Perceptual Dramaturgy: Swimmer (68)

Spring 2011 107 Perceptual Dramaturgy: Swimmer (68) Pil Hansen [E]very act of perception is, to some degree, an act of creation, and every act of memory is, to some degree, an act of imagination. —Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tononi, A Universe of Consciousness1 This essay proposes a form of perceptual dramaturgy: a set of tools that has been developed through the application of a cognitive lens to the craft of dramaturgy. I argue that theories of perception and memory can enable the dramaturg to work with some of the implicit dynamics of experience that precede both artistic choicemaking in the developmental process and the spectator’s arrival at interpretation in performance. As the theoretical basis and tools of perceptual dramaturgy are introduced, I explore their application through the case of the devised solo piece Swimmer (68). Swimmer (68) is an intermedial solo performance about a character’s struggle to develop and maintain an autobiographical self by negotiating lived and mediated experiences from his past. Imagine an adult who has been isolated in a nonmaterial environment, recycling and integrating memories, since childhood. This is the character’s (admittedly impossible) condition. Suddenly faced with an audience, he begins to sense and examine gaps in his reenactment of memories. Swimmer (68) is performed by the devisor Ker Wells, directed by Bruce Barton, and dramaturged by myself, with the sound artist Richard Windeyer and the video artist Cam Davis. In addition to the application of cognitive theory to the dramaturgical process, the production team took creative inspiration from cognitive ideas about subjectivity and autobiographical memory. These ideas were used to define principles that could be consulted as signposts rather than a set of strict rules. The analytical demonstration of perceptual dramaturgy is divided into three sections that respond to the specific dramaturgical tasks and challenges of three Pil Hansen is exploring cognitive layers of memory in dance and theatrical devising as a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto. She has worked as a professional dramaturg of dance, devising, and new circus in Scandinavia and Canada since 2002 and teaches dramaturgy at the University of Toronto. Current projects are Acts of Memory, Swimmer (68), and Vertical City II. Her articles are published in TDR: The Drama Review, Canadian Theatre Review and Peripeti, as well as the essay collections Space and Composition (Danish National Theatre School and Nordic Centre for the Performing Arts, 2005), Developing Nation (Playwrights Canada, 2009), and At the Intersection between Art and Research (NSU, 2010). 108 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism developmental stages of Swimmer (68): (1) understanding the collaborators’habits of perception at the stage of project initiation; (2) proposing principles and sources of inspiration that can either challenge or establish connections between artistic approaches in the workshop phase; and (3) preparing for the final production phase by analyzing compositional possibilities with a focus on how they can be realized through the spectators’ potential perception. This essay joins a growing number of voices calling for the development of new dramaturgical functions and tools in response to the increased involvement of dramaturgs in contemporary “postdramatic theatre.” Historically, and within established institutions, the dramaturg’s job description has fallen into either production dramaturgy or new play development. When working on physicallybased performance that does not take its point of departure in a text or a preset choreographic score, this division of agency—between development and production—ceases to make sense. If there is a shift between development and production in such projects it is not from a text or a score to its realization; it tends to be from the generation of ideas and loosely interconnected performance material to the making of compositional choices. The devising dramaturg can benefit from drawing on both the process-oriented tools of developmental dramaturgy and the conceptual and analytical tools of production dramaturgy, but this expanded field of agency and orientation does not, in itself, provide solutions to the challenges of new dramaturgy. Physically-based work often aims to affect the spectators’ sensory experience in ways that do not invite them to synthesize stimuli as dramatic structure, character, or meaning. In response to this characteristic, a need arises for tools to analyze...