ADN Conference 2019: Dramaturgy and the Human Condition

Speakers: Lim How Ngean, Charlene Rajendran

What does it mean to work as a dramaturg or with a dramaturg in Asia? Is there an ‘Asian’ or ‘Asia-based’ dramaturg or dramaturgy? This panel engages with how performing arts practitioners in Asia understand and approach the role of a dramaturg within a project, performance-oriented or otherwise. Panelists from various artistic backgrounds share their experiences working on past projects. They give insight into how they execute their roles and responsibilities in relation to their interests, expertise and contexts, articulating broader contextually-based principles of practice that have emerged in their work. Collectively, the panel examines how the dramaturg in Asia negotiates the very human process of creating art, including working with multiple collaborators, and dealing with tensions and conflicts.

While the position of dramaturg may not be clearly identified in performative practices in Asia, the concept of dramaturgy certainly has a presence in traditional, contemporary, educational and community-oriented practices. This keynote presentation will examine the notion of dramaturgy in Asia and its expanding role in context of the 21st century. It will discuss how the shaping a production or performance is not necessarily limited to writers and directors but may involve traditional and contemporary cultural leaders or mediators. The presentation looks at how some cultural or arts leaders seem to take on ‘extended dramaturgy’ that involves crafting projects and performances that embrace the larger context of historical, social and environmental domains  which takes arts practice into the public realm and involves public agency and policy. What are the key concerns and capacities that inform the work of the dramaturg in these practices, and how does the Asian context inform these changing notions of dramaturgy. Do dramaturgs impact change and choice, politics and power, translation and acculturation? 

In this roundtable, the speakers will share and discuss their responses to Janet Pillai's keynote presentation.

Since the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, concepts such as participation and assembly have been radically updated. Subsequent to Judith Butler's well-known theorization of a renewed sense of public assembly in 2015, German theorist and dramaturg Florian Malzacher has extended Butler’s ideas to consider 'theatre as assembly'. In Theatre as Assembly: Spheres of Radical Imagination and Pragmatic Utopias (2018), he examines concrete and ‘agonistic’ forms of contemporary theatre practice. 

This keynote will first introduce Malzacher’s highly contextual yet theoretically relevant notion of ‘theatre as assembly’, referring to a long-standing continental-European tradition of theatre as a self-reflexive public institution. It will then examine an alternative form of ‘theatre as assembly’ in Japan, where after a complete neo-liberalisation and de-politicisation of the cultural sphere, it has become necessary to launch a more humane exploration of culture through alternative arts platforms. More concretely, I will discuss a new kind of small scale yet politically refreshing transnational performing arts festival called Theatre Commons, where workshops and lecture-demonstrations are the main features, The curator of Theatre Commons, Soma Chiaki, viewed as a dramaturgical presenter and cultural activist, has been considered successful in creating a new kind of ‘theatre commons’ among politicised youths.

Technology in performance can range from multimedia projections and 3D sound design, to the likes of virtual and augmented realities and artificial intelligence. With technology adding layers and complexity to performance, the work of developing and maintaining dramaturgical coherence in technology-assisted/-centred performances demands critical attention. This panel features arts practitioners who have honed their art-making practices alongside the development of technology. They have developed dramaturgies which synergise art and technology in the realms of dance, storytelling, visual art and corporeality. In wielding and manipulating machinery and scientific frameworks in their artistic practices, the panelists explore the reaches of technology in/as performance, as well as the boundary between technology and humanity.

With technology adding layers and complexity to performance-making in this digital age, the work of developing and maintaining dramaturgical coherence demands critical attention. In these two workshops aimed at giving local arts practitioners insight and hands-on experience into performance and technology, artists Martyn Coutts (Australia) and Su Wen-Chi (Taiwan) will each conduct a four-hour immersive workshop that will highlight their ways of working with technology in performance.

The workshops are offered free of charge to arts practitioners based in Singapore. Interested parties are required to submit their applications for evaluation and selection. More registration details are available in the individual workshop pages linked below.

With the backdrop of Singapore embarking on its bicentennial celebrations, the performance of history in Asia is a potent site from which to excavate alternative and forgotten notions of what it means to be human. Dramaturgs and artists in the region and beyond have worked to reimagine nationalist narratives, unearth marginalised histories, rethink social cultural reenactments as remembrance, and reconfigure political expressions through memorialisation. This panel focuses on the relationship between past, present and future in performance-making, critically engaging with what it means to take on the responsibility and burden of historical reflection in order to (re)imagine the future. Panelists also address questions about how the performance of history can interrogate the role of humans in the present, and advance a critical consciousness towards more inclusive and just futures.

Speakers: Lim How Ngean, Charlene Rajendran