Katariina Numminen: Overlapping Bodies – Dramaturgies of Bodily Writing
The proposal is about writing as a scenic, performative action. It is a set of performative experiments, which explore writing in relationship to the body. The experiments explore task-based dramaturgical structures, and play with different overlapping bodies that touch each other in the writing: the writing body, the (possible) fictional bodies in the text, performers’ bodies, bodies of audience, the body and materiality of the text. In this performative experiment writing happens through speech.
The experiment plays with: Writing as editing, omitting, highlighting the body. Stage directions as a textual genre.The relationship of text and action: which one is proceeding and which one is following; to write to instruct /to write to describe?
– gesture and dramaturgy – body as a fan of gestures. What kind of manuscripts are written body?
-dream journal as a genre
The presentation stems from the rehearsal process of the perfomance Käsi (The Hand). Working group consists of a dancer, an actor of me as a director-dramaturg. The premiere will be in this september. Käsi is the 2nd artistic work of my artistic research doctoral project.
The research is about dramaturgy and composition, in the context of task-based working, thinking gesture, interruption and repetition as dramaturgical components. In the research I am interested in the ludic in dramaturgy, and gestural and bodily in dramaturgical thinking and making. The project is inspired by the concept spacing, creating gaps, as Walter Benjamin describes the Brechtian dramaturgy. Possible topics for feedback and discussion:
-Writing as a scenic activity, as a gestural activity. Making writing, dramaturgy, dramaturgical relationships visible, scenic, what becomes visible/ tangible? What kind of gesture or interruption is writing?
-gesture and body in writing and in dramaturgy -Relationship of overlapping bodies, writing as touching -Agency: who is writing whom?
Bio
Katariina Numminen is a Helsinki based performance maker, director, playwright and dramaturg. She is an artistic research doctoral candidate in Theatre Academy in the University of Arts in Helsinki. Her interests include live composition, live dramaturgy and task-based ways of working. In her practice, she has often been working with documentary material. In addition to the artistic work, she has been teaching extensively dramaturgy, dramatic writing and contemporary performance practices.