The Practice of Dramaturgy | Working on Actions in Performance

Veem House for Performance, DAS Theatre and Valiz invites you to the launch of The Practice of Dramaturgy: Working on Actions in Performance, a book by Konstantina Georgelou, Efrosini Protopapa and Danae Theodoridou (Valiz, Antennae series, 2016).  With an introduction by the authors and a conversation with four guest authors of the book, Andrea Božić, Joachim Robbrecht, Nienke Scholts and Julia Willms, who will elaborate on their different practices and takes on dramaturgy, followed by a response by Sigrid Merx as a ‘first reader’. 

Georgelou, Protopapa and Theodoridou, each of them working in both the academic field (as researchers and teachers), and in the performing arts field (as dramaturgs and art practitioners), share their interest for the intersection between theory and practice. 

Together they pursued the three-year research project ‘Dramaturgy at Work’, a series of workshops with art practitioners from different backgrounds and roundtable talks with international guests sharing their take on dramaturgy. In doing so, they explored and unfolded the distinct and diverse dramaturgical tendencies, concepts and practices within contemporary performance in Europe today. 

Following the growing interest in the notion and practice of dramaturgy, which is often discussed either as the work of the dramaturg, or as the compositional, cohesive or sense-making aspects of a performance, The Practice of Dramaturgy addresses dramaturgy as a shared, politicized and catalytic practice that sets actions into motion in a more speculative rather than an instructive way. 

In the first part of the book, Georgelou, Protopapa and Theodoridou – the editors and main authors – discuss three working principles that lie at the heart of their proposition, and return to the etymology of the term ‘dramaturgy’ (‘drama’=action and ‘ergon’=work) as ‘working on actions’. The second part opens up to different artistic, social and political perspectives that such understanding of dramaturgy may give rise to, through contributions by guest authors.

The launch takes place in the context of a dramaturgy workshop given by the three authors to the students of DAS Theatre Amsterdam, with whom we are happy to collaborate for this evening.