaptation of classics. In October, we are going to invite Stefan Bläske who’s the dramaturg of Milo Rau – some of you might know him – a very sought-after European director at the moment. This year we focus on production dramaturgy and we’re going to conduct workshops, inviting these masters to come to HK. You’re all welcome to join the workshops. It’s conducted in English. In the second year, we will continue this practicum workshop content by inviting different dramaturgs who are experienced in Festival Dramaturgy and also working as a Company Dramaturg. In the third year, we are going to invite practitioners, who are involved or taught about those workshops in the first two years, to submit a proposal on involving dramaturg and to work with them. We will invite some of those masters to come back to HK and be their mentors on their projects. This is a very brief introduction and you can find more information on the website and that concludes my presentation. [Applause]
LHN: Thank you. I think we will reserve all discussions, comments, and questions after we’ve heard from everyone. Who would like to go next, please? Thank you Virkein. [Applause]
While they are setting up, I would like to make an observation. There was a point that you made just now about some of the checklists that you have as a dramaturg when you work on a project. There was something to do with a social intervention. Is this something you think is something currently developing in HK itself; this idea of involving some social issues and themes, largely in HK?
JP: It’s not necessary. That’s how I identify my work
LHN: So that is your objective?
JP: Yes, but by contextualizing and consolidating content for [contemporality 19:13] of production or project, for me, to a certain extent, you can’t escape from social intervention.
VD: Hello, morning. Hi, my name is Virkein. I’m going to give you lots of images because I don’t to be too wordy. Essentially – as some of you may be aware – I trained as an architect so I’m not coming from any kind of training in either… I did have training in dance for a long time from traditional to contemporary, as well as some amount of jazz and ballet in the middle. But what it came to while I was still in university, was this very interesting mix; where some of my processes within dance-making, or even being on stage, were getting utilized in the way I used to design. Similarly, I found ways to do it the other way around and I find that quite interesting, even at the moment, and it defines a lot of how I do things.
I loved the idea of the space being a very central aspect of how things transform. This is the same space on the same day. [Flashes pictures on screen] This took about six days to create. The experience was a crazy mix of food that came along with the space. The idea was to go through a ‘Food Lab’ which underwent many different things and it became that. This is at the Goethe-Institut in Delhi. Because of the topic we are discussing today, I thought I’ll start with something I imagined to be what I define as a dramaturg. Yes, it’s not a word that we use very often. It’s also a field that's pretty much non-existent in India at the moment. People might be dramaturging but not what they call themselves. As I want to put words to what I thought is dramaturgy, this is what I’ve gotten to: I think for me it is designing an experience where the experience itself could be many different things; when you make something, it is for somebody else to consume. I feel that it’s quite important, especially in the context of India, where it is easy even with the large expanse of it to remain in our little silos and we get comfortable in it very quickly. It’s the human way to do things but it’s quite important to constantly reach out and see where you are, and if you’re relevant to the context or not.
I also took the liberty to ask some of my colleagues in India to share what they thought a dramaturg should do. I think it was more of what we’ve already spoken about: the idea of a sounding board; to collaborators or somebody who questions them at every point. At the same time, I realized these were not things people did as separate entities; it’s the choreographer; it’s the director; sometimes the lighting designer; and someone who photographs you from the outside a lot of times. So, it’s been an interesting mix where it’s not one person who does this as a separate job and they’re not hired to do this as a dramaturg; it’s essentially a friend you call to be an outside eye. I think it’s really the formality. In India at the moment, we are still quite nascent at the age of producing and making work the way we do and elsewhere. When I want to create a work, it’s pretty much me myself and my set of people I start with. Sure, I go over a period of time and I say ‘this is how I want to do it’ and I bring people on as collaborators. It is pretty much a collective effort and not based on a hierarchical system of “I am the director”; “you are the dramaturg or the dancer”. It is quite collaborative, and it is increasingly getting more so.
Just an example, this was a show about two years ago. We started off as something from the [Natesa Sastr 23:54] and it was [reference to Indian/Hindu culture 23:56], which is the eight women in love. It describes these eight kinds of women and what they do and behaves when they were in love. Even though it started from here, it went on to something completely different. We completely got rid of the idea of [reference to Indian/Hindu culture 24:20] and went on to just realizing that this was such a… Even though the text is 200 years old, sorry, 2,000 years old, we are still sort-of at a point where we haven't gotten over some of those [roles/rules 24:38]. We went on by taking the body of the female body as a starting point. We went onto a lot of research from both our personal lives of the eight women - we also became seven by the end of it. Also, taking in the context of the body in the public sphere was at that moment. It was quite important for us to: one, show that there were all these different kinds of bodies; but at the same time, it transforms into something where you completely sort of taken it away from all its straightjacket-ness and the fact that you have to be like this or not. It went into a completely different framework where the plain white surface became fully dirty. I think one of the important parts, and it’s sort of placed through everything we do, is to share the process. I don't have an image to demonstrate this, but at the back, what we did was to share every process and each person in the show, as an exhibition after. One essentially walks into the performance space at the end of the show. The edge of it, which also became the backdrop for the performance, has certain parts of where people are engaged in - it may be text, images, or others. It was to bring people into the process, some way or the other, and I think that’s always quite relevant.
I’m going to go through this quickly … Tell me if I’m going on for too long. So, I imagined the other ways that would involve the idea or process of dramaturgy, of course, would be when one is in the process of creating something new. Then there are these other sorts of chance moments which I've [compiled? 26:39] which is either curating a dance festival or creating a space. The space now exists in Delhi for the past one and a half years and used to exist like this [refers to photo on slide] and is now called the Oddbird Theatre, which has a black box theatre – the only one of its kind in Delhi. It’s also the only curated space, so it’s quite unusual for a lot of people when I tell them that there were about… I did research some time ago with [Kathy? 27:04 ], which was to map out infrastructure for dance in Delhi in particular. We found 235 spaces across performance, rehearsal, somewhat of educational institutions. Some that were not open to the public and only for themselves. Anyway, there were 235; of which almost 98 percent were either defunct, or not used for the purpose they were created for. In addition, they were all commercial spaces. If I want to show my work in Delhi at the moment, I have two options – until Oddbird by the way – I would go on to a proscenium auditorium where seating range from anywhere between 230-seater to a thousand. Plus, I have to hire it at an upfront cost. The other option is for me to remain at the studio where I am. The maximum number of people that I could probably fit in there is about 50. That was the large gap between the two options. [We found a place, where it was very difficult with the almost non-existent state support structure in India, to have enough artist to share their work in the center of Delhi – which is where all the cultural space of institutions lie – with this large upfront cost, which hasn’t quite existed ever 28:06]. So unless and until there’s somebody who has decided to support the creation of a work, and not just in its dissemination over a period of time, it would be difficult to get that on board.
The way we work at the theatre now is a revenue share model on tickets. It’s also very, very unusual. It’s very different between Delhi and Bombay. Bombay has a stronger practice/culture of paying to watch a performance, which doesn’t exist in Delhi. We've taken quite a long time to get to that point so people don't think that this is necessary. There are guest lists everywhere and things like that. So the invitation or the culture of invitation to a performance remains very elitist in its manner of who the culture is for. Therefore, one, of course, we wanted to move away from the center, which also felt that we are politically decentralizing what we imagine as it should be as the core of the city; and who should have access to the center because very few people who live in the city, live in the center.
Also, we needed to engage with people beyond just the performance itself. These are just images from the last four editions of Ignite! which is the Festival of Contemporary Dance that we run. I do want to clarify that when we say contemporary dance, it’s not something that we put it as a category but it's a lens for us to look through, as a dance practice in India. The idea for us when we started was because there was no infrastructure; either to disseminate the shows or to have a conversation around that. It has been an interesting and quick journey to where we are now and we find ourselves at a point where you want to question even the fact of how we presented all of it.
That’s pretty much it. Oh, wait, I’m going to do this last one. This is the latest idea. I must say it is not a project at the moment, but it’s an idea. I’m borrowing some language from the tech world: an arts accelerator program that I’d like to set up. It would essentially contain three things. One, a touring circuit within the country, which is quite difficult. It’s quite easy for me to get international work to come in through all the embassies support that we have, but it’s quite difficult for us to move within the country – seems weird but it is. Also, what we all do that I find to be a pretty relevant space at the moment in India is the role of the creative producer, curator, designer, dramaturg – whatever you call it, I don’t have a word for it yet – to be able to upskill them to a certain point where there is the ability to self-start and create your own. Lastly, in the long term, an investment channel that I can bring in as a collective pool of resources; to be able to channel into things we imagine would be relevant. [Applause]
LHN: Swiftly moving on, Taufik, would you like to present? Taufik has asked Linda to kindly help us translate so Taufik will be speaking in Bahasa Indonesian and Linda will help to interpret and I will help to support the interpretation.
Linda: [Before we begin, I want to ask your permission to help Taufik translations with my baby English 32:32]. [Laughter]
TD: Hello, good morning everybody.
Linda/TD: Well, he prepared the English text to present in this session, but because it is too literal, he felt that he is afraid it would make people confused so he preferred to use Indonesian language in this presentation.
He would like to present the works that he has been doing in Bandung. It is called Bandung Performing Arts Forum (BPAF) within these two years. He wants to talk about the examples using three chapters. One is… “Membeli Ingatan”.
LHN: It literally means “to buy memories”.
Linda/TD: But before he goes further into the details, he wants to give brief descriptions of the BPAF. Basically, they are trying to find out the [change/chain 34:52] of the performing arts in Bandung and the connection with the social spheres around it. Because we believe that those spheres are also the spheres that can connect to other spheres; another [context/contact 35:16] and also another idea. He developed the idea from the equations between art and daily life. Are there any differences between art citizenship and city citizenship?
LHN: Basically, the difference between the artist and citizen.
Linda/TD: From this project, some tensions emerged between the artist and artist that is also part of the society; and the tensions between someone becoming an artist and others who are also part of society. The tensions not only happen between the discursive levels in the concepts and ideas, but also in the practical level: the relationship between the artists and the audiences. He wants to go to the [unintelligible 37:20] “to buy the memory”.
LHN: So this is one of the projects that you did: “Membeli Ingatan” which, is "to buy a memory" or “memories”.
Linda/TD: These projects are departed from his research about the audience and also the five particular language style theatre groups in Bandung…
LHN: We call it the postdramatic then.
Linda/TD: Studiklub Teater Bandung (STB) was founded in 1957 in Bandung. These groups mostly work with translated text and texts produced by one of the members. STB believes that theatres have to carry on the values of universal humanism.
LHN: The literal translation is that “theatre should humanize humans”. Basically, to look at humanity.
Linda/TD: And the research aims to identify the developments of the theatres in Bandung and to define the political identity formation of the people who are excluded. Are there particular identities of certain communities excluded by the structure; by the state, which is the New Orders regime and the market regime?
LHN: The market meaning the economy and the Orde Baru being the dominant ones… STB would talk about the marginalized communities in Bandung, is that what you’re saying? Outside? The fringe? The margin?
Linda/TD: This is what this project is doing, not STB. First of all, this academic research runs purely on the archives. Just because in Indonesia, there is no database of the audience of the performing art within the era of 1997 until 2000. He found difficulties to access and to collect the data. Furthermore, the quality of the maintenance of the archives is really poor in Indonesia. Most of them are gone, disappeared, while some are broken or damaged. When he is doing field work with the audience about performing arts in the past in 1997 till 2011, because of the distance of the time/time gap, he is asking questions like “what do you remember the most about the performance?”, the answers can be any sensory things like imagery or sounds or things they found such as materials. After the conversations go on for a while, they start to make longer a dialogue about the performance they are talking about, not only about the memory; also about how to restructure meanings out of the message that they found in the performance itself, and reconnect it with the actual context. Finally, he transcribed the interviews. As he found difficulties in finding video archives, he turned to the archival bodies of the actors. In that way, he can imagine what kind of production process that had happened at that time and also how they managed the message to deliver to the audience.
He invited five actors for this research and to collaborate for this project. He also invited four young actors to be involved in this project as a way for them to grow and to identify the practice and to develop on them. There is a transformation from the text work, academic research into the performative [corporeality 46:26].
He also tries to [interfere/interweave 46:49]the data that he found related to what happened in Bandung today…The backgrounds of the creative industry. He recreated a café. The café emerged in Bandung, which has a lot of cafés, but they create café using their own things and named it ‘Memory Café’. The café opens 1 hour every 2 days, with a limited on number of people who can come. The café is open to the audience 5 minutes which is the performance itself. There are 3 special packages: ‘Text’ package from the interviews, the ‘Buddy’ package, and the ‘Complete’ package: text and buddy which people can purchase at a cheaper price. They can only consume for 4 to 5 minutes but the audience can also make negotiations on the duration with the actors. If you don’t feel that that is enough, you can re-purchase from the cashier again. They also offer a free package to the audience, which is about the story and fun story of the actors.
LHN: It becomes a loose thing where there is an association with the three packages that are tied to the historical research but there is also a some elements which are different... [unintelligible 50:06]
Linda/TD: About the markets in Bandung that emerged very rapidly, it is not only about how to consume but also how the people’s subjectivity is formed… The question is how is your subjectivity after you buy the history of the Bandung theatre history and how you can consume within 5 minutes. Thank you.
LHN: Shall we have the next speaker to keep the ball rolling, please? I feel that I need to contextualize very quickly: Bandung is quite a special city where they are at the cusp of whole creative industry growth. Bandung, unlike the cities of Yogyakarta or Jakarta, doesn't have a very strong traditional base. Therefore, there was a call by the Mayor in the last 10 years, to build Bandung into this creative industry hub where there was a lot of emphasis put on design and fashion. This is complicated by the visual art market. There was an injection of large amounts of cash to grow this visual arts community in Bandung. As a result, the performing arts had this uneasy position, not knowing where to sit within this creative industry or field that the government has created, unlike Jakarta or Surakarta in Yogyakarta? We can discuss that later but now, over to Yoshiji-san.
YY: Hi, I’m Yoshiji. I wanted to speak after Taufik because my topic is related to his. I am also happy to find out that I’m not the only one who doesn’t speak English well. [Laughter] I’m not very well-prepared. I am very sad I couldn’t attend ADN session because I am also a board member of Open Network for Performing Arts Managers (ON-PAM) in Malaysia, which was why I was not there yesterday. Additionally, I didn’t understand the concept of this session and did not know I would be making a presentation so I just prepared something this morning. This PowerPoint is not really for my presentation. Yanling would have given you the paper about my presentation.
I’ll introduce myself first. My name is Yoshiji and I’m working for Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre (SPAC). I wanted to show a picture of that [referring to the slide] because that is our theatre. Shizuoka is near Mount Fuji. This is our main venue… And this is a performance park. We are located in a natural park in Mount Fuji. We have four venues. The specialties are green tea and we have 2 of the best fishing ports in Shizuoka, so you have to come. [Laughter] I am working for the World Theatre Festival Shizuoka. We have an outside theatre as well. It’s a theatre festival because we have a theatre company. For example, we presented a Japanese version of Mahabharata [55:13 inaudible] festival. This year, we presented Antigone in the opening of a new festival. So, that’s the context... I didn’t prepare anything about that.
This year, I’m also working on the Tokyo Festival. I am in-charge of International Programming for two festivals now. My question is – you can refer to my paper – why is it difficult to program Asian contemporary theatre? As I’ve worked at two festivals, whenever I try to program Asian productions, it is very complicated every time. Often, when I propose an Asian contemporary theatre production, my colleagues will say something along the lines of: “oh no, there’s no audience for that” or “it’s not interesting”. I think some of you might have the same experience: it is much easier to program Western contemporary production than Asian contemporary productions. Why?
My specialty was European acting theories so now I wanted to share some elements from my research based on my Ph.D. thesis. I cannot talk about all of them, but I will try to trace the history of European theatre in 3 minutes. [Laughter] My specialty was French theatre and French acting theories. I find that in the 18th century, in France, there were many acting theories and all that are based on so-called Roman rhetoric. Do you know what is Roman rhetoric? [The answer is no/wrong 58:28]; for example, Cicero and Quintilian, etc. It was the main topic in schools in the 18th century in France. The rhetoric is an art to persuade people by what? In speaking.
LHN: Is it the ‘orator?
YY: Yes, that’s the word: orator. It’s a discipline to form orators. Because in Europe, it is important to convince people [by what/words 59:16]. As European education was a very elitist education in this period, where people undergo education to be a leader. That is why it is important to convince people [by words 59:33]. That’s why it was the main discipline.
Every modern actor landed in school to be an actor. When they write acting theories, they copy the Roman rhetoric. Roman rhetoric is an act to be an orator and they didn’t have to sing or dance. That’s why Europeans invented a theatre without singing and dancing.
LHN: The word is text-based.
YY: Yeah. It is very normal because if you want to be a lawyer, you cannot sing or dance – it’s not so convincing. Like you said Taufik, the theatre has to humanize the human being. This education is called humanist education. Why humanist? In ancient Rome or Greek, there are two types of human beings. There is a free man and there are slaves. So Roman people said humanities is a human culture: it’s something you have to learn to be human; to be a free man; to be a citizen. Otherwise, you will be a slave. That’s the rhetoric: if you cannot convince people to become their leader, you will be a slave. That’s why the modern actors in Europe were also in a very complicated situation as they were also like slaves. Why? The modern actors did not imitate the roman actors because the roman actors were kind of slaves as they were singing and dancing; it means that they have to sell their bodies for the pleasure of other people. That is why they do not imitate roman actors, but they imitate Roman lawyers and orators because the modern European actors wanted to be citizens. That was the beginning of modern theatre in Europe.
The topic is in this [unintelligible 63:43] scheme, they are talking a lot about Asian orators who are dancing and singing because there were a lot of Asians dancers and singers who appear to be slaves to Roman or Greeks in ancient Rome – that was the image. Now, the modern European theatre is based on the anti-Asian model that is why the Japanese modern theatre started. Japanese directors said to Japanese kabuki actors: to make a modern theatre, you’ll have to dance, you’ll have to sing; you have to speak and move like citizens. That was the beginning of the Japanese modern theatre in the 1820s. We are still not accustomed to the association between Asian theatre and modernity. I’ll stop here.
LHN: So basically your whole thesis was about politics of class, politics of elitist, and how the theatre was looked on as something that was of a lower class. That was transformed by using orating or the rhetoric; rather than acting compared to Asia, where it’s always about performance.
YY: One thing to add: I think you can feel that the economy and everything is changing now. We have a more Asian network as you see here. [What has changed since 10 years was before, Asian people 1:06:22]. The economical growth changed the world. They said in the 2030s the economic gravity will move to Asia so we have a modern network within Asian. Now, we have to make a new framework. We say that economic gravity is coming back to Asia because China and India were the centers of the world economy before. Hence, we have to make a new framework of contemporary performing arts, which is ourselves.
LHN: I think I’ll quickly ask Jae Lee perhaps you’ll go first then we’ll end with Kei-san. I am a bit familiar with Yoshiji-san’s work. Also, in the past few years, he has been doing a lot of research looking at the creative industry and economy and tying it back to Asian performing arts networks. He has done quite a bit of research in trying to look for new frames of references for networks and what it means to be a network. What does it mean to be a creative producer? What is this term of ‘creative’ that we add on to this position of being a ‘creative producer’? For those of you who are interested in continuing this dialogue, please talk to Yoshiji-san. I think it is an ongoing discussion. He is really passionate and has been researching these questions for a few years already now. While it may have formed more questions, there are also interesting theories and kinds of thinking that he has formulated. So, let’s go now to Jae Lee, please.
JLK: Thank you. Hi, my name is Jae Lee Kim. Now, I’m working as an independent dramaturg and I’m also teaching at the university for my class, which is more like choreography method or dramaturgy.
LHN: What level is this? The Bachelor's or?
JLK: Oh, for Bachelor's, Master, and Ph.D. I’m going to talk about one case of my dramaturgical project. I worked in the Korean National Contemporary Dance Company (KNCDC) around 2014, 2015. At that time, people are getting interested in different forms of choreography as opposed to the traditional way of art-making. We were introducing a lot of research-based choreography and experimental choreography then, even the lecture-performance, and every other concept arising or is being introduced to the field of dance. Our company just changed the artistic director and the artistic director was eager to help make new movements in the contemporary dance field. Now, I’m going to introduce some projects from the KNCDC.
In the Korean context, over the past decade, many projects are a result of collaborations between drama and choreographers: the choreographers rethinking about the art-making with the drama troupes. It's largely influenced by the European contemporary dance field, but we asked about why we need dramaturgy now. We think about in the context of Korea and invented other forms of choreography. I’m going to introduce just one project.
When I was working in KNCDC, they asked me to present various projects and programs, so I have to make new programs while researching. To meet the national institution requirement, we had to make new one which are totally different from traditional ones. They want to break from the general dance production to place in favor of new methods of proposed choreography. This project is not about the dramaturg working with just one piece; with one character. It is a kind of Curatorial Dramaturgy. My topic is the “Multiple Activities of The Dramaturgs”.
I have a project: it supports the younger generation in the dance field in Korea. The name of the choreography is called “Choreography Laboratory”. The project is steering choreography. I adapted this name from Pina Bausch. She said there are a lot of dance styles in the world. You can say it looks different from dance but if you think about it and recognize it as dance, it is still a dance. I adapted this concept from Pina to create the form. For instance, one can ask: is this choreography? Yes, it will still be choreography as I just insisted it to be. [Laughter] It encourages the younger generation as they can do everything; it is not about whatever. It takes more effort to make a new experiment. So I made this kind of project. This is the final presentation. The woman in black is me. I am explaining to the audience how to see and how to participate in the project.
LHN: And this project is with KNCDC?
JLK: Yes, it’s from a KNCDC project. We started in 2015 and it’s been two years since I’ve been curating this project. They’re a very different kind of concept and practice. They’ve experimented with choreography; installations to show the videos; or research including post-its where they display what they had researched about. [The class is at backstage at the theatre 1:14:49]. There is the choreographer. His theme is about the city and sinkhole. Hence, all of the audience, they kind of go through a parkour performance, and go through the backstage from the theatre. The man in red is one of the dramaturgs. He is on the stage - a very active dramaturg.
Crowd: So invisible. [Laughter]
JLK: Yes, I’m going to wear all red. The participants see the performance as a gallery performance. They either stand or sit down. It is more like an event rather than just a performance in a black box theatre. This is a participatory performance. They do a lot of things and the audience follows the score and the choreographer directs them. A very kind group of audience who just do what the choreographer wants.
LHN: [1:16:51] Can I just quickly ask how long is the period of the lab? And you have two different labs in one year? How many people are in one lab? Do you lead and facilitate?
JLK: The lab is almost one year from 2014 to 2015. We have seven to eight choreographers. As a dramaturg, I facilitate and collaborate and become a friend.
LHN: How many dramaturgs do you have? Because the man in red is also a dramaturg working with these seven to eight choreographers?
JLK: My work is primarily to curate, so we need more dramaturgs and we invited one more. One is shared with me that we collaborate on dramaturgy.
LHN: And the picture that you’re showing I’m assuming they are taken from the public showing of the result of the entire program?
JLK: The program is a choreographer lab and it consists of lectures, seminars, presentations, and mentoring. My position is largely the dramaturg. I call them Curatorial Dramaturg because I often interfere with the choreographer process during my work. I am concerned about all these projects or research. Sometimes I meet the individual artist or the group to talk about their research. I support them physically and emotionally. There are a lot of choreographers and artists which make it very unhealthy due to human tension, so one of my biggest roles is to support the very emotional side of the project creation process.
This is the site-specific ones. We use the whole place of the theatre: the lobbies, the stage, the backstage, even outside the theatre. They introduced many different types of choreography. I really want to emphasize practical dramaturgy. My dramaturg colleague makes new concepts every day. Sometimes physical dramaturg and other times, hands-on dramaturg. So, all the concepts related to the practice. My practice is to make one piece that is a good piece rather than thinking about how I can enlarge the choreography and enlarge dramaturgy activity. So, now I am working on that kind of dramaturgy; the performativity. Thank you.
LHN: Thank you very much. That is very interesting. Just to take up Charlene's notion about glossaries, I think it is time we have to tackle that because of the amount of terminology or description from ‘slow dramaturgy’ to ‘decentre dramaturgy’ to now we have... And there was a term that was used for Janice’s project for the workshop – ‘abstract dramaturgy’ I think was used by Arco. I think there is a need for these kinds of glossary. It’s not so much of adding to the dictionary but rather, to add onto the terms that are going over, circulating amongst our practices. Are we good to go? Great.
KS: Okay, just a reminder that I am the last one. [Laughter]
Hello, my name is Kei Saito. I am a freelance producer and I have never worked under the title of a dramaturg, nor have I spoken in a session about dramaturgy. However, I’d like to talk about how I have discovered dramaturgy in my work, mostly as a producer.
I’m from Tokyo but I moved to Tottori, which is the western part of Japan, a prefecture with the least population in Japan. I moved there in 2006. Until the end of 2016, I worked for BIRD Theatre Company which also runs a theatre space called BIRD Theatre - which is in the photo - which is an old kindergarten building and also a school gymnasium. It’s in a small town called Shikano, which is part of Tottori prefecture. And that’s where annual festivals happen every year. After I left the BIRD Theatre Company, I still live in Tottori.
The company was originally based in Tokyo and then moved to Tottori in 2006 to find a place. In today’s newspaper called Nikkei Shimbun, which is a national newspaper. There’s a big article, which is titled “Theatre Artists Leaving Tokyo”. This movement of decentralization was – from my point of view – accelerated by the earthquake and the nuclear incident in 2011. You could say that we were the first ones to do that. However, I have always felt that during my work at BIRD Theatre, dramaturgy was something that's not relevant to my work. Partly because or mostly because, the director of the company was someone who likes to dominate the rehearsal room and never really acknowledge that he would need anyone's help to construct the drama. Yet, as I was looking back on my career for the presentation, I rediscovered that dramaturgy was present in the place where we encounter the audience.
In the case of site-specific Japanese work, which was introduced in yesterday's sessions, it was said that artists and works intervened in the local community. In the case of BIRD Theatre, although many of us came from outside of Tottori, we based ourselves in that community and we're very much connected to the local community; both as theatre professionals and as residents. Our relationship with the local community, as local practitioners, were built as we constructed the relationship with the audience. The place was for the local audience to suspend their daily life to experience something different. Everyone living in Tottori could be considered as ‘theatre-goers’ and were potentially our audience even though they had not come to the theatre yet. Hence, I guess you could say that there was a kind of dramaturgy of this space and attached to this place in the photo.
It was through different works that I experienced last year as a freelance producer that I became aware of dramaturgy and the dramaturgical moments in creation. I will give you two examples of my experience, one of which hasn’t got photos.
I have worked for an international collaboration work presented at Asian Performing Arts Forum in Tokyo (APAF) as a Japanese-English interpreter. This work was directed by a Chinese director called [Wan Chung or Chung Wan 1:25:04] with one actor from the Philippines, one actor from Thailand, and three Japanese actors with different levels of abilities of English language. It took a while for me to work out exactly my role as an interpreter, but I wasn't keeping myself busy like I normally am as a producer, which allowed me to distance myself from the work. As a result, I began to look at the structure work and began to understand when the director needed someone to step in as a dramaturg.
As for the second experience in November last year, I worked for the Asian Contemporary Dance Festival in the Shin-Nagata area of Kobe organized by Dance box. During the festival, I had a chance to work for a creation of a piece called [“Seeping Life”1:25:50] by a director called Jun Tsutsui, which was part of a project “About Dances in Shin-Nagata”. The work focuses on the lives of Koreans living in the Shin-Nagata area and tries to recreate the ritual called chesa, which is to calm the spirit of those who passed away. All the food and singing, everything was recreated on a stage. My position there was best described as a production manager. I did things like contacted people to arrange interviews, arranged rehearsals, and met with technical crews, and organized Korean cooking classes and karaoke lessons. [Laughter] None of those jobs were particularly new to me, but it was very connected to how the work will be shaped. Furthermore, every one of those practical choices seemed like a dramaturgical work in a way. I think this was because the director was open to discussions too. He was also patient enough to wait for those ‘ingredients’ to develop into something more concrete. And like how BIRD Theatre is in Tottori, the work could not be done without the presence of a dance box in the community of Shin-Nagata.
To go through quickly, I came up with two more things that relate to dramaturgy. After becoming a freelance, one of the things I have set as my aim or goal was to watch more shows. This is simply because I only watched a few shows in a year before becoming freelance. I also try to make myself articulate in expressing what I thought and what I felt about each piece with my own words. I’m not a critic so I don’t write these things on social media, but I thought it was an important training for me. This was triggered when I met some Australians and British producers during a festival last year and they questioned the honesty of the Japanese audience, including myself. We discussed things like whether it is appropriate to stand up and leave the venue during the show if you don’t like the performance. I have to say I’m not very confident in making an aesthetical judgment about work, so if everyone is talking about how bad the work was then I would feel a bit hesitant to say something positive. However, I have heard people say that a work must be either good or bad. Or if it's people from Europe or American and they say they often associate these kinds of attitude with modesty or politeness with Japanese culture. Yet, I feel that making an honest sound comment is far from dramaturgical and simply not interesting. Rather, I think we should question if there’s such a thing as honest feelings or thoughts towards a work. I was also reminded that experiencing or appreciating a work of performance art is a very much communal and collective one. And the question of leaving your seat during the show must be looked at from this perspective rather than treating it as a moral question.
Lastly, a very fragmented thought, but I want to briefly touch on dramaturgy in children’s theatre. I’m not a specialist in children’s theatre but we have made and presented some works at BIRD Theatre, which is for children. I have been quite curious how children receive theatrical experiences as my eight-year-old daughter has always refused to see any performance. She started to watch a whole show for the first time only last year. I also had a chance to work for a recurring children's theatre festival in Okinawa last year. A great festival and I was strongly reminded how important it is for so-called children shows to have dramaturgy. I saw some excellent works which had a clear structure and strong drama even if it is nonverbal performance. Yet at the same time, the dramaturgy was overlooked in some other works.
These are my fragmented thoughts and discoveries about dramaturgy and I hope to find out more in this session. Lastly, like Yoshiji, I am a member of ON-PAM, which is an Open Network For Performing Arts Management in Japan and we had a satellite meeting, as you have here, and in Singapore in Centre 42 in September last year. ON-PAM is a [window 1:29:53] organization last year for Asian Producer Platform (APP) - as some of you may be familiar - which has been going on for the last four years. I’m just saying I have a few things to say about network[-ing] as well. Thank you.
[Applause]
LHN: Food for thought... All six presenters have very different views but some clear threads are running through it: one being the audience, audience reception, audience perception even. The other being consumption of dramaturgy. It is a very focused socio-cultural, socio-political [unintelligible 1:30:26] where they come from. Very quickly now, I’m just going to open up to the audience for discussion. We have six presenters and if you have a question, please let us know who you would like to direct the question to, or if it’s open to anyone. Comments even, please.
Audience: Well, I am [inaudible 1:31:07] from Norway and I just arrived yesterday. I’m listening and I’m very interested in your discourses and I find the notion of dramaturgy as you deal with it here to be very interesting. It’s a very open way of defining or dealing with ‘dramaturg’. The concept originates from Germany. But there’s something more I would like to say regarding this historical perspective of why it is difficult to present an Asian theatre in Europe. This historical explanatory model that you presented, Yoshiji. I found it very interesting as a perspective that you have presented.
I think you missed out a little bit about romanticism - the romantic dramatic period - which influenced exactly at the end of the decade which was described: into European theatre; from Germany into French acting; the pre-romantic and search for emotional expression in the art of acting, not only in the oratorial persuading. So, that came from good and [unintelligible 1:32:26] which changed the whole perspective. It later reached a totalization of European theatre at a time when Japanese theatre was looking for European realistic theatre, inspired by Ibsen. There was a great exchange with the other way around; a great interest in Japanese theatre. Therefore, I would like to question a bit about your model of explaining.
You added some economical facts like the culture have to correspond to an economic superpower situation which is interesting as a model. From my perspective, there was a great interest in Asian theatre at the beginning of the 20th century in Europe. This interest should have been... or should have gone away.... Your perspective of the difficulties is not congruent with my impression. Therefore, I ask for a deeper way of explaining. Do you really think there is this economical force that decides interests for each other - Europe versus Asia or east Asia?
Presently, because you presented a historical model which I saw was very concentrated on the 18th century and not taking into account what happened later. That well, true, I mean the concept of orientalism may be an explanatory factor. It was a great interest in much inspiration from Indian dramaturgy, the Hindu and there was a lot of interest for [unintelligible 1:34:49] and Japanese tradition which came especially with the expression of [unintelligible 1:34:57]... and all these reversing. There was also a disinterest in the European tradition because one thought that the rhetoric tradition was only persuading tradition and not an emotional or not advancing... This changed a lot. But I think you spoke specifically of festivals...
I think maybe that imperialist came in between and destroyed a little bit of the interest and that exoctism is replaced with orientalism. Just wanted to deepen your attempt of a historical, graphical model of explaining it. Is that your point that it has opened up to a great exchange or am I wrong? Or is your impression still that there is still a very deep interest in Asian theatre in Europe? Just a rhetorical question.
KS: For your question, firstly, I have to say that even in Europe, the musical theatre was always more popular than the [speakeasy/speaking 1:36:23] theatre. I mean, you’re talking about the [erotic theatre 1:36:29] but in the 19th century, melodrama was more popular than romantic theatre. The question was that the [speakeasy/speaking theatre 1:36:40] was not that popular. If you were to come to the theatre, you wanted to see something extraordinary; something different from everyday life. In general, opera or melodrama or musical or dance or ballet are more popular. The thing is that what is quite strange in European theatre history is that they invented this unpopular job and they made it quite popular. In Asia, we had to adopt it to be a kind of human being; to be modern and civilized people. It was a marking of knowledge in the culture. But, the question is why? Is there any Asian influence in modern European theatre? Since 19th century there was indeed more Asian theatre interest in Europe. Now, we talk about [postdramatic theatre 1:38:32], we also talk about the influence of Asian theatre. Often, I think for dramaturgy, even for the so-called [postdramatic theatre 1:38:52], we are focused on the so-called modern drama concept - I mean a drama as a script. We have a tendency to reduce the performing arts experience to a kind of script. It’s not easy to be free from this modern drama concept. But the notion of drama itself was meaning and action. “Dráma” in Greek means to do something: it’s a ‘did’ and not a ‘want’. I think we have to reduce the notion of the drama from its original meaning.
Audience: Can I comment on that? Of course, the [speakeasy/speaking drama 1:40:09] was very dominant in the European tradition but from the beginning of the 20th century, one tried to get away from it. Today, also, with the issue of dramatugy or the postdramatic theatre. Also, [not the least, director theatre 1:40:23], new ways of dealing with the classics has taken better of the situation. I think that’s also your point. However, you said that one in Asia had to adapt that European spoken theatre was a way of being civilized. I wonder a little bit about that because when I was in China for a conference, I was told that we had to get away from feudalism by taking away dancing in opera tradition. So, it was from the inside... Perhaps the situation was different in Japan. Maybe these explanatory dimensions were different for China. However, my impression was that the change was internal for them. Maybe it was the beginning of European dominance and many factors that contributed to this. Now, China is very occupied with combining the opera traditions and dancing theatre with the European drama or Chinese modern drama. Isn’t it similar here as you use your traditions and want to reinvent kabuki? If you think of [Robert Wilson 1:41:53] who was inspired by Noh theater, to create a stylization of postmodernity. Money influences also came to the western theatre via that kind of tendencies. So, using the historical stylized forms in postmodernity... [unintelligible 1:42:15] like you meant.
LHN: Thank you so much for your thoughts on it. I’m going to play the executive role here and say that I think in summation, what Yoshiji-san presented was probably kernels of his theorization, especially with your research, and then it is pegged onto a Ph.D. In all fairness, we’ve asked him to do is to present his entire thesis in five minutes. I think we need a longer period. For the interest of some other people who may want to ask questions, perhaps this could be taken up during a coffee break. I'd like to ask permission to move on. Are there any questions or comments about what we’ve seen today?
There is quite a bit here and I, myself would like to start a conversation by asking Janice a question if no one would like to pick up... I was curious when you said that you do dramaturg yourself. How does that work? I grapple and struggle with that. There’s always been a question in me when theatre directors say that” of course, I believe in dramaturgy... I don’t have a dramaturg... That’s because I actively dramaturg it myself”. Discuss... Defend....
JP: When I say I dramaturg myself, it happens when I'm writing and when I’m directing. If you remember, when I talked about my philosophy on dramaturgy, when I’m writing my play or script, I’m already thinking about contextualization. I’m already thinking about this piece developing a discourse in tackling some social issues that I want to address.
For example, my play is talking about the medical system in HK, where the family members will be asked to decide for our dying family members, whether we want the doctors to stop healing or medication for our family members. It usually happens to our elderlies, that is our parents. I interviewed a lot of people's experiences and found different ridiculous stories of family members being put in that situation. Yet, we don’t know how to change the medical system. We don’t know how to address this in public in terms of policy. As a result, I wrote a play and I used Michael Foucault and his book about the birth of a clinic about a clinical case. I put that philosophy or his theory into the play. When I wrote a play, I already thought about the process: how would the experience help or support the audience or give them some power to confront such situations when they go back to reality. To my surprise, in the very first scene when it was performed, there were already a lot of audiences crying. I heard them crying, sobbing, until the end of the show. Some of the audience feedback that they felt that they were healed because they went through the same thing where they had to decide for their parents to stop the medication. They felt so guilty as if they've murdered their parents. After the show, there was this discussion of the siblings in the play and they felt that they’re not alone. One can see how these siblings, in the play, make decisions and how they discussed that decision for their dying father. I’ve also invited [unintelligible 1:47:06] for the position. He is the character and also the position in the play. There are also some [unintelligible 1:47:17] in the process. So, there are a lot of things going on when I am writing the play: how I describe it as I'm my dramaturg. It also happens when I direct, if that makes sense.
LHN: Actually, yes it does. I was just curious about the finer details of what you mean by dramaturging yourself whereas this is something that you've set up frameworks, or context of a certain kind of performance narrative that you want to see coming out of this written text. So yes, it is very specific particular dramaturing elements that you’re looking at.
JP: Yeah, and you asked about social intervention, right? I have to say it is coming out from my journalistic background. It is also coming out of the current situation in HK where the role of journalism or journalist is kind of diminishing, I don't want to say too much about it but that’s the situation. For me, as an ex-journalist, I felt really powerless to the current situation. It made me wonder if there is anything that I can do, perhaps some sort of journalism in theatre as if each play is an investigative report. In this instance, I wrote the play about the medical system as if I am doing investigative journalism; writing a report in the newspaper. After that play, there were a lot of discussions going on about this process: how the doctors discussed with the family, and there are some publications, not by me, but part of the discussion of the current medical system on how to terminate someone’s life.
LHN: Thank you. So, it’s about research and context for you. These are two big pillars of dramaturgy. Thank you so much.
I think we have time for perhaps one more? Quickly, if anyone has any questions? Everyone is either still processing because we’ve had a lot to talk about… There’s one over there. Could we just get the mic going?
Audience 2: Hi, I’m [unintelligible 1:49:50] from the Philippines. I would like to direct the question to the dramaturgs. In the context of the Philippines, the notion of dramaturgies is very new. In fact, not all directors know how to handle the presence of dramaturgs at the rehearsal space. From a negative standpoint, it is because directors do not have the training to communicate through collaborative dramaturg. But from a positive point of view, it’s because for the longest time since dramaturgy was introduced, directors, actors, and playwrights have been forced to as madam said ‘to dramaturg their own’. Do you have any tips on how slowly we can inject the presence of the dramaturg within the creative practice of the rehearsal space? Just thoughts on how possibly we can start bridging the gap between the directors who are used to dictating their artistic practice, and the dramaturg who is there to help to improve their craft, they are not to attack their egos.
LHN: Thank you for that. I’m going to quickly respond and I would like someone else to respond or some, if not all of you. I hear what you’re saying. The fact that you want to slowly insinuate to bring in this dramaturg to dismantle dictatorship. For me, that suggests that the director is not ready to have the figure of the dramaturg. There is not even a negotiation anymore. There shouldn’t be a discussion because if the director says ‘I would like to work with a dramaturg but I must be in control’. I feel then let’s not even start a discussion for one. Many of us have experienced that where directors and choreographers say ‘I’m very curious about this role of the dramaturg’ and then they straightway say ‘but I don’t want them to interfere’. The mere act of dramaturging starts with intervention. It starts with an injection of something to a new; different; provocative. In our previous session, David Pledger used the analogy of a virus, a computer virus; the dramaturg is a computer virus; or dramaturgy as a concept is a computer virus that is inserted into an operating system that disrupts it. Within that disruption, hopefully, that system opens up and creates a new system or it finds a path into a new system, into a better system even. Anyone else, please?
RL: Well, there are several things. I also would like to defend the directors who do not want to work with dramaturgs, only because we need to speak up for them. One, as with any practice, it has grown through time and the artist has decided that ‘this is the way that I want to work’, whether it dictates the funding or dictates the institution that installs a dramaturg there then you know he or she has to negotiate with it. If the director doesn’t want to work with a dramaturg or doesn't feel the need to do so, then he or she should not. But if he or she is willing to open up to negotiate - even though it is taking the person out of his or her comfort zone or whatever you want to call it - I think this is where you need to select or find a dramaturg. And this is one of the dramaturg’s skills: people skills; knowing when to disappear and knowing when to appear like a shop assistant - who suddenly knows when you need and shows up, and disappears when he or she is not wanted.
One of the things about training to be a dramaturg, has nothing to do with dramaturgy or dramaturgical, is this level of people skills and a level of sensitivity. And I go back to what I talked about, what Charlene talked about when she went into rehearsal: where should I sit, what should I say. Those are the things that he or she needs to be very, very mindful of, and how not to upset others. This is where the dramaturg positioning of being from the outside and looking in is truly quite important. I find great difficulty and it's just me reconciling how a person can direct and dramaturg at the same time, unless he and she can step out of the situations. Not really out of himself, but out of the situation. I think it is really about that training of the dramaturg in terms of the people skills and interaction skills, and having that sensitivity to know. But that’s for me. Anybody else wants to respond?
VD: I think it's a little bit different in the theatre but in dance, as long as the choreographer is actually on the outside and not onstage themselves. In many cases, it is possible to dramaturg yourself.
LHN: Oh, you’re going back to Janice’s point?
VD: Yeah, just to sort of continue the conversation... As you’re not on stage, you have the ability to objectively look at what you're making one after another, and still be able to see if it works or not and ask questions. Of course, this is way more difficult, which a lot of people tend to do and it doesn't work every time. However, I think it is a conscious decision or a choice that everyone should have, and not something that you sort of force people into.
KS: I think also if you [unintelligible 1:55:49 ]... to the field itself. We already have examples very much structured within [unintelligible 1:56:07 ] when we think about the profession and job distribution. Coming from Indonesia, the whole history of the presence of [hosting 1:56:16 dramaturg... It is precisely happening because they are all in an amateurish setting…. [unintelligible 1:56:23].... They allow dramaturg and dramaturgy to be there throughout. Though they are still harder [unintelligible 1:56:32]… but it introduces a kind of reconstruction of not only the functions of the dramaturg, but also the director and the actor – what is the role of the actor within [unintelligible 1:56:44]… What is the role actor or even the director? And if we allow it to actively happen and it is probably best in a collective setting then I don’t think it will be a problem. Think about it like an [underground den 1:57:04]...
LHN: On that note, thank you very much for staying for this session. Please put your hands together for the six speakers again. Thank you very much. [Applause]
We will continue with our next session back at the main area at 2 pm. It's a very exciting one. I wish you would tell more of your friends to come. It’s arts and leadership and we have a very, very special panel and one being Hiromi herself will be present to speak. So, please come and join us again at 2 pm. Thank you very much.