Abstract:
This workshop / provocation presents an idea for performer training called ‘diffractive’ dramaturgy.
The seed for the idea came as an attempt to unpack an unexpectedly difficult and complex experiment in participatory performance I made in 2016. Taking the concept as articulated by Barad and Haraway, I used diffraction to articulate an open dramaturgy where the processes of observation and perception of the material were given priority over the tendency to rationalise, select, and categorise material. Continuing with Barad, a diffractive dramaturgy acknowledged the ‘intra-action’ of all things, offering a way of conceptualising reality where all matter is entangled.
The concept was developed into a training practice having been inspired by a series of workshops given by Wendell Beavers (2022) on Mary Overlie’s Viewpoints. It became possible to align Overlie’s postmodern deconstructions with the non-anthropocentric new materialisms of Barad.
Further research has led to Overlie’s Buddhist influences. This has offered a ‘novel’ meeting point between postmodern and posthuman practice that draws on improvisation techniques, postmodern deconstruction of narratives, and Buddhist practice. Is this a new materialism?
The workshop will attempt to recreate the ‘complex’ performance moment, before introducing colleagues to the concept of a diffractive dramaturgy. In the remaining time, we will test how these ideas can be introduced to students as performer training tools.
BIO:
As a British/Asian practitioner, Jon trained at Rose Bruford College, then did an MA Body in Performance at Laban. He began lecturing at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Drama Centre London at Central Saint Martin’s, then joining London South Bank’s Drama department as a visiting lecturer in 2009. He became a senior lecturer in 2012.
Workshop co-host / Practitioner
Tom Sanigar (Davis) is a lecturer in Acting and Performance at London South Bank University. He holds a Masters in Acting from Drama Centre London, where he trained at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute in Moscow, under the world-renowned movement director Andrei Droznin.