The Role of the Dramaturg in Performance-Making | ADN Lab 2018

MD: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the second session. You can bring your coffee and tea. 

My name is Marion; I'm from Malaysia and I will be the moderator for this session. I sort of represent two organizations from Malaysia – Five Arts Centre, and I work in ASWARA which is the National Academy of Arts, Culture and Heritage. 

We have the first panel for the Asian Dramaturg Network (ADN) Yogyakarta, titled “The Role of the Dramaturg in Performance-Making: Case Studies and Critical Reflections” – a good panel to follow up from Rustom’s talk. I’m going to give a very brief introduction of the four speakers and then each speaker will present for about 15 minutes maximum. Speakers, please look at Yanling who will be doing timekeeping at the back, reminding you at the three minutes mark. Then we'll have time for questions and answers. I'm going to do introduce the speakers first and move onto the session. 

The first speaker is Taufik Darwis – on my left – who is a dramaturg and researcher based in Bandung. He is also a co-founder of Bandung Performing Arts Forum (BPAF), co-curator of an Indonesian Dance Festival. This year, he has been invited as a guest curator at Teater Garasi or Garcia Performance Institute. Taufik has a huge amount of experience in dramaturgy. You can look at his full biography if you want to look at the number of productions that he has done and roles. Particularly in this ADN, he will be the dramaturg for Lab 1 which will be happening over the next two days. 

The second speaker is Charlene Rajendran whom I will introduce off the cuff since I do not have her biography. I have known Charlene since she was 15 years old. Charlene is a performer, educator, director, dramaturg, and works in the National Institute of Education at the National Technology University in Singapore. I would like to say she began her career in the arts as a child performer at the age of 15 where she received a rave review from the nation's most prolific critic Krishen Jit – who has since passed away. The biggest tragedy of Charlene's life is that Charlene is a Malaysian who now lives and works in Singapore, which is a huge tragedy for me personally. [Laughter]

Our next speaker is Kei Seito, a performing arts administrator and producer. In 2006, he helped set up Bird Theatre Company and Bird Theatre where he managed the venue, performances, festivals, and international projects. He left the company in 2016. He is also a board member for the Open Network for Performing Arts Management (ONPAM). In this ADN Yogyakarta, he will be the critical respondent for Lab 1.

And finally, How Ngean, who does not need an introduction as everybody knows him. I do not have his biography, but I've also known him for a long time. How Ngean is a producer, director, performer, dramaturg, and I would call him a connector. I think How Ngean connects people and projects over the last three months. He is doing three back to back projects: Jejak-Tabi in July in Yogyakarta ADN, then Jejak-Tabi in Kuala Lumpur. There is also a tragedy about How Ngean; also a Malaysian, who has left the country and now lives in Australia. Thank goodness he still does projects in this part of the world. I think the other tragedy for How Ngean is that he is actually a brilliant performer. So, I think enough of all these How Ngean, go back to performance. [Laughter] So, those are our four speakers, and we shall start with Taufik. 

HN: I just want to flag out – I’m so sorry but Taufik will be presenting his paper in Bahasa Indonesia. We will keep it casual. For those with problems with Bahasa Indonesia, if you need to move to someone who can help you to understand what Taufik is speaking about, please go ahead. Some of you can also help to translate. There will also be text translation happening right there, [points to screen on the right] so do not worry. Okay, thank you, sorry. 

TD: [6:50] Thank you for having me and BPAF in this event. I will read my presentation text to help with the translation. I need to relate myself indirectly from my recent presentation at the ADN Symposium (TPAM 2018) to my perspective about the role of the dramaturg through a case study “Us/Not-Us Project”.  

 On that presentation, through a project "Purchasing Memories", I explained how for the last two years, BPAF has been working collectively to find and to connect the chains within the performing art scene with the ongoing social landscape. This decision was made as we think that we need to find a starting point (awareness) to develop ourselves in the network system interactivity; between the history of performing arts, knowledge in the academic tradition, literature, plays, choreography as writing the movement. Visual art as a work of imitating, the myth of artistry (institution, singular opinion), and public history. Our next question then: what is the difference between being an art citizen and a state citizen? 

[Video playing]

The question drives us to a series of shifting the expression of each trial to select our subjectivity points and to greet other social groups. The first project: 'cut off: to see, to see yourself, to be seen' in 2016 is our attempt to investigate ourselves as part of the political history of infrastructure building. The second project: 'outside from the outer side' in 2016 is a project to read the quality of living space ('geographically') of other cities through newcomers who live in a new city. Third project: 'metal Saturday night' in 2017 is a collaborative performing art project that involved an actor, choreographer, composer, and a metal band where we read the living quality of Bandung from the perspective of the metal music community. Fourth project: 'purchasing memories' in 2017 is a theatre project based on research on the modern and avant-garde theatre audience in Bandung.  

These projects simultaneously drive us to identify different methods in the various performance-making process.

It is. Thank you. 

MD: Thank you Taufik. Some fascinating points following up from Rustom’s talk about context, community mapping, and the relationship between artist and citizen, which is interesting because it’s different in Bahasa. What was it? [22:56] “Warga Seni dan Warga Negara?” The translation is tricky because “Warga Seni” is an arts person and “Warga Negara” is a national person. And that line on 2.7 million happy people in Bandung. Happy index... I think the business of happy index… I guess anybody who has been to Bhutan, apparently when you land in the airport of Bhutan, the happy index is up there. What is the happy index? 

Next, we have Charlene who will present. Thank you, Charlene. 

CR: Thank you very much, Marion. I’m going to talk about this idea of ‘The Dramaturg as a Listener [Critical Presence & Response]’. 

I didn’t know Rustom was going to lean towards listening but that is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while, particularly in relation to my work in a project called “Both Sides, Now”. I think that nowadays we tend to do a lot of watching and not enough listening. We've become a very visual-oriented species and our hearing is not as strong, in part because we've lost many aspects of an oral culture that we once had; when the information was spread by telling and listening more than writing and reading. I'm not advocating for a returning to that era but I do think maybe one of the reasons why a dramaturg is gaining value today is because of our role as a critical listener, [25:04] a “pendengar kritikal”. Someone who will make the effort to listen very acutely, openly, and receptively; to try and rebalance the tilt towards the visual. When this listening occurs, it's not just to people but spaces, sounds, movements, ideas, energies, and so forth. It's an open and deep listening which involves the whole body and the whole being which is what Rustom was talking about earlier. 

This is something that a French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy has talked about in a small book called ”Listening” where he makes the distinction between two French words: “entendre” which is more listening for signification like specific meaning, and “écouter” which allows for resonance like a vibration. The translation of “écouter” is just listening in the English language, but there is this distinction in French – which I don't speak so I don't know the full nuance of it. Basically, he points us to the idea that when we listen, we are listening for sensuous and bodied meaning; which is particularly important in the arts and performance-making where we are not just involved in a specific kind of meaning, but layers of meaning; layers of understanding; layers of sensing; layers of suggestion and association; layers of play and ritual; and layers of communication and implication. 

This project “Both Sides, Now” where you'll see some slides that show you the iteration in Phase 2 because Phase 3 – the public dimension – is just beginning next week. It is an interdisciplinary engaged arts project that deals with the issues of death and dying in Singapore. I’ve been the dramaturg since its first inception in 2013, which has meant that we are learning about the project and I’m learning about dramaturg in the project. The project occurs in many different public spaces and the intent is to start conversations about end-of-life issues with people who are otherwise reluctant to do so. This gives you an idea of the kind of set-up: it's out in the open where people live rather than in a theatre space. Death is generally taboo in a Chinese majority Singapore – we don't talk about it. In fact, it is bad luck. Yet, this is an ageing society. It is also highly urban, which means that many older people are living on their own and they are estranged from their families. Hence, this question of how to deal with end-of-life is becoming more urgent.  

“Both Sides, Now” draws on arts-based processes which are sometimes installations, films, and/or performances to get these conversations started. The purpose is to increase awareness of the options available for aging; for terminal illness; and even to social welfare support because not everybody is aware of what is available - whether it is enough or not is another question. But it is also about how to express your anxiety about death and dying; illness; pain; and fractured relationships. The project is not to prescribe how to die well. It's not one of the many campaigns in Singapore which tell you how to do things. It's not a movement that says ‘if you believe this you will die well’ – which is another kind of process. It's really to make a kind of playful space and this is what I mean by playful: it's not flippant but it is a space where you use your imagination, obviously with a dimension of truth to it. It is also a safe space where you come with your family and friends. You come as you are in your home context to engage with these questions and can hopefully understand and tell people stories about things that concern you.

The first thing about having these conversations is the importance of listening. The artistic director, Kok Heng Leun, articulated in his proposal for the third phase that he… [referring to the slides] This is Kok Heng Leun, who is holding the mic at an intervention forum theatre… He articulated the need for what he called a “listening aesthetic” for the project. In Heng Leun’s view, the city has become “focused on being a lie such that we hide everything that may suggest the opposite of being a lie”. To him, a city is not humanized when it does not make space for one to think about and accept dying. The project has tried to rehumanize with an understanding that what that means is not straightforward either. But in another sense, what Heng Leun’s idea of a listening aesthetic suggests is that the city has become tone-deaf. It is not completely deaf to the sounds of end-of-life. For the dialogue to work around this topic of end-of-life, the listening has to be sensitive to the returns; the referrals; the reciprocities of meaning which are constantly in movement. Sound is a movement: it is not stillness; something has to move. The vibrations have to occur. So sound, like meaning, is acknowledged as dependent on a range of references: it bounces off somebody and hits a wall. It resonates with certain people in certain ways and so on. The meaning is not fixed: it is contingent which means that it changes all the time depending on context depending on your mood; depending on what's just happened in your life. 

Heng Leun explains this listening aesthetic in relation to the notion of community in Singapore, which is really like a [31:25] “kampong kota”. I like the idea of a city village. The word “community” is sometimes quite problematic because it suggests that there are clear notions of those who belong and those who do not belong. Because he talks about it in relation to “giving pause” and uses an idea [31:40] from Yi-Fu Tuan a social geographer: pause not stillness; pause not emptiness but pause a space to consider a change. Pause as a way in which one can rethink certain ideas because “Both Sides, Now” is about trying to ask people to rethink certain behaviors and attitudes, such that they might even just consider writing a will, doing an advance care planning form, and maybe having a conversation with a friend or family member about what you want or what you don’t want. It is about things that are unsaid and unheard. And the project has to be ready to receive inner and outer weeping, sobbing, grieving, pain in some way, and ask questions about why certain vibrations remain through culture, through policies, through social rights to religion. And what are the new vibrations that people are wanting or thinking about?

This listening is about a certain kind of movement and it's about a certain kind of dialogue. So, what is the role of the dramaturg, or the [unclear] in this kind of project? For me, it is about developing a listening presence and offering a listening response. I'm involved in two ways primarily as a dramaturg: firstly, I attend creative team meetings and the creative team meetings will involve the filmmakers, photographers, the artistic director the producers, the design team, etc. There are many people in the room at this meeting all of whom have a particular responsibility to make the work happen. They all need to talk about their views and they all need to think about how the project will develop. This is interdisciplinary and collaborative. Heng Lun, as the artistic director, provides some overarching frames. Over several meetings in which these ideas concepts and proposals are discussed, my work is primarily to listen and then articulate my thoughts about what I feel is working, and what I feel is missing – this usually happens after most people have already voiced their views. If I speak in the middle of the discussion, it’s to ask a question or to ask for clarification. Even though my presence is largely silent – which I think is important because unlike everybody else in the room, I'm not responsible for the detailed decisions about making the project happen like the director that Rustom was talking about –  I am there to deepen and thicken the conversation; which means I'm there to look at the micro and the macro and everything in between, so the liminal space again. Now the artistic director is doing this as well – Heng Lun is a dramaturg himself for other projects sometimes and does a lot of dramaturgy – but he has to make choices about what to do in the project, and that's different a different role. My choices are mainly: what to say and what to not say where do I sit in the room; what do I give emphasis to, not about good or bad right or wrong, but to try and make sense of what the vibration I am hearing in the room to then reflect this in relation to what I comment on or suggest. Now, there are definitely certain directions that I lean towards and certain things that I prefer – by Phase 3, when I say certain things there are people are the room that kind of go “that’s a very Charlene thing to say” – but the needs of the project have to take priority so my work is to ask: what is that? So, I think a dramaturg is a kind of a sounding board, a [31:45] “papan [unclear]”, who is meant to discern if something is off-key and then suggest how maybe a certain kind of tuning can occur. However, this is left to the artistic team to make their choices. I think the world of this “listening dramaturg” is to ‘wait and hear’ or ‘wait and listen’. 

The other role is to attend rehearsals and respond to scripts when there are performance elements like forum theatre or the [36:19] batik? theatre that has been used in “Both Sides, Now”. This year we have a new form that is being invented by the team. The work is called “Last Dance” and Marion helped us in one important aspect of it. Here, I am more of a critical responder in the more known sense of the word dramaturg, but because this work is all about unfinished words that are completely dependent on the audience to complete the work, I have to try and listen as an imagined audience. When the audience comes in, sometimes the work gets changed further. Hence, I am responding in a way and listening to what is there and what is not there; what is supposed to be there; and what might be there which we don't necessarily want to be there. Sometimes I don't know what to do. Sometimes there is a need to say “okay, I think… I'm not sure what to say here”. But because it's collaborative work, I can say what I need to say, what I think I need to say and know that somebody else will say something else which then builds up the work. In a collaborative process, the work of the dramaturg relies and builds on what other people are saying, but also in a conscious way. This is something that is alluded to one of the slides by Peter Sandi; we make other people aware of their listening presence as well, and how each member of a collaborative team is listening to each other. It's something that I am keen to think about because concerning issues of death and dying, silence is very potent and it is often bursting with the unspeakable and what cannot be explained. But simply listening, even if you don't say anything in response, is crucial to the comfort and consolation and perhaps changed action afterward. Thank you. [Applause] 

MD: Thank you, Charlene. It’s interesting in Charlene’s case study is on “Both Sides, Now”, which is on death, and Lab 2 is on death as well. Towards the end, the last question on what does it mean to die and dying well; rehumanize; giving pause, are things that I’ve jotted down. But I think for me the potent questions is the lack of the voice of the dead person. All these things that we are doing about death are from the point of view of the living – for obvious reasons. It’s all for the living; the rituals and everything. So, the question in my head is does the deadliest person really care? They're just dead. There's an interesting book by Anita Moorjani called “Dying to Be Me “where she dies and comes back. She talks about that moment of death and the presence of God and the presence of her father. It's a fascinating book so I think those who are involved in these death workshops, that's the closest you can get to the voice of the dead person a book for me. There are other documentation of how people have died and come back. But really, what does the dead person feel about this? Okay, on that ridiculous question, we shall move on to Kei Seito.

KS: Hello, my name is Kei Seito. I am a freelance producer from Japan. This is my second time speaking in ADN session. I was a satellite meeting in Yokohama in February in [unclear] and what I'm going to speak about now partially overlap with the presentation in February, but with more focus on individual cases. Also, I'm currently staying in Edinburgh in Scotland for one year during my placement scheme at a theatre called Traverse Theatre, which has a mission to promote new writing in Scotland, and I like to add some observation that I gained from my stay in Edinburgh. 

First, I would like to tell you about myself. I was born and raised and started my working career in theatre in Tokyo. However, I moved to Tottori in 2006, which is in the western part of Japan, when I was a member of my previous company. It is a prefecture with the least population in Japan. The company was named Bird Theatre Company, which also run a theatre space Bird theatre, an old kindergarten building, and a school gymnasium, which turned into a theatre space in a small town called Shikano. The company also runs our annual Performing Arts Festival which happened recently in September. Having worked in the company for more than 10 years, I left the company in 2016 and became a freelancer and continued to live in Tottori. Then, I moved to Edinburgh at the end of March this year. I'll just show you more pictures of Bird Theatre in Shikano. In the previous picture with the red roof, that is the school gymnasium and it has been refurbished as a theatre and has now grown to a more proper building. 

Bird Theatre Company create performances mostly based on texts, existing plays, and texts, including some of the Western classics. It was very much a director-led creation process. As a producer, I was really involved in the process. In a way, I placed myself slightly distant from [43:06] the order creation? of the company, to establish my unique position as a producer within the company and the group. 

The discovery of dramaturgy for me came from the presence of the audience in a subtle way. In its first 10 years, the Bird Theatre Company was most successful in building a relationship with the audience. Many of the company members – including myself – came from outside the Tottori region but we lived there and based ourselves in that region, as a professional theatre but also as a resident community as well. The Bird Theatre has become a place where the audience would come and spend their life daily life to experience something different from their daily life. We got to a point where we could consider almost everyone living in Tottori – the number will be approximately 600,000 people as it’s not a huge region – that they were potentially our audience even though they have not to put their foot in a theater yet. Normally, the audience would only see the works by Bird Theatre Company, but during the festival, they would see other works by other artists or other companies; or coming from other regions in Japan; or other countries. Not only do they watch theatre performances, but they would see a dance or circus as well. Having seen the company's work throughout the year, such experiences give them something that's different or is adding onto to their experience. Most of the audience are not regular theatre-goers – in a sense – and they will come to see the show. Not because they knew about the production that they are going to see, but because that was what’s on at Bird Theatre. Through these encounters where the audience is meeting a different kind of world than the ones that they will be known, I felt that there is a sense of dramaturgy. The festival program was not curated in a strict definition but you could say the journey the audience is going through via the experiences at Bird Theatre; meetings of worlds that are coming from some other they are not familiar with, itself is going through a dramaturgical process. 

In the year 2017, after I became a freelancer, I had several opportunities working at different venues and festivals across Japan. My roles were different each time depending on each work and I became more aware of the dramaturgy and roles of the dramaturg in the creation. One such opportunity came when I worked for the Asian Contemporary Dance Festival in November 2017. The festival was held in a place called Shin-Nagata area of Kobe City and was programmed and organized by Dance Box, who were based in an [unclear] the area. One of the projects that I was involved in during that festival was a creation of [46:17] “Peaceful [unclear] Life” by a director called Jun Tsutsui, which was also a part of a larger project series called “About Dances in Shin-Nagata”. This project – from my understanding – tried to explore the different ways of life in the Shin- Nagata area for people from different generations and with different cultural backgrounds: how their bodies and their lives are expressed through dance. This particular performance focused on the lives of Koreans living in Shin- Nagata area and try to recreate onstage the ritual called jesa or chesa, which is conducted to calm the spirits of those members who have passed away. Although Jun Tsutsui, the director and producer of Dance Box, has been working on the project for some time, the research for the piece was still going on alongside the actual creation when I started working for the project. Due to this, we still didn't know who will be performing in the piece 24 weeks before the performance.  My role in this piece was best described as a production manager. I dealt with many things that I needed to deal with: contacting people to interview and deciding who to interview; arranging hostels and meeting with the technical crew; organizing cooking classes for chesa dishes – as you can see in the photo – and some karaoke lessons. In this photo, the lady on the left is a cooking teacher for Korean dishes and the guy standing in the middle is the director Jun Tsutsui. 

Every practical decision-making as a production manager or as a producer has embodied some kind of dramaturgical journey; partly because of the journey the work was going through, and the director was very open to discussions and having patience for the different ‘ingredients’ of the creation to develop. Deciding who to meet for an interview could affect who would be performing in the piece and therefore, the structure of the work itself. Also, when making choices about what props to use, for example, could lead to the question of cultural authenticity. As one example regarding the use of props, we had a bit of issue getting hold of what we call the ‘real dishes and bowls’ that could be used for chesa. We were told that the most real ones were very expensive to buy or even to rent. We consulted and asked a young Korean couple who was living in Shin-Nagata area for advice. They were born and raised in Japan and recently started practicing the ritual of chesa at their home. And they answered that at their home, they would normally use plates that were purchased from ‘a hundred yen shop’. It was a relief from the production point of view and the budgeting, but it also reminded us that the chesa as a ritual is very different in different families and there is no one correct way of doing the ritual. In addition, the fact that although we will try to recreate the ritual on stage, it was always going to be a fictional one and never a recreation. In the end, we had five performers: a Japanese high school student, who has been learning Korean traditional musical instruments; a young Korean actress, who is born and raised in Shin-Nagata; a Japanese researcher on Korean popular culture, who is also the teacher for karaoke for Korean popular songs; and a young academic studying theater studies, who came over from Seoul and Tottori himself. As you can see, many audience members are joining the dance performance. Some of whom were people who have interviewed, [50:19] ensured that the work took a unique path to create and also to engage with the audience. Just like the Bird Theatre in Tottori that I had mentioned at the beginning, this work could not be done without the presence of Dance Box and their continued work in the community of Shin-Nagata.

The last example I would like to refer to are some of the findings from my current stay in Scotland. As I mentioned, I'm working at a theater called Traverse Theatre which focuses on the new writing. There are around 20 playwrights who are commissioned throughout the year by the Traverse Theatre to write plays. 5 or 6 of them are taken to stage each year, which are directed by the theatre's artistic director and the associate director. In this process, the directors also work as dramaturgs to complete and finish each play. As the artistic director of the theatre says: 60% of her job as a director is done before entering the rehearsal room so there is more time spending working with the writer to finish off the script. The Traverse Theatre has a unique role in promoting new writings, but in general, I think the writers are very strong and respected within the British theatre, especially in Scotland with a strong tradition of storytelling. This way of theatre-making may not be new, but for me, it was very refreshing. Having been accustomed to the kind of theater-making in Japan where there is seemingly more emphasis placed on how the plays are performed rather than what they are about – especially with theatre creation where the director is very much in the center of it. 

This photo is taken during the first day of rehearsal at Traverse Theatre with the production of “What Girls Are Made Of?”. The lady on the right-hand side is a director, who is the artistic director of the Traverse Theatre. The lady, second from the right with an orange top, is a writer but she also performs in the semi-autobiographical work in the play. They were doing one of those many reading sessions. [52:37] They examined the scripts and searched for dramaturgical elements in it as the director navigates with the writer to rewrite it again and again. 

To conclude, dramaturgy – personally – is very much about a way of articulating: why I like the particular work or why I didn't like the particular work. It's because I never really felt confident in talking about; for example, when I like to work and when everyone else is saying that or it wasn't very good, or it was really bad. People very often tell me that I’m not being honest or being too polite. When I try to find a kind of dramaturgical structure within the work, it helped me to understand why I like the work and why I didn’t like the work. Professionally speaking, this method strengthens my work as a producer to support the artists and develop their relationship with the audience. I think it was mentioned in the keynote lecture, from the producer’s perspective that the dramaturgical process does not end in creation of works. Whenever a work is finished, it is not finished, whether in writing or in physical rehearsals. It continues to happen during the performance and when it encounters the audience. Hence, the ultimate and very simple question involving dramaturgy for me is to ask: what is a good work? While we all know that there is no singular answer to that question and ultimately, performing artists are live art; the value of the work is constantly changing, created, and disposed as there is no value that is inherent or unchanging. For me, dramaturgical work involves constant assessments of such values. It may change when it encounters different groups of audiences and it needs to happen from both ends; from the side of the artist who creates work or from the audience side as well. I’m quite interested in and dramaturgy of those that works, meeting audience, and many from the point of view of programming or curation as well. I hope this can be discussed further in the session. Thank you.

MD: Thank you very much, Kei. Interestingly, the three presentations have highlighted the audience or the role of the audience so far. I think that the intersection of the three presentations highlighting the audiences is interesting for me. I think the example you gave about the reenactment of a fictionalization of a Korean ritual in Kobe is quite fascinating in terms of inter- and intra-cultural dialogue that's happening. The Kobe Asia Contemporary Dance Festival is quite a fascinating one that has gone on for four rounds, right? And your last question on “what is a good work” is not a simple question at all; that is the most impossible question. So, over to How Ngean on that note. 

HN: Thank you so much Marion and all the previous speakers. I'm just going to flash a series of slides containing some of the things that I have collected over the years of what people are saying about dramaturgy and the dramaturg. 

I fell into the role of a dramaturg by accident in 2009 when Esplanade was launching a platform for young choreographers. What happened was that through the recommendation and introductions – some of you might know him – [56:51] Tang Fu Kuen recommended that perhaps I should dramaturg with this particular young choreographer. I did not know what I was doing at that time. Having said that, it's 2018 and I am still struggling to understand what I'm doing. I have clear ideas sometimes and sometimes I don't. Clear ideas come when I am working on a particular project. I do believe that the role of the dramaturg is one that has to be experienced because there are lots of theories, concepts, philosophies behind the term ‘dramaturgy’. There are even more theories and concepts behind the term ‘dramaturg’. 

In our Asian Dramaturg’s Network inaugural meeting in 2016 in Singapore, I think Charlene brought it up earlier, we had a very fruitful session talking about the ‘dramaturg’ and ‘dramaturgy’; understanding in different ways, languages, and definitions of ‘dramaturgy’ and ‘dramaturg’ from our friends from across Asia. We were lucky to have commentary, inputs, opinions from Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Australia. We had a lot of discussions about how we are saying dramaturgy and the dramaturg in different ways: based on the languages that we come from, that we have grown up with. One of the most enlightening ones came from [unclear] from Indonesia. She used two words, and I’m picking up one now: “Pengganggu”. Another earlier word that she has used: “pendamping/berdamping”, was formulated in one of the projects that she was doing with [unclear]. It was also trying to develop and nurture and to have a platform for young choreographers. With [unclear], who is the director of[unclear], realized that there is a need for a dramaturg to look at dramaturgy with new creations of the young choreographers. This is an anecdote and my recollection of what he had told me and it was supported by [unclear], whom I met recently. The word “pendamping/berdamping”, which means “to be a friend; to be next to you; to be side by side”. “-damping” is the root word of “side by side”. They chose that word as it connotated something more neutral, something not too heavy because they were struggling with the term "mentor" that had all the baggage of hierarchy, authority, dictators. But, [unclear] thought that perhaps the word “pendamping/berdamping” was a little too passive, too soft and they moved on to the word “pengganggu”, which was explained as a disturber; an interventionist and an interlocutor. We really liked it at the symposium because here, the “mengganggu”: the intervention, the disturbance, was always meant in a productive manner. It is playful as Rustom rightly said just now: humor plays a large part in the way we practice art, even in culture. But the idea of this intervention, the critical basis, is more important to me. It must contain criticality – "kritis". And that is what I have been trying to think about dramaturgy and the role of the dramaturg. In my own formation, there were a few ways of looking at it and it’s nothing new as they are gathered from getting information from books everywhere and these are also some of the things I believe in. 

The dramaturg is more than just a first audience; a dramaturg is an informed audience that has the care of criticality for the performance. The dramaturg gives feedback and commentary that are important to the work. It is beneficial to only a dramaturg – one person – as I feel that this criticality becomes consistent and having someone is helping to watch over, like “jaga”, the work. A dramaturg is also someone who looks at the big picture. We are all just completely stealing everything from Rustom; the idea of dramaturgy from beginning to end where the role of the dramaturg doesn’t end with the end of the performance, it carries on post-performance. From the point of view of dramaturgy expanded from theatre – because I am an arts dramaturg – I look at dramaturgy from other aspects other than written texts, [1:03:18]“gerak tubuh”, the physical vocabulary, “pola gerakan”, or what we call in Malay, “pola lantai". There is still some kind of narrative that is sometimes used in choreography. Then there is a larger concern for aesthetics of the performance; from lighting to sound, to set and scenography. 

Now, I will just reflect on some of the ideas that some of my choreographers and people I’ve worked with, have come up with after they have started working with me; on how they see the role of the dramaturg. I worked mostly with Pichet Klunchun, a contemporary Thai choreographer, in the last few years. He has training or foundation in a classical Thai form called Khon, which has very strong similarities with some of the classical vocabulary and styles of your classical Indonesian dance dramas. For Pichet, he told me, and this was a quote taken from an article with Goethe Institut’s Dance Connections [Tanzconnexions]: “the Dramaturg is the watcher who observes choreographer and the work under creation phase then gives feedback from the different perspectives. Comments from the dramaturg are important because they can help the choreographer get back to focusing on the right track. The Dramaturg is 'the third eye' for the choreographer.” For him, when I started my work relationship with Pichet, the premise was very simple: he needed someone to talk to. He needed a sounding board. At that time, the first project that I did with him was back in 2013 where I was still unfamiliar with the correct or official terminologies of the dramaturg and dramaturgy. I was very excited to be working with someone like him, but at the same time, there were a lot of insecurities in me. I asked his producer, his manager, what do you think Pichet needs from me. The producers, [unclear] said that he just needs someone to talk to. When I first heard his response, I went: “what?”. I cannot quite understand that as I was coming in as an official title. It was the first time that I was commissioned and hired by the Esplanade Arts Centre, who had commissioned Pichet for this new work. There were contracts that were signed and my name was there. There was a little funny story where they had problems defining what my role was but they had the title: ‘Esplanade Arts Centre is employing Lim How Ngean for the role of the dramaturg.’ Producers from Esplanade constantly called me and said “we have problems with your contract, we need to define it” – that has not been resolved till today. But this is a reflection from Pichet after working with me for the first time. Obviously, it has gone on to deeper layers for the simple reason that we have moved onto our second project now. I will say with Pichet, because of his need to talk, we did a lot of that. And I stayed with him for two months of his creation process in his studio. We had the luxury of time and I would not deny that we had the luxury of money as Esplanade paid me well and they allowed me to have per diem where I can really function for those two months fully as a dramaturg. It was a luxury and it is a luxury I do not take for granted because I know it is not easy unless you come from Schaubühne in Germany, for instance. 

Pichet, at that time when we were working on “Black and White”, was very concerned with developing his vocabulary from classical to contemporary and wanted to look at the physical vocabulary. We did talk a lot about the narrative and themes when he said he needed someone to look into that. With some experience in performance and taking a lot of classes from Pichet himself where I participated in his classes in the morning to understand the Thai classical movements, I could then access his rehearsals and what he was trying to create and experiment with the Thai classical form. Yet, the most useful thing for him was to keep talking to me. The thing about being a dramaturg: they always say will be that we question a lot. With Pichet, I had the privilege and luxury of someone always questioning me. Then, I had to either give him my point of view or to return a question with a question in a playful way. If I ask my choreographers a question, I do not expect an immediate answer. The questions are usually for them to reflect and to think. Therefore, time is needed when working together so that there is time to distill ideas and to grow the ideas. Often, I asked Pichet questions and I will tell him not to answer. And he won't. But because he is a sharp artist, a sharp man, and very intelligent, I will sometimes get answers a week later. In fact, he being playful again where won't even tell me unless we are back at the studio. So, my understanding of the dramaturg is being informed by doing in the studio. As Charlene has already proposed: the idea of deep listening and the idea of positioning myself. I didn’t even know all that, so thank you again Charlene for that. 

I’m going to wrap up very quickly for now and I’m going to show you another slide. I’ve just started working Eko Supriyanto who has also recently started a relationship with dramaturg in all his works. He has a different opinion but also long the same lines: the idea of that the dramaturg as his partner in the creation process; his artistic partner that he can trust in considering critical feedback, giving responses to the work that they are doing and to the processes that are happening. He talks about how we will get into lengthy discussions about all areas and aspects of the performance or the creation that he is going into. He covers it all: choreography, vocabulary, music, and scenography. These are some of my ideas that I am still trying to formulate around how we can talk about the role of a dramaturg and what it means to do dramaturgy. Thank you. [Applause]

MD: Thank you How Ngean. I think we will open to the audience for questions as we are running out of time and I’m sure people are getting hungry for lunch. So yes, questions or comments or concerns?

Audience: Simple question to all of you since 3 of your projects were site-specific:what happens with site-specific dramaturgy and are there any specific demands? 

TD/HN: [1:12:41]They have taken into consideration the demands of site-specific performance. In fact, their members have always started discussing differences between site-specific performance and performing in a theatre. To Taufik, their group emphasized on translating the work from site-specific into the theatre or gallery and what was possible and/or not possible to take. 

I’m going to shorten that. It does boil down to context when a work is being done under site-specific conditions; the reverberations of the context is obviously stronger. And I think what he's trying to say, Taufik and his group are still grappling with an empty space in the gallery and how do you fill-up the context that was ‘soul’ part of the site.  

That’s quite interesting. There’s also the issue of how we show or indicate the problems of doing something in that performance space, to show the absence of that context from the sites they were doing it in. 

CR: In “Both Sides, Now”, there were two processes that are very critical before the artist starts imagining the processes. One is finding partners in whatever context that is. Initially, it was the hospital and then particular locations. So, they're not just spaces and this is particularly pertinent to Phase 3 where the senior centers or social organizations, which are based in these particular locations, become partners.

Then, there's the field trip where everybody has to go for a walkabout, to read, to listen to what's going on there; figuring out the demographics of who are people in the neighborhood and so on. I think in terms of the team's dramaturgical thinking… It's a lot of to-and-fros because one is imagining based on what you have already done, whether it's on the site or not, and what you imagine will work. Then there's to-and-fro of discussions of agreement and disagreement, arguments, and thinking about it. The site is unlike Taufik’s project. It's not a resource for the material that comes out in the work. The artwork is not trying to deal with the site in that way, but it’s more the people who live and walk through that site; people for whom the site is an ordinary space that you pass through, and how to then design for that site to become a place where you pause a little while. I think that becomes the real challenge because audiences can be coming from the market; or coming from work and they’re going home; or they’re coming from home and going shopping, etc This is the kind of intervention. Some people of course are coming to see because they are the audience so it is working quite differently in relation to how dramaturgical thinking is at work.

KS: I have a few examples that I presented. The first one at Tottori where we built the theatre from the school gymnasium. The works we presented there were not necessarily site-specific, but the place was very specific. The audience came to our theatre because they want to see something – not necessarily anything in particular – but they want to see something in that theater. Through running a theatre, we established that relationship and the audience build on their theatrical experiences. You could say this is a dramaturgy of the place rather than a dramaturgical work. However, after spending 10 years there, I realized that this is a dangerous practice – and maybe is still going occurring. As we have built a relationship and we are very close to each other, we feel like we know that the audiences very well and we start defining them in terms of what they like and what they don't like. We then stopped challenging the audience and we started thinking of what might suit them. I think that’s the difficulty that may be discussed in the afternoon as well. 

The Kobe example was a very site-specific work. It was almost as if the people who were on stage and people who are watching the work were interchangeable. We were building on some audience experience on stage, and maybe vice versa. In fact, we had two performances on two different days and the performances were completely different. In that respect, it was very site-specific. 

As a secret story on the second performance, the director, who was also in performance, started crying as he was too emotional towards the end. Then I had to step in to dramaturg. 

MD: In Malaysia, at least, there’s a huge misunderstanding and misuse of the word ‘site-specific’ in dance.. Choreographers and dancers rehearse in the studio and then go and perform in the jungle and say it’s a site-specific work. 

I think “Both Sides, Now” is clearly not a site-specific work and they’re not saying it is. But I think it is taking the work to a familiar site, that has a feeling of comfort and home to the residents and bringing the work. So, it's bringing the work out into the community. Hopefully, then, they can receive the work without that kind of antagonism or hierarchy – oh I have to go to the theatre, I have to dress a particular way, I have to buy a ticket, etc. I think we misuse the word a lot. 

Any questions? Right at the back.

Audience: [inaudible 1:22:33] Hierarchy and the role… How the dynamics of power relationship… between dramaturg… you mentioned Pichet and choreographer… For example, if I compare with my experience working as a curator, if I work with an artist and we do solo exhibitions, the name of the artist is there. So I'm just curious, how you guys play with the power dynamics or relationship with the artists and choreographer. Thank you.

HN: I’ll start first. Thank you, that’s a very interesting question. The short version is that, with Marion’s introduction of me as a performer, I’ve discovered that I'm a lazy performer and a lazy performance maker. I have no intention of making a performance. I love not only the idea of performance-making but the process of making it: I love the activity and process of performance-making. I'm not exactly the person to come to talk about the product. At the same time, I also understand there must be a performance [unclear]. There is never a time when there is a sense of envy for that project where my name is not there. I think if anyone ever has that kind of thinking, I would say: please do not become a dramaturg and please find ways to produce your own work – that’s number one. Number two: it is not exactly true when you say that we are not accredited. It is in the program; my name is there, except that of course, it's not as obvious or even prominent as the curator, for example. However, as a dramaturg, I do question myself as in where I position myself. As what Charlene said, not just physically, but mentally and intellectually in the work. A lot of us who have tried to do dramaturgical work, one of the things that we always say is that we serve the work. We don’t exactly serve the maker. It’s the work. I think that has to be clear for me. When I start instructing my choreographer, that is the day I will say I need to stop being a dramaturg.

CR: I think is important to recognize that there are politics in doing invisible work. As a dramaturg, this is a privilege for me because it in some ways means I had to question the whole way in which accreditation and commodification happen – like if there is something that you said or as the inventor, you can go and get an intellectual property for that. This kind of process in a neoliberal economic world is very, very detrimental to artistic work which relies on openness and interaction. Therefore, I think that whether or not a dramaturg is credited is important; I'm not saying that you should be completely invisible in the creative team, but you can’t say “this happened because of me”. I mean there are a few instances where you might be able to say “okay, I said this so this happened”, but that's reducing the role to very a small... The larger question is that there is so much in the liminal space, the in-between space, and therefore, non-visible production that is felt and accumulated. So, as much as we are building on each other; stealing from each other; and inventing from each other, that kind of opportunity become more present when you have a collaborative ensemble: a collective space in which the dramaturg is a reminder that it's happening but actually everybody else is doing it with you.

MD: We have three more minutes, How Ngean says no more minutes but the lady boss said three more minutes, so I’ll go with lady boss. Any more questions? 

Audience: [1:28:43 inaudible] You brought up the big picture of the neoliberal economy which is politically, economically, and involves big decisions… I think they are significant in the art world. The theatre world does function relatively different economies. Because you can get tremendous profit from the art world… accreditation is absolutely mandatory because ‘it is my property’. What you said bothered me a lot about the art world. For example, in Bombay which is very commercial, is that when critics – they may call themselves curators – are now putting their criticism on the wall like artworks. I have a slight problem with that. It is not that I don't want my name to accredited to what I write, obviously, but… to give it that kind of attention as soon as I step into the space and I see my name on the wall.. that becomes quite normal in the art world. Dramaturgy to do that, that would be laughed at and frankly could be embarrassing. I like the fact that you're right, having used the word invisible - I don't mind being invisible. It doesn't mean that I lose negotiation or questioning… In that in-between position, the liminal position is a powerful position to make. It's more fluid abd that's what I like about being in the middle. 

MD: I think it is very complex because... I think the whole business of accreditation… I think to a lot of artists… There is also a generational aspect to this. I think the older you are then you might feel that you don’t need it already as you have done so much. But there's a new category in the world of artmaking called ‘creative producer’. The creative producer will very strongly say “I do not serve the work. I do not serve anybody or the work”. The creative producers want to be credited as a “creative producer”. I'm not sure what that means yet, but it is fairly new. I think it is coming from Korea and Japan, and eventually coming down to Southeast Asia. So, it's very complex and there is a huge amount of politics in that in those categories and where the name is placed: are you above the executive producer are you below? For some of us, we may think it is enough and we do not need it, but I think it's very important for some people. Alright, last question? Oh, yes, sure, sorry.  

KS: I don’t think creative producers particularly came out from Japan. I think it originated from the UK. Also, it is slightly different from the producers in American commercial theatre. For example, Broadway that you mentioned, which is at the top of the hierarchy, [1:32:44] auditioning as well as everyone? I think it is slightly different. They still try to kind of mingle itself and question itself. But I think the whole thing about ownership is really interesting and what I realized that especially in the UK: if it is a play, not necessarily about theatre, the writer’s names are always at the top. So, the play title – by someone – is below is the director. Whereas for example, in a very director-led production, director Suzuki, he puts his name at both the name of the writer for example [1:33:16] check off, his name is above check off. So, that’s a different theatre-making culture. What I’m interested in is that ultimately, how important is the owner/order to the audience? How much do they want to know? In terms of receiving the work and I think that’s the more important question to be discovered. 

MD: Time is up but we have one last question. 

Audience: [1:33:48 spoke in Bahasa] 

HN: Let me translate that very quickly. [unclear] is just commenting about we've been talking a lot about different ideas of what the dramaturg does, what does he/she do from looking at audience response; to all the different kind of decision making elements that go into a performance with the director or the choreographer. I guess his question is the negotiation of what is important: what are the important questions that the dramaturg will have to face in the process of making the performance. 

MD: I think it is a good question to end on because it is a huge question and it’s a very complex answer but [1:35:37 Bahasa]. So maybe we’ll get some answers over the next few days. Thank you very much to everyone. Thank you to the presenters. [Applause]