Spring 2019, I had the opportunity to take the Dramaturgy with The Dr. Nadine George Graves. In this course we had 5 assignments that challenged our ideas of creating.

Questions that consistently came up

• What does it mean to think dramaturgically?
• What is our dramaturgic style?
• How do we collaborate with our peers?

For me, I consider myself a dramaturg who is a therapist/mediator, historian, and collaborator. I like to write down people thoughts and ideas and encourage them to create. I also, add prompts and scores to get dancer/makers out of funks. I enjoy researching ideas on library, Pintrest, Google and bring forth the historical facts into the work. I am a person who goes with the flow and fit in where I’m needed. Wether it’s creating books, emailing notes, or sharing prompts and encouragement, I am the person needed on the team.

We had the opportunity to take a master class with Bebe Miller. In this class we danced and dramaturg around the idea of relationship. We started with looking at different angles of movement and where the initiation and flow of energy was traveling throigh the body on her dancers. Then we had activities that prompt us to move between 11 and 2 and 1. Many of us wore ourselves, for our (including myself) minds thought that 11 was the end goal, and 1 was the beginning. But again, what is our relationship to the # and where does this sit in the movement.

From there we had split into groups and dramaturg a group through the prompt. How will they create with 11, 1, and 2. My group were very polite and cooperative. We had 1 grad student/instructor, a group of dance major, and a small group of minors and elective students. They allowed all voices to be heard before they moved. I and my partner Katherine, prompted them to move and timed them so that all the time could be used wisely. First showing had them show with audience where ever they like. After the showing they realized that they wanted to change how they related to one another. I noticed they were not looking intently with one another but passed each other. this idea prompted them to change their entrance. The audience would form into a circle and the dancers would come into the space. Audience can have eyes close at any point.

Below are my notes and video from the class

Another project we had to work with Crystal Perkins Composition class on making their choreography work their cite specific and stage work. Check out my write-up and my documentation of the work. I worked with Clair and Josh to help these dancers work together. They asked us very good questions about what we see in their work and how they can move forward. I noticed we (dramaturg) pushed them to name what they were doing, revamp “relationships” and movement to fit the theme, and trust the process the instructors and dramaturg were riding with them.

Our final assignment, we all had to read the book Invisible Cities. This book was about many different cities and the in-between spaces. the description were detailed and intrigued my active imagination. My favorite story was Zora. It talked about patterns and things changing.

These cities made my head space reminisce on the time I had in graduate school and the spaces in between and beyond. In the video below you can see our creative process of how we (including Dr. Nadine) connected Invisible Cities to our lives.