A Note on Applied Dramaturgy by Jeffrey Gormly http://choreograph.

net/raw/a-note-on-applied-dramaturgy In modern European theatre and dance, the dramaturge has a well defined role that negotiates between the director/choreographer/writer points of view. The dramaturge as I understand it has two main roles: 1 to venture out, through research, experimentation, and intuitive artistic process, to explore the psychic/literary/sociopolitical landscape of the piece the company wishes to work on. A dramaturge will come back from this journey with new data, fresh perspectives, and a deeper reading of the piece at hand. The dramaturge will also be able to clearly articulate the relationship between the piece and the contemporary context: the time, place and social moment in which the work is being made. The dramaturge will point out relations between the artistic work and what is going on in the story of the world at large, and help to clarify for the company which aspects of the piece seem to them to be most relevant at a given time. The dramaturge will have created a suitable means by which to communicate this information to the company eg by creating texts/drawings/books, through conversation and field trips, by creating art works in themselves, or by curating a space that gives the artists a chance to experience something. 2 to reflect on the process of the creation of a piece of performance, in an ongoing way, and offer the company insight into both the internal dynamics of the piece they are working on, and how the performance is likely to function as a public event. The dramaturge will tie loose thematic ends back in to the work, identify common themes or dynamics recurring over different levels of the work, and bring into conscious awareness any information that is present but unacknowledged within the company. Applied dramaturgy treats any creative process in this way. By creative process, I mean any human work of endeavour that produces a result. This therefore includes not only any artistic process but any one of making objects, relations, communities or groups, or seeks to produce any identifiable outcome eg event, space, performance, social situation: Economics is not only a money making principle. It can be a way of production to fulfill the demands of people all over the world. Capital is humankinds ability in work, not just money. True economics equals the creativity of people. Joseph Beuys Any such work, which I believe includes most organised human cooperative activity, can be understood to be able to be fulfilling, creative, empowering, and can model ideal relations between participants. There will be recurring themes of engagement, practice, intention, obstruction etc. There will be moments where the not-knowing-ness of intuition will wish to be followed, calling for some kind of faith. There will be issues of form relating to the group and how it relates to itself, within itself, and with the outside. These issues of form will also pertain to the shape of relations, the distribution of power ie modes of arriving at decisions, owning responsibility, and maintaining healthy boundaries. And the whole process will want its own container. The dramaturge works in this situation in much the same modus as in a traditional artistic project, researching, imagining, informing, reflecting, and holding a safe space for dream/desire/intuition.