Micro and Macro Dramaturgies in Dance

About the theme of the ten days Tilburg intensive

Being There – The Environment of Care

The phrase Being There underlines the beauty and importance of personal encounters in the creation of an artwork and is equivalent to a state of heightened attention. After a period of distancing and exploring hybrid formats in art, the second part of dance dramaturgy intensive celebrates a live meeting taking place in DansBrabant, Tilburg. It revolves around the chemistry of close exchange among the artists, of blending different procedures and perspectives. The aim is to share, test, but also question familiar dramaturgical knowledge together in order to tackle the future urgent places for dance art.

Being There is also the theme and title of a research project and manifestation in the city of Tilburg initiated by DansBrabant. In a long-term collaboration with partners and diverse experts such as the city’s architect, Being There explores how dance can make the fabric of the city, or its ruptures, visible and traceable. As the development and (social) design of the city is strongly connected to its textile history, its blueprint becomes another important element of the intensive. The fabric of the city of Tilburg, its public and social spaces, are not just workspaces for choreographers and dancers, but also a playground for their ideas and sensitivity.

Dance dramaturgy can be seen as a tool of arousing curiosity and awareness, a means to express care for the context, circumstances, pre-histories or other partners in artistic dialogue – which are all preconditions to create dance art relevant to the given time and place. The crisis has shown the importance of networks and interconnectedness among agents, a need for creating well-functioning larger ecosystems. Being an interwoven practice of dance in society, let’s imagine dance dramaturgy as a creator of an ecological environment rather than merely a means for producing and consuming production.

Read more about the EU-project Micro and Macro Dramaturgies in Dance.

Read two articles in the MicroMacroLibrary on the Tilburg intensive in October 2021 on meeting the local artists and visiting the Tilburg Textile Museum and De Pont.