SCHEDULE: PERFORUM POSTGRADUATE ARTS PRACTICE RESEARCH CONFERENCE 2018: CHANGING THEATRES: DRAMATURGY AND CONTEMPORARY THEATRE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH
20th - 21st June 2018
Venue: Theatre Lab, Connolly Complex Western Road, Department of Theatre, UCC
Photo: Tal Bitton / Francuzi (The French) dir. Krzysztof Warlikowski
The Department of Theatre, University College Cork, is pleased to announce a two-day conference of workshops, papers and round-table discussion for (post-graduate) scholars and practitioners with an interest in practice and research in the field of DRAMATURGY AND CONTEMPORARY THEATRE.
Our Keynote Speaker is Dr Piotr Gruszczyński – theatre critic, dramaturge and co-programer at Nowy Teatr, Warsaw. He has collaborated with Krzysztof Warlikowski on numerous productions: (A)pollonia, Un tramway (co-production with Odeon Theatre, Paris), The End, African Tales by Shakespeare, Kabaret Warszawski and The French, and Phedres (Odeon Theatre, Paris). He is author of the first analysis of new Polish theatre (Ojcobójcy, 2002) and a book-interview with Warlikowski (Szekspir i uzurpator, also translated into French and Romanian). He also collaborates with opera director Mariusz Treliński and lectures at the Theatre Academy in Warsaw. He is a member of the editorial boards of „Dialog“ (Warsaw) and „Ubu“ (Paris).
Our Guest Workshop Leader and Speaker is Hanna Slättne - freelance Dramaturg, Theatre-maker and Facilitator working across the UK, Ireland and beyond for over 20 years. She specialises in new work, new writing and cross art form collaboration and has extensive experience in facilitating development processes for artists and their ideas. Since going freelance in 2017, Hanna has been resident dramaturg at the Great Plains Theatre Conference, has worked with Catherine Young Dance, Helen Hall Dance, and with the Irish Theatre Institute. At Tinderbox Theatre Company, Belfast she ran the company’s dramaturgy strand between 2004 and 2017, working with writers under commission, on production dramaturgy and artists’ development for thirteen years. In 2016 she received the Kenneth Tynan Award for Excellence in Dramaturgy and in 2017 an Elliot Hayes Award special commendation for her work on the immersive audio play Reassembled Slightly Askew by Shannon Yee. In recent years she has developed an area of practice and research in sensory and aural Dramaturgy. She was a co-founder of the Dramaturgs’ Network UK in 2000 and of the Dramaturgs’ Network Ireland in 2015. Plays she has worked on have been awarded: The Meyer Whitworth Award, Wyndham Campbell Prize, Stewart Parker Awards and The Irish Times Theatre Awards.
SCHEDULE:
DAY 1 - 20th June 2018
1.15pm – 2.15pm: Registration, Theatre Lab, Department of Theatre, Connolly Complex, Western Road, Cork
2:30pm – 4.30pm : Workshop: Hanna Slättne: ‘Dramaturgy in Collaboration’
This is a practical workshop led by dramaturg Hanna Slättne, who has over 20 years of experience working as a dramaturg across different areas and types of processes.
In this practical workshop we will explore how to find the dramaturgy of a piece of theatre that is created through collaborative and interdisciplinary processes. We will explore different starting points and ways of working, what happens when artists from a range of different art forms are brought into the process, when dramaturgical decisions need to be taken and how to do so.
We will be working in groups, so please bring a pen and paper and a post card image that inspires you, as well as a creative and collaborative spirit!
DAY 2 - 21st June 2018
10:30am - 11:30am : Presentation: Hanna Slättne: Working as a Dramaturg in Ireland
In this presentation dramaturg Hanna Slättne, who works across Ireland and the UK as well as internationally, will talk about the specific challenges of being a dramaturg in Ireland.
How do dramaturgs fit into project planning, as dictated by the funding structures in Ireland?
What are the optimal conditions for getting the best out of engaging a dramaturg, and what can this achieve?
Hanna will share some of the experiences from working as a dramaturg for over 20 years, as a company dramaturg, as a freelancer and across a variety of fields such as new writing, dance, interdisciplinary work and artists’ development.
11:30am - 12:00pm : Tea/Coffee Break
12:00pm - 12:30pm : paper presentation: Paul McNamara - Poetry and Theatre: Adaption or Collaboration?
Performance Poetry has been growing in popularity in Ireland for years but while some work has been done on analysing the literature less work has been carried out on critically examining the performance side or indeed the connection between the two. This paper will examine how performance poetry attempts to present itself as both literary and theatrical and whether performance poetry is adaption of a text to stage or a collaborative process where performance is an essential element in devising. It will examine both poetry slams and the rise of one person poetry plays. It will discuss the role of a director or dramaturg in these performances.
12:30pm - 1pm : paper presentation: Alicja Bral - Selfless Language or the Absence of an Author
Song of The Goat Theatre is based in Wroclaw, Poland and is constantly developing its approach and performances to unlock a theatrical power that offers audiences a profound spiritual experience and enables them to reaffirm their own sensitivity and humanity. Song of the Goat Theatre’s ever-evolving training (Acting Coordination Method), rehearsal and performance processes are treated as laboratories which enable the Company to research the craft of the actor and director as well as evolve new techniques, performance language and forms of work. The search for interconnectedness is the distinctive element of the Company’s practice; it consists of connection, meeting each other and an openness, which are the seeds of authentic experience.
The researcher collaborates with the Company as a dramaturge and tries to determine and describe the visible link between the physical training of coordination and the vocal aspect, as well as their impact on the meanings of words in a performance. In the search for “selfless” language I will aim to present how a collective creation of the metaphorical and symbolic world can bring back a language which can, once again, be full of energetic meaning.
In my presentation I will focus on two productions: “Island” and “Hamlet – a Commentary”, both based on Shakespeare’s plays. I will analyse the creative process of the ensemble to emphasise each creator’s impact on the dramaturgy. Referring to the idea of the “Death of an author” by Roland Barthes, and Michael Foucault’s reflections in “What is an Author?”, I will interrogate this discourse by attempting to present how, inside an ensemble, there is no author at all, or maybe on the contrary, there are many of them working on one cohesive performance.
1pm - 1:30pm : paper presentation: Pamela McQueen - The Making and Unmaking of ‘Roadkill’ - a dramaturgy of bricolage
This paper looks at the role of the dramaturg in a multidisciplinary process of making a play text from several sources. In this presentation we will walk through the process of combining multiple sources of text into a site-responsive intimate performance. The paper explores the experience of the dramaturg present in the room with a playwright developing a text through bricolage - a sculpture of whatever comes to hand. Ritual, improvised text, film and animation projection, found text and verbatim interview all combining to tell a story of the violence and abuse of the globalised sex trade. What are the ethics of what ‘comes to hand’ when telling the story of a Nigerian girl trafficked into Scotland.
1:30pm - 2:30pm: Lunch break
2:30pm - 3:30pm: Keynote Speaker Presentation: Dr Piotr Gruszczyński: Adaptation, Multi-channel Adaptation and Adaptation as Installation.
Theatre critic, dramaturge and co-programmer at Nowy Teatr, Warsaw. He has collaborated with Krzysztof Warlikowski on numerous productions: (A)pollonia, Un tramway (co-production with Odeon Theatre, Paris), The End, African Tales by Shakespeare, Kabaret Warszawski, The French, and Phedres (Odeon Theatre, Paris). He is author of the first analysis of new Polish theatre (Ojcobójcy, 2002) and a book-interview with Warlikowski (Szekspir i uzurpator, also translated into French and Romanian). He also collaborates with opera director Mariusz Treliński and lectures at the Theatre Academy in Warsaw. He is a member of the editorial boards of „Dialog“ (Warsaw) and „Ubu“ (Paris). The title of Dr Gruszczyński’s keynote is: ‘Adaptation, Multi-channel Adaptation and Adaptation as Installation’.
3:30pm - 3:45pm : Tea/Coffee Break
3:45pm - 4:45pm : Documentary screening: New Dream - Krzysztof Warlikowski - dir. Marcin Lattało.
This documentary portrayal of the work of Krzysztof Warlikowski, one of Poland’s leading theatre directors, includes commentaries from the director, from his long-standing colleagues, Piotr Gruszczyński, Jacek Poniedziałek, Stanisława Celińska and Maciej Stuhr, as well as footage from rehearsals and performances.
4:45pm - 5:45pm : Round Table Discussion
Close of Conference
