Narratives in Dance – Note, Writing, Story

Choreographic projects give rise to texts that are shaped by the processual nature of the project: notes, short phrases, individual and interconnected thoughts, written and scribbled words – some bordering on the pictorial, some in the form of short stories – that arise incidentally and accompany the process like a living archive, a second level of artistic articulation.

They are built while speaking, while dancing, while thoughts revolve around what is happening or could still happen. They are potentially produced by everyone involved in the process who needs another level on which the work process can take shape – sometimes consciously and intentionally, sometimes intuitively.

These texts do not attempt to understand or describe in a differentiated way for others. They do not express themselves about dance, but with it. The words, signs, and structures arise with the bodies, make the spaces between them perceptible, and allow us to sense the trace of the fleeting. They are the core of the projects, from which the characteristics of the process and the conceptual basis can be read. They are a source from which the projects can be developed in parallel with reason and intuition.

In this research, I examine this level of choreographic projects to find out how we can use what is written in the process for dramaturgical and choreographic work, even though it often takes place incidentally and unintentionally, and initially (before writing) has no purpose attributed to it. I want to consider the significance and potential in the projects and find out what possibilities there are to pursue and integrate this practice of writing more actively. I am concerned with two levels of the development and application of writing in choreographic processes: on the one hand, as a meta-level that continues to be written like a source code and potentially carries the essential characteristics of the project within itself. On the other hand, as a narrative that can be actively written (further) and made effective in the process.

Gefördert durch die Behörde für Kultur und Medien Hamburg