I have noticed that while writing or reading for my thesis, I sometimes try to distract myself with something else that I can actually “accomplish” quickly. This could even be something as small as replying to an e-mail, or completing something that I have left unfinished for some time….And although, I know that one part of my mind is trying to find ways to be distracted, I also think is fascinating to realize how your brain is wired to strive for “rewards”. And maybe this is one of the characteristics of writing a thesis that makes it more challenging…at least at the state that I am now… There is still a lot of playing around with concepts and ideas, and the backbone of my research is still under construction, so I will not get this sense of reward until I actually finish my proposal. Then, of course, another cycle of research will start…but at this stage, it is hard to get this boost, these sense of accomplishing task in comparison to the larger picture…
Although, I have to admit, since I started working on a different angle with my research, I can identify more and more small moments, where I get glimpses of small accomplishments, when I for example see how some ideas expressed in one text can be also related with the other texts that I have read.
For example, yesterday, I was reading a book about dramaturgy where they used a very interesting metaphor as a way of understanding dramaturgical thinking: that of the catalyst. Dramaturgical processes are contributing to the development of a piece, of a project initially from the outside in order to mobilize it and to transform it, without in the end controlling the result of the interaction. What I also find interesting in this metaphor, which was not elaborated further in the text is that, although dramaturgical thinking might be conceived originally as an external element, once the process is initiated, you can no longer distinguish between the catalyst and the other elements that you mixed them with. Also, you might also suggest that depending on the catalyst that you would use, you would create a different reaction. So, there are many different ways that a work can be “catalyzed”, there are many different ways in which a piece can potentially develop but once a catalyst is introduced, it becomes materialized in a certain way based on the characteristics of the different elements combined.
What I found interesting was how this metaphor is inspired by chemical reactions that are part of our daily experience. This metaphor becomes very apt in my opinion exactly because we can relate to it though our embodied experience… And then, I remember how another book that I read on dance dramaturgy was describing the processes of dramaturgical thinking as oscillations and tensions between heterogeneous elements. And, then I there was another example in the book, that was describing dramaturgical processes as earthquakes.
So, on the one hand, all these natural processes are different, but I think that they all share a common way of thinking about dramaturgy which is deeply grounded in the materiality of the world… A way that is tapping into the relationship between the conceptual and the material…. The potential and the actual… and it is not really possible to separate the two, but it would be interesting to explore what happens if we start thinking about how one relates to another, and what comes out of this process….
Well I guess, I thought I had nothing when I started writing this post, but I somehow ended up with something…
Note:
The books I am referring to above are
- Georgelou Konstantina, Protopapa Efrosini, Theodoridou Danae. 2017. The Practice of Dramaturgy: Working on Actions in Performance. Amsterdam: Valiz.
- Profeta, Katherine. 2015. Dramaturgy in Motion: at Work on Dance and Movement Performance. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
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