Artist Talks on Methods are part of the Course Independent Project at the Masters Program Contemporary Performative Arts at HSM (Gothenburg University). In these talks and presentations we ask one artist to speak about or present something specific in relation to their methods in their artistic work.

Over the past two decades, various experimental practices in the field of dance, theater, performance art, and expanded choreography in a global context have converged on poietic dramaturgy, an investigation of the interests and problems, capacities and working cultures, as well as politics involved in the creation of a performance. Starting from my experience as a practicing dramaturg having collaborated with an array of choreographers and theater directors since 1999, I embarked on a research for a book in 2022 that traces perspectives and concepts of dramaturgy at work in the process of creation.

This session will be dedicated to material, one of the most common yet heterogeneous and underdetermined signifiers in the field as the point of departure of creation. What does the material want from me? How to gauge its mode of action, context and historical present? How to train sensitivity to the questions of access and belonging of ‘materials’? My talk will be structured through problems and questions, as well as samples of performances, which I explored with choreographers and theatermakers in the past two decades. In the second part of the session, we will work in smaller groups on the prompts and exercises through which we can trace and reflect diverse operations with material. 

The afternoon starts with 1,5l/2h lecture and talk and then 1-1,5h workshop in smaller groups with all participants, practicing artists and students.

Open for everyone.

BIO

Bojana Cvejić is author of several books, including Choreographing Problems (Palgrave, 2015), and Toward a Transindividual Self: A Study in Social Dramaturgy (co-written with Ana Vujanović Archive Books, 2023). Since 1996, she has made, performed or collaborated on numerous works of opera, dance, dance video, and theater in Europe as co-director, dramaturg or performer. Her research in social choreography and transindividuality, as well as practical dramaturgy drives her politically to co-organize collective platforms of self-education and experimental production (PAF St. Erme). Since 2017 she divides her time between Oslo, where she is Professor of Dance Theory (Oslo National Academy of Arts) and Brussels, where she teaches as P.A.R.T.S.  .  http://www.khio.no/en/about/staff/bojana-cvejic

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After the talk there is the possibility to have a simple dinner together. Skogen has a donation system, we welcome donations for food.

The workshop will be held in English