‘Dare to stutter, dare to stammer’: Towards an alternative understanding of the knowledge of the dramaturg

Abstract

This thesis explores the connection between the dramaturg and alternative types of knowing that go beyond theoretical knowledge and derive from its practical aspects. Drawing from the field of epistemology – the branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of knowledge – it uses the concepts of practical, tacit and embodied knowledge to examine their potentiality for understanding the knowledge employed in the practice of the dramaturg. Along with a theoretical framework based on epistemology, the research draws on ethnographic fieldwork and on the examination of dramaturgical practices. To support my views, I use material from formal one-to-one interviews with Maaike Bleeker, Sigrid Merx and Konstantina Georgelou (Chapter 1); from my involvement with dance dramaturg Merel Heering (Chapter 2); from the formal interviews I conducted with dramaturg Kate Adams; and from the examination of the dramaturgical practice of André Lepecki (Chapter 3). Moreover, a reflection on the political dimensions of giving visibility to these different types of knowledge of the dramaturg – practical, tacit and embodied − is discussed (Chapter 4) based on the intervention in ‘the distribution of the sensible’ (Jacques Rancière) and on the participation to today’s ‘knowledge economy’. My intention is to create an environment that can liberate the dramaturg from the role of the objective observer and knowledgeable theoretician that functions as the mind of the process; and instead it can open up space for the dramaturg as a practitioner that makes use of and values the subjective, sensorial and embodied components of knowledge. Therefore, this thesis suggests that foregrounding a discussion of the dramaturg through the lens of practical, tacit and embodied knowledge can lead to a reposition of dramaturgy from theory to practice. A reposition like that, on the one hand can have an impact on the way that one conceives of both the role and the education of the dramaturg and on the other hand can establish a more open, pluralized and sensitive practice of dramaturgy.