Directing and Dramaturgy
Working Group Statement
Co-Convenors:
- David Barnett, University of Sussex
- Peter M Boenisch, University of Kent (until September 2012)
- Jacqueline Bolton, University of Reading/V&A (from September 2012)
- Sarah Grochala, Queen Mary, University of London
- Lourdes Orozco, University of Leeds
Our working group was originally founded by the late David Bradby under the name of “Directors/Collectives”. Our change of name in 2010 reflected our members’ widespread interests which encompass a wide range of contemporary theatre, dance and performance practice across all genres. We continue to pursue the group’s original ambition of exploring artistic work and academic perspectives that defy and challenge established preconceptions of neat and tidy categories such as ‘playwrights’ theatre’, ‘directors’ theatre’, ‘dance’ and ‘devised performance’. At the same time, we have expanded our understanding of ‘collective creation’ to also include reflections on the spectators’ role and complicity in the event of performance. Our expanding focus was, in particular signalled by including the emerging field of dramaturgy in our remit.
We are a group of academics and practitioners working in/on a variety of different forms and capacities, from classical drama to dance, puppet theatre to playwriting. We also interact closely with theatre professionals, including the Dramaturgs Network, as well as working groups on related topics in other international subject organisations such as the German Society for Theatre Studies. Our main intention is to provide a stimulating platform for exchange and debate both at the annual TaPRA conferences and by organising interim events on a specific topic/focus, often with invited guest speakers. So far, we invited Ivo van Hove (Toneelgroep Amsterdam), Toni Racklin (Barbican), Simon Stephens, Sebastian Nübling, Lizzie Clachan (Shunt), Ramin Gray as well as academic speakers Alan Read, Maria Delgado, Johan Callens, Robert Shaughnessy and Dan Rebellato to participate in our one-day workshops.
For our work, we have set ourselves the following aims:
- to explore working practices in different forms and genres, and to reflect their artistic as well as socially situated and ideological contexts
- to test and articulate terminologies and methodologies for the study of directing and dramaturgic practice
- to define and conceptualise processes of authorship and spectatorship,
- to investigate contemporary performance relations of narratives, performing bodies, and theatre technologies that transcend the binary opposition of ‘text-based drama’ and ‘devised performance’, and builds transdisciplinary bridges to other fields, such as dance and the visual arts.
- to explore the reflection of aesthetic, social, and ethic responsibilities of theatre in the changing socio-cultural contexts of the twenty-first century.
The Group operates a website and mailing list at http://groupspaces.com/TaPRADirDram/
