Thesis for fake doctoral degree (f.Ph.D.)

Stockholm 2011

Dramaturgy and manipulation of emotions from a dance perspective

Kai Eng

Sveta’s School

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Abstract

Dramaturgy is historically associated with the representation of dramatic elements on stage, and

originates from the field of theatre. It can be defined on its most basic level, as the art of composing

a performance. While the current trend of hiring professional dramaturgs for dance productions

seems to imply that choreographers are not dramaturgs, there is a lot of dramaturgy that naturally

has to happen during the production of any performance, be it focused on dance, mime, or theatre,

and whether there is a dramaturg present or not. In this thesis, I investigate the dramaturgical

aspects of four performance projects that I have been involved in. In each project, different

elements of a performance were composed and arranged so that there would be a meaningful

context for the events happening on stage. The textual content was reduced, where possible, to a

minimum, so that the dance language may be the dominant language during the performance. In the

resulting performance projects, there were many instances where dance, rather than text, was used

to convey meaning. However, text remained a central force for making the performances cohesive,

and was also used to manipulate emotions in the audience. I also investigated the use of humour in

performance-making, as well as the relationship between improvisation and composition. Taken

together, this thesis highlights various aspects of combining dance and text to create performances

that conveyed meaning to the audience and engaged their emotions.

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List of projects

I. Don’t Let the Shrink Shrink You

Kai Eng

Karolinska Institutet (January 2010)

II. House Hole

Kai Eng, Sviatlana Viarbitskaya, piak

Fylkingen (June 2010)

III. My Mind is Pie - a Horredy

Kai Eng, Sviatlana Viarbitskaya

Moderna Dansteatern VALVET Open (November 2010)

IV. The Prayer

Kai Eng, Martin Eklund

M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2012 (February 2012)

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Contents

1. Introduction

1.1 Dramaturgy past and present ………………………………………………………………………………………. 5

1.2 Dramaturgy as applied to dance theatre ..…………………………………………………………………….. 5

1.3 Dramaturgy done by the choreographer ..……………………………………………………………………. 5

1.4 Thesis-specific definition of dramaturgy ..……………………..……………………………………………… 6

1.5 Manipulation of audience emotions ………………………………….……………………………………….… 6

1.6 The use of humour ..……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6

1.7 Improvisation and composition ……....…………………………………………………………………………… 6

2. Aims ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8

3. Methodology

3.1 Project I ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9

3.2 Project II …………..………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9

3.3 Project III ……….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9

3.4 Project IV ……….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9

4. Results and discussion

4.1 Mix of dance and text to contextualise dance …………………………………………………………….. 11

4.2 Dramaturgic approach from a dancer's perspective …………………………………………………… 12

4.3 Manipulation of emotions through specific use of happy expression

during sad scenes …………………………………………………….……………………………………….……….. 13

4.4 Generation of humour through a choice of non-performance ………….……………….……….. 15

4.5 Differential roles for textual and movement language ……………………..……………….……….. 15

4.6 The improvisation process, and its relation to choreography …………………………….……….. 16

5. Conclusion and future perspectives ………………………………………………………………………………….. 19

6. Acknowledgements ………………………………………………….……………………………………….……………… 20

7. References ………………………………………………….……………………………………….…………………………… 21

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1. Introduction

1.1 Dramaturgy past and present

Dramaturgy is a process by which dramatic elements are represented on stage, and traditionally

belonged to the field of theatre. The theatre dramarturg may do research on the historical and

socially pertinent aspects of the play, and help to refine the script or assist the director in any other

way so that the meaning and context of the play becomes clear when the play is brought to live on

stage. In the field of dance, dramaturgy can be argued to already have been present in ballets such

as “Swan Lake” (Traub, 2011), where there are dramatic elements, such as a storyline, along with

protagonists and antagonists, embedded within the structure of the dance performance. As modern

dance became popular, dancers and dance-makers sought to represent movement itself as a

legitimate language carrying its own valid meaning, and dance came to exist independently without

the need for a “story” or dramatic elements to support the movement language. However, in recent

years the use of dramaturgy in dance has become increasingly popular and at the same time the

definition of dance dramaturgy has expanded to become broad and nebulous (deLahunta, 2000).

Today dramaturgy for dance is far from being confined to creating a storyline or making a piece

more understandable for an audience. The nature of dance performances is also such that very often,

storylines do not play a major role.

1.2 Dramaturgy as applied to dance theatre

Professional dramaturgs are employed by such companies as Wuppertal Tanztheater, Les Ballets C

de la B, and DV8 Physical Theatre, which all work in the fields of dance theatre or physical theatre.

These companies heavily use a devising process to guide the making of their work, and dramaturgs

assist by providing ideas, translating ideas of a specific type (linguistic, scientific, etc) into a

performable form, and generally providing insight as the first audience of a given work-in-progress

(Eriksen, 2001).

1.3 Dramaturgy done by the choreographer

Choreographer Michaela Meschke, whom I met at Stockholm Fringe Festival 2011, regards herself as

a choreographer who works with dramaturgy. During the introduction to her workshop on “playing”,

she explained that she would like to have a session where we can just meet and play with one

another, because as a choreographer she is often caught up in dramaturgical work and it often gets

too serious – there is no space for letting loose and having fun. I took this to mean that

dramaturgical work is “boring, serious work” and I interpreted this using my own experiences. While

choreographing dance can be intuitive, motivated purely by the body’s desire to move and the

mind’s ability to structure movement into aesthetically pleasing patterns, dramaturgical work seems

to be less intuitive, less “easy” and flowing. For me, when I try to arrange performance material into

a sequence that makes sense in the context of the overall performance, I have to be logical and

brutal – I have to remove material that does not fit, and I have to come up with solutions for

loopholes that only become apparent when the different parts of the show are seen together as a

whole. The work of dramaturgy thus seems to be the structuring work done at a more macroscopic

level than the structuring of movement sequences (that which the choreographer finds natural and

is used to), and encompasses all the different media involved within one performance project.

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1.4 Thesis-specific definition of dramaturgy

To clarify the scope of the present thesis, a definition of dramaturgy needs to be applied to the

thesis. In this thesis, I broadly define dramaturgy as “the art of composing a performance” and I use

the term synonymously with what some may refer to as “artistic choice” in composing a

performance.

1.5 Manipulation of audience emotions

An important aspect of performance art is its communication with the audience, and communication

may of course not only affect the intellect but also the emotions of the audience. There are various

schools of thought regarding the manipulation of audience emotions, many stemming from

theatrical or film practice. “Grow in the dark” by Peder Bjurman and Leif Jordansson, is an

experimental theatre piece that will be performed at Moderna Dansteatern from 30 September to 2

October 2011. It seeks to investigate the non-manipulation of audience emotions by using a mouse

to control the playing of potentially manipulative music. Here I quote the musician/composer Leif

Jordansson speaking about “Grow in the dark”:

When I compose for a film I can decide how the music will work to give the film a push in a certain

direction and together with the director I can manipulate the audience to feel what is going on or

what will happen. This is pure manipulation and the audience are there because the want to be

manipulated. That’s the idea of film. But what if the manipulation is done by a mouse in a box who

accidentally steps on a trigger that will start melodramatic music or an audio file with sitcom

laughter. (Jordansson, 2011)

In this thesis, I will discuss the work that I have been involved in that aimed to do the opposite of

“Grow in the dark”. Rather than remove the element of intentional manipulation, the work was

intentionally manipulative, and in this thesis I attempt to dissect in detail, a particular method that I

used for the manipulation.

1.6 The use of humour

The three most famous theories of humour (Krikmann, 2007) are the incongruity theory, where

humour occurs upon the realisation and resolution of incongruity; the superiority theory, where

humour is a way to make fun of outsider groups and establish superiority amongst the joking group;

and the relief theory, where humour functions as a mechanism for the release of sexual, or dramatic

tensions (e.g. comic relief is effective within a movie when inserted into a sequence that has a high

level of suspense and tension). The use of humour in my work has fallen into both the “incongruity”

and “release of tensions” categories. The intentional use of humour within a performance requires

the performer to be able to convey the humorous element effectively. As a choreographer and

dramaturg I have found that I enjoy using humour to not only entertain but also provide

psychological relief, and humour is a consistent part of my work. Since I am a dancer, I am not

necessarily good at telling jokes, but I have found some ways to be funny that require minimal acting.

1.7 Improvisation and composition

Improvisation has traditionally been used by music composers as a necessary route towards

composition. When discussing composition, the musician/composer Martin Eklund said that “all

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composition comes from improvisation” (personal communication), recognising the importance of

improvisation. While historically, some composers have gone as far as to believe that improvisation

has no value apart from it being the method through which composition is achieved, the advent of

jazz music changed the status of improvisation and made it commonplace for improvisation to be

used directly as performance. Today, improvisation as both a starting point for research and

composition, as well as performative in its own right, has entered the spheres of theatre and dance.

Interestingly, Ivar Hagendoorn argues that dance choreographers can generate complexity in a

dance piece only up to a certain extent, as complexity is limited by the choreographer having to

communicate the complexity to the dancers (Hagendoorn, 2002), highlighting the enormous amount

of complexity improvisation, as opposed to choreography, can generate.

I investigated the relationship between composition and improvisation in a series of workshops

initiated and conducted by Sviatlana Viarbitskaya, “Unmaking House Hole” (Viarbitskaya, 2011), and

in this thesis I will discuss a model of different modes of improvisation derived from this workshop.

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2. Aims

The general aims of this thesis are to increase our understanding of the process through which a

performance may be made, with an emphasis on dramaturgical and compositional choices, and to

enhance our understanding of the effect the dramaturgical choices have for the intentional

manipulation of audience emotions.

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3. Methodology

The overarching methodology for all four projects was to choose a theme for each project, and

abandon the theme during the course of evolution of the project. Details for each project are

described below.

3.1 Project I

A theme for the performance was chosen, and a linear narrative was written so that all parts of the

show, including dance sequences that specifically dealt with certain topics, would fit into a linear

storyline. The narrative served as a way to immediately start rehearsing certain parts, and the

rehearsing of those parts generated ideas for many dances and other performative elements that

were not originally intended as part of the show. These new ideas were inserted into the structure

of the show, changing the show radically from what it was originally conceived to be. Many elements

that were originally intended were removed from the show since the other elements that had

appeared by chance were judged more effective and interesting. The sequence of the different parts

of the show was continually revised. The final performance appeared to be a montage and not only

did not have a storyline, it also appeared not to have an obvious theme.

3.2 Project II

A brainstorm session was conducted after Sviatlana Viarbitskaya suggested the theme of “Family”,

and a very rough draft of proposed scenes emerged. Sviatlana Viarbitskaya, piak and I then

independently composed different units of dance or theatre, sometimes according to the rough

draft, but mostly according to inspiration relating to the theme of “Family”. The scenes that were

eventually made were thus very different from those stated in the first draft. We rehearsed all the

units without knowing exactly what the beginning, middle or end of the performance was. We finally

arranged all the scenes in as logical a way as possible when we felt we had enough material, and

fortuitously discovered a vague storyline that existed within the scenes. We also created extra

material to link the scenes together.

3.3 Project III

The original agreed-upon theme was “escaping reality”. But we had no real method, and I first

devised a short sequence related to teenagers who would do a complex greeting ritual that was

extended from a simple handshake into a sequence of high-fives, low-fives, bumping shoulders and

so on. I also had a vision of Sviatlana Viarbitskaya appearing as a man, and I had other ideas floating

around, that I wanted to emulate from other performances I had watched. One of these was to

speak in canon (like in a musical canon, where a phrase is started by one voice, and then a

subsequent voice starts the same phrase after a certain measure of time). With some brainstorming

I managed to combine the list of things I wanted to try, into a short piece.

3.4 Project IV

I had a given theme (Art and Faith) and I had to design a show that I knew could not deviate from

this theme (since I already promised the festival curators that my work had this theme). This was

hard for me because I became very goal-oriented and wanted to generate material that was

obviously in line with the theme, while previously I had gotten used to generating almost-anything-

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in-the-world and letting it fall into place. I approached the project by making a storyline that I

thought fit with the theme. Once I started rehearsing, the storyline became obviously useless, and

when I encountered dead ends, I let myself choose something else that might not be obviously

linked to the theme.

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4. Results and discussion

4.1 Mix of dance and text to contextualise dance

In each of the four projects, dance was given a context, a reason for its existence. The dances never

existed in a vacuum and were never solely about the composition of movement; they were not

purely exercises in aesthetics.

Sometimes, the context of the dance was shown through the movement vocabulary and the

accompanying music. For example, in Project II, sharp and contorted movements were danced to

violent music. In Project III, extended, flowy movements were danced to romantic music. While

dance exists independently of music, dance is commonly set to music, and thus the setting of

context with the aid of music is a fairly widespread practice.

Other times, the context for the dance was outlined by text or theatrical elements. For example, in

Project I, a poem about flight was recited while a light, playful dance was performed. In Project IV, a

dance based on the physical gestures of prayer was performed right after a show-and-tell session

where I spoke to the audience about different bodily positions for prayer.

A question arises as to whether dance as a language is insufficient. Why does dance need to be

contextualised, with the help of music or text? Can dance not speak for itself? My view is that the

dance language is definitely not insufficient and rightfully exists on its own without a need for

justification. It can certainly speak for itself. However, the ability to read the dance language and

understand it at a personal level depends on the audience’s previous encounters with the particular

movement language in question. With the presence of a context, the movement language can be

relegated to play a secondary role to the contextual premises within which it is transmitted. The

contextual premise may help an audience unfamiliar with the particular movement language to

enjoy a performance, and thus may help to bring dance into the sphere of attention of audiences

who rarely watch dance. Through these encounters audiences may gain experience with certain

movement languages, thus re-establishing the dance language to the primary language.

Another point is that dance, being visually engaging, is necessarily affected by the amount of visual

elements produced. Dancers’ bodies are used to produce the visual aspects of dance, and it

necessarily follows that the fewer the number of dancers on stage, the less bodily, spatial and

temporal permutations and combinations are available. Thus a dance that is a trio will theoretically

have more potential permutations and combinations available to it than a dance that is a solo. The

number of dancers on stage might thus set a limit on how varied, and indirectly, how engaging the

movement language becomes.

This view of movement language needing to be varied and thus engaging, is of course dependent on

the assumption that dance is to some extent, visual entertainment, and being entertainment it

needs to be varied rather than monotonous. From the point of view of dance as art, particularly the

point of view that dance should be art that seeks to question art, it is not necessary for dance to be

entertaining. But if one supposes that dance has some entertainment functions, then the fewer the

number of dancers, the less varied the dance language becomes, and thus the contextualisation of

dance helps to provide a support function, making the context itself a content of the dance, and

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increasing the amount of things the audience may notice about the dance so that the dance

becomes more entertaining.

Each of my projects had very few performers (maximum of three), and three of the projects were 45

minutes long or longer. Given that I had so few performers, and such long performances, I felt it was

necessary and natural to provide some context for the dances, so as not to bore myself or the

audience. Danjel Andersson of Moderna Dansteatern once said he was “not afraid to be bored”

(personal communication), which is an interesting point of view. I would not go so far as to say I am

afraid to be bored. But I admit that I am reluctant to be bored, and even more reluctant to be boring,

towards myself (as I am also my own audience) or towards others (audience) that I rightly or wrongly

assume may be like myself. Thus the decision to have contextual set-ups for my dances is a personal

choice.

4.2 Dramaturgic approach from a dancer's perspective

In my projects, choreography and dramaturgy combined to create a number of scenes. The resulting

scenes have characteristics that might be attributable to my dance background.

Firstly, the resulting scenes seemed to be more self-contained than in a traditional theatre piece, i.e.

many parts could be performed independently of the other parts of the same show. For example,

fragments of Project I have been performed independently of other parts of the show on two

occasions, and fragments of Project II have been independently inserted into the improvisation-

based piece “Unmaking House Hole” (Viarbitskaya, 2011). This might be because in a more

traditional theatre piece, the series of events unfolding on stage may follow a storyline, even if the

storyline is non-linear. In my projects, the final storylines were very vague, and this is because

storylines did not exist in the rehearsal process until extremely late into the process. Thus, the

starting point of the projects might have been storyline-based (as outlined in the Methodology

section), but almost immediately, the focus shifted to individual parts of the show, rather than the

overall themes or plot for the entire show. The projects were scene-based, rather than story-based,

and this might be because as a dancer, I did not have much background in theatre-making or writing

stories. It could also be due to the fact that I was inexperienced and had never made any full-length

pieces prior to 2010. Thus the easiest and most familiar way for me to work was to immediately dive

into the short scenes.

Secondly, another effect of coming from a dance background was that my scenes depended much

more on “showing” than “telling”. Physical movements were used much more than text. In Project II,

one of the characters comforted another character by putting her hand on the shoulder of the one

being comforted. In Project III, the relationship and dependency between the two characters was

shown through a dance where the characters followed each other, touched each other, or escaped

from each other. Concurrently, words were highly reduced. For Project III, I wrote substantial

amounts of text for the dialogue between the two characters, but during the rehearsal process,

more and more text was eliminated, until only the absolutely necessary remained. Admittedly, one

of the reasons for this could be that as a dancer, I am still not comfortable or confident enough to

deliver too many spoken lines on stage.

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4.3 Manipulation of emotions through specific use of happy expression during sad scenes

Throughout my work on the four projects that constitute the basis of this thesis, I consistently paid

attention to potential audience reactions. In particularly, I was concerned with potential audience

emotions.

I had noticed, when I watched DV8 Physical Theatre’s “To be straight with you" (DV8 Physical

Theatre, 2008), the character of a boy who cheerfully skipped rope and smiled, while telling the

audience about how his father and brother almost murdered him upon discovering that he was

homosexual. I was emotionally affected by this scene.

Subsequently, for Project I, I had created a dance that had a theme of suicide, and during a practise

session, I was performing this dance when I noticed the look of tension on the face of one of the

audience members. To try to dispel the tension, I smiled. Then I realised that by smiling while acting

out the actions of suicide, I had accidentally created something more gruesome, instead of dispelling

the tension.

These two episodes left me with a sense that I could perhaps purposely increase the gruesomeness,

the horribleness, of scenes if I performed horrible or sad events in a happy way. I subsequently used

this technique in all the four projects of this thesis. In Project I, I performed a dance with a mostly

sad facial expression, but put on a smiling expression whenever explicit suicide actions were mimed

during the dance, as already mentioned.

In Project I, I also did a dance where at first there was a sexy or erotic style, but subsequently the

character would masturbate and sob at the same time. After this scene of high tension and negative

emotions, I performed an extremely happy song about the benefits of self-injury (“Self Harm is Very

Nice”) while waving a big knife around. The melody was very cheerful, and the chorus of the song

encouraged the audience to “Take your knife out and cut with me, cut with me, cut with me”, and I

smiled a lot.

In Project II, I created a song that started very sadly, with sad lyrics about a girl who trusted her

father and went to her father whenever she was sad and needed comforting. The song describes

how the father would comfort the girl by kissing or hugging or having sex with her. The sister of the

girl enters the scene and sings along with the girl, confirming the situation to be true. This part of the

song was performed in a very sensitive, sad way. Then, the father enters the scene, and suddenly all

three characters smile, laugh and dance. They do a happy routine, complete with synchronised leg-

kicks, singing cheerfully about incest and insisting that “Family is for Sex”.

In Project III, a psychiatric patient who feels like she cannot tell the difference between reality and

her imaginations, begs a doctor to save her from her insanity. The doctor responds by showing her

his penis, and together they perform a happy song-and-dance sequence about how wonderful the

doctor’s penis is.

In Project IV, a woman is standing on the top of a building ready to jump off and kill herself. Her

husband arrives and starts to sing a tender song, asking her not to kill herself. It is at first sincere,

gentle and kind, but changes to be a happy, lively song about how the rich husband can afford to pay

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for the wife’s mental health bills, and if she wants electric shock treatments, or a lobotomy, she just

has to ask and he will pay for it.

The most effective use of the technique, to produce strong audience emotions, was found in Project

II, judging from audience reactions. Two audience members left the room after the scene, one of

them saying that she was afraid of what would happen next in the show.

Interestingly, the technique in Project II also produced mix results, where some audience members

were shocked and silent, while other audience members laughed along with the performers, when

the performers started to sing the happy part of the incest song. It could be that the laughter was

due to a recognition of the absurdity of the situation (“incongruity theory” mentioned in the

Introduction), or due to a release of tension that had been built up during the sad part of the song,

much like how comic relief works in movies (see Introduction, Section 1.4 and Results, Section 4.4

for more on humour).

I also realised that the technique did not work very well in Project III, because the psychiatric

patient’s suffering was not portrayed convincingly enough in that project. The audience merely

laughed at the comical song about the doctor’s penis, but mostly did not feel horror or sympathy for

the psychiatric patient. During the post-show discussion, I asked if the audience felt sympathy, and

one person said she did, a little bit. So there was some reaction, but not nearly as much as in Project

II where people got up and left the room. I concluded that a convincing state of suffering was a

necessary precondition for audience members to feel horror or sympathy when a sad, emotionally

disturbing scene suddenly turned happy and even more emotionally disturbing.

I am not sure which emotions are aroused in the audience and I have tentatively identified them as

sympathy and horror. These emotions might arise due to the stage character’s apparent inability to

recognise a traumatic situation as a traumatic one, instead responding to it with happiness. It is

interesting that this situation should provoke a response. In real life, if we encounter people who we

think ought to be unhappy or traumatised because of events that have happened to them, but

instead respond positively to traumatic events, we might stubbornly assert our points of view and

think that the “victim” in question is in denial and has not yet realised how victimised he or she

really has been. An interesting and purely speculative question outside the scope of this thesis is

whether someone who might be less prone to asserting victimhood on others in real life, might feel

less sympathetic towards the stage characters in these performance projects, and react with more

laughter (due to the absurdity of the situation) than sympathy or horror.

Another interesting question is whether the technique can possibly be used effectively the other

way round: perform a happy scene in a horrible way, to make it more happy. I think it is possible. For

example, on YouTube there is a Happy Birthday song sung by Satan, which I think exemplifies this:

It’s your birthday, happy birthday,

People dying everywhere, people living in despair, on your birthday.

Happy birthday. Hahahahaha…

(Train of Thought Sketch Comedy, 2006)

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4.4 Generation of humour through a choice of non-performance

In Project I, one of the scenes is a pseudo-scientific PowerPoint presentation about a novel method

for the measurement of the volume of a pair of human buttocks. The scene is performed with

complete seriousness. This choice was deemed funnier than performing the scene in any

exaggerated, hyper-scholarly, bombastic or eccentric style.

The choice of non-performance could be directly related, as alluded to previously, to my background

as a dancer instead of an actress. It was probably easier for me to perform the presentation in a

normal, non-performing way, than in any exaggerated way that required me to “act”.

However, it is notable that the choice of non-performance in this case was designed to afflict and

manipulate the audience (as I judged it funnier and more engaging for the audience if I did not

“perform” the scene), as opposed to other styles of non-performance where potentially the desire

may be to not manipulate the audience.

4.5 Differential roles for textual and movement language

Interestingly, while the dramaturgical focus of the four projects emphasised dance and physical

actions, and de-emphasised text, sections of text (sometimes in combination with movements, such

as within a song-and-dance sequence) were vital for the manipulation of audience emotions within

the four projects. The need for text to help to set a convincing context within which the horror and

sympathy of the audience can be engaged, points to a key issue: is dance inherently less emotionally

engaging than text, or context that is achieved through text (i.e. some kind of back-story that is told

through words)? While I believe that dance language itself is a language capable of transmitting

information and meaning, there is a partial conflict that arises when in each project I believe I would

not have achieved much emotional engagement from the audience if I had only used dance

exclusively without words.

The dance language, while meaningful and rightfully an independent language, affects several kinds

of audience reactions. Gerald Siegmund in his article “The Desiring Body in Dance” (Siegmund, 2005)

expounds the three fundamental levels on which perception of dance occurs: the symbolic, the

imaginary, and the real. Briefly, the symbolic aspects of a dance performance deal with the overall

context in which the performance is set and may encompass metaphysical aspects of the

performance, for example the physical venue of the performance and the expectations of the

audience that they are going to watch a performance. The imaginary deals with how dance speaks to

our imaginations and desires; how during the watching of a dance performance, our minds fills in

gaps that are left empty in the dance show. Finally there is the level of the real, where the physicality

of the dancers’ bodies and the rawness of physical actions speak directly to the audience.

While Siegmund describes three fundamental levels on which dance perception occurs, he does not

mention whether any of the levels may have a higher intrinsic priority over the other levels. Granted,

a choreographer may, through intentional design, emphasise any of the three levels more than the

others. Conversely, an acute theoretician may choose to focus on any of the three levels more than

the others. Yet, is there a dominant level on which dance tends to be perceived, that is widespread

in a large number of dance performances? Intuitively, I would argue that in a pure dance piece,

which has movement as its main language, the real level, followed by the imaginary level, are the

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strongest levels on which communication and perception are achieved. This is often the cause of

dancers and choreographers not being able to put to words what their dances symbolise – the

dances in fact do not symbolise anything concrete, but exist to be perceived in terms of sensations

linked to the physical body, as well as in terms of personal imaginations.

Conversely, text-based material communicates and is perceived most strongly on the level of the

symbolic. Words can symbolise events or phenomena, in a way that dance cannot. We use words to

describe and understand everything around us, from identifying a type of fruit to explaining why the

sky is blue. We use words when we engage in dialogue with others, when we discuss art, science or

politics; and the meanings, and nuances of meanings, generated by words are deeply embedded

within our collective socio-cultural heritage.

Thus, text and dance serve as diametrically opposed communication tools that complement each

other by getting perceived on different levels. Therefore despite a dramaturgical bias towards

choosing dance over text, in each of the four projects of this thesis, text remained a central and

indispensable tool for providing a meaningful context for the performance. Since, as mentioned

previously, text was also vital for audience emotional engagement, a question arises as to whether

perception at the level of the symbolic (which text strongly deals with), is more emotive than

perception at the level of the real (which dance strongly deals with). What is emotive is of course

very subjective, but since the symbolic is by definition tied to our understanding of society and our

personal relationship with the world, it follows that this level of perception might tend to be more

universally emotive in the average population, than the perception of musculature, posture, and raw

physical movement, which today remains somewhat the specialised domain of practitioners and

analysts of dance, sport, and related fields. Thus dance is not inherently less emotionally engaging

than text in any direct sense; it just communicates on a different level than text, and the level on

which text communicates probably tends to trigger more emotional responses for the majority of

audience members.

4.6 The improvisation process, and its relation to choreography

Throughout the four projects, each piece of dance was choreographed so that there was very little

space left for improvisation during the performance. Of course, each dance was executed with a new

freshness each time it was performed, and the attitude was to perform the dances as if they were

improvised, but that is a different issue. The actual bodily movements were already decided upon,

before the performances. It could thus be argued that the four projects were “heavily

choreographed”.

“Unmaking House Hole” (Viarbitskaya, 2011) was a workshop held at Fylkingen, Stockholm, in March

2011. The workshop aimed to de-construct “House Hole” (Project II) by inserting improvisation

sequences throughout a score which was based on the material found in “House Hole”. Although

“Unmaking House Hole” is not formally a part of this thesis, my participation in “Unmaking House

Hole” and my comparisons between “House Hole” and “Unmaking House Hole” were helpful for

developing my ideas about improvisation and how improvisation relates to composition, or

choreography.

I arrived at the concept that improvisation can be done in different ways. There is not only one style

or method or approach, when one improvises. Rather, there is a whole spectrum of different ways

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one could approach improvisation. Together with Martin Eklund, I attempted to characterise the

different ways one could improvise, and Figure 1 below illustrates our model for describing, and

broadly classifying, different modes of improvisation. The model applies to a range of performance

arts including dance, theatre and music. Potentially, it could also apply to the visual arts, but I will

focus on performance arts for this thesis.

Figure 1. Model for different improvisation modes.

In the model shown in Figure 1, we have classified improvisation modes into four main categories:

Expressive, Performative, Exploratory, and Compositional. The categories are defined based on two

axes, the vertical axis being speed (the speed at which choices are made) and the horizontal axis

being application of judgement (the degree to which judgement and selection are exercised on the

available choices). Table 1 below further describes the different characteristics of each improvisation

mode and provides examples for each mode.

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Improvisation Mode

Speed Application of judgement

Improvisation is directed towards:

Examples

Expressive High Low Expression of emotions

- Dancing at a disco without controlling what it looks like (for example when drunk) - Banging on the piano without controlling what it sounds like (for example when angry)

Performative High High Performing the improvisation to a certain “standard”

- Jazz musicians - Performers on the TV show “Whose line is it anyway”

Exploratory Low Low Discovery of the new; enjoyment of the unexpected

- Improvising without any audience, and without any goals in mind

Compositional Low High Achieving composition through improvisation

- Process of traditional choreography - Process of traditional music composition - Potential process for composing devised (scriptless) theatre

Table 1. Differences between improvisation modes and examples for each mode.

It is worth noting that there are no good ways to measure the degree of application of judgement,

and potentially the measurement of the speed at which improvisational choices are made can also

be problematic, since it is hard to measure speed of response if the response is silence, inertia, or

some kind of conscious choice of non-response. Thus the variables on both axes are not easily

measurable, and the model is not meant to be a viewed in any quantitative or practical sense, but

rather is intended as a theoretical model for the classification and further understanding of

improvisation.

The present model for describing modes of improvisation takes us away from the classical view of

improvisation and choreography as dichotomies, and brings us towards a broadened view of

improvisation where there is a spectrum of possibilities related to improvising, and the

choreographic tendency merely lies within the field of improvisation and is a part of it, rather than

opposite of it.

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5. Conclusion and future perspectives

The main results of this thesis can be summarised as such:

- In the four projects, dance was contextualised with the help of music and text, to prevent

dance from being inaccessible or boring to the audience

- My dance background contributed to dramaturgical approaches that increased the degree to

which scenes were self contained, as well as limited the use of text

- Audience emotions were successfully manipulated by contrasting horrible contexts with

happy performance expressions

- Humour was successfully generated through non-performance, an easy approach for a

performer with dance rather than comedy/acting background

- It was recognised that dance and text communicate on different levels and the level at

which text communicates might tend to be more emotive for most of the audience

- It was recognised that there are multiple approaches to improvisation, and a model for

different modes of improvisation was derived

Several questions remain unanswered in the field of dance dramaturgy. Despite the length of this

thesis, what is dance dramaturgy, really? Actually, what is this thesis all about? Do unicorns exist? (I

think so.) Why does time fly? Importantly, the current generation of dance- and performance-

makers should work together to address the issue of (insert trendy issue here) for the benefit of

society at large.

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6. Acknowledgements

This work would not have been possible without the support and friendship of my supervisor,

collaborator and friend, Professor Sviatlana Viarbitskaya, whose expertise, open-mindedness,

intellect, and kindness, have combined to help me mature not just artistically, but also in life.

Professor Viarbitskaya, I don’t think you will ever understand just how much you have helped me. I

thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I thank my collaborator piak, who has a different background, and a different approach to

performance, than me, and thus provided many valuable insights, which I am still in the process of

learning from. I believe that one day in the future, I will be able to synthesise these insights into

something good and wonderful.

Last but not least, I thank Martin Eklund, whose calmness and artistic confidence inspire me to

believe that it is not so important to be labelled a “professional” or not; all that matters is that I

continue to make art, and continue to enjoy and love art.

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7. References

deLahunta, S. (2000). Dance Dramaturgy: speculations and reflections. Dance Theatre Journal .

DV8 Physical Theatre . (November, 2008). To be straight with you. Dansens Hus, Stockholm, Sweden.

Eriksen, A. H. (2001). Dance Theatre & Dramaturgy. Retrieved 25 September, 2011, from

Department of Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London:

www.mediafire.com/?zzjmzzi3zvj

Hagendoorn, I. (2002). Emergent patterns in dance improvisation and choreography. Proceedings of

the International Conference on Complex Systems .

Jordansson, L. (15 September, 2011). Silence manipulation and humour. Retrieved 27 September,

2011, from Grow In The Dark blog: http://growitdark.tumblr.com/post/10234382951/silence-

manipulation-and-humor

Krikmann, A. (2007). Contemporary liguistic theories of humour. Retrieved 25 September, 2011, from

Electronic Journal of Folklore: http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol33/kriku.pdf

Siegmund, G. (2005). The Desiring Body in Dance. Space and Composition (pp. 24-36). Copenhagen:

NordScen – Nordic Centre for the Performing Arts & The Danish National School of Theatre –

Continuing Education.

Train of Thought Sketch Comedy. (2 April, 2006). Happy Birthday by Satan. Retrieved 27 September,

2011, from Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM5Y5OnZdU4

Traub, S. (February, 2011). Dance Dramaturgy - a Critical and Discursive Practice. Retrieved 25

September, 2011, from Goethe Institut, Dance Scene and Trends in Germany:

http://www.goethe.de/kue/tut/tre/en7179326.htm

Viarbitskaya, S. Unmaking House Hole. Sveta's School / The Family, Stockholm, Sweden.