I have been terrified of writing. Some of the thoughts that are feeding this fear are:

1. There is not point, you are going to fail.
2. Even if you write the contribution is going to be too small almost insignificant so I lose the incentive and motivation to write, the reward is inconsistent with the emotional and cognitive effort that I think that I need to exert.

Since the beginning, I have always at the back of my mind this idea that I need to write everyday, even if I don’t feel like it or if I don’t know what to write. Sometimes that helps, but I think it has created this underlying pressure that if I don’t do it I fail.

I know from my experience in writing so far that I need to be quite clear about what I want to write and how. So I realized today that maybe this idea suggested by other people might not be the most constructive strategy for me. I need to process more information and read more until I actually have an overarching structure of what I want to write, even if this does not necessarily correspond to a strict outline that I put down in paper.

And I think that after reading again most of the book on which my methodology is based, I have now reached this pivotal point where I can actually start writing.

I am not saying that this is going to be just writing from now on, but I realized that instead of being more attentive to a way of doing research that is closer to my way of thinking, I have been trying to impose a certain structure that has proven so far rather unproductive. I get discouraged by my own thoughts and expectations that I set based on what other people say I should do. I am not saying that they are wrong in their suggestions, I do understand more than enough the merits of writing everyday. But since this has turned out to be a very emotionally loaded process, I find it more important to balance out external suggestions with the particularities of my thinking processes.

The whiteboard for example has been quite helpful, and I should consider it a kind of writing, even more important at this point than writing full chapters

It is important to learn ways to acknowledge and circumvent resistance, rather than trying to attack it.  

I am becoming more and more aware of how my negative thoughts have been detrimental to my mood and my productivity. Not because I cannot do what I want to do, but because they are loading me with unnecessary information, cognitive and emotional responses that are making my motivation and my desire to succeed redundant and even unwanted.

I need to respect more the methods that I am more accustomed to when writing. I know they are not perfect, but I know also that if I am more attentive to my intuition, I will be able to identify what do I have to do to be more productive and what are the resistances that I am encountering. Am I not feeling so inclined to write? Then probably I need to read more. I know sometimes my fear of writing emerges, but maybe there is also a reason for that. Maybe I am not ready, I need to read more to develop an underlying structure for my argument, as I did now by reading even more closely this book. Now I am able to refine slowly my methodology and place my literature and the way I intend to use it better. How to use the metaphor? Which concepts to analyse? What is ultimately my object of study?

I think, overall, I had this idea of this perfect schedule that will allow me to maximize my productivity and more often than not this never works as I initially intended it to. I need to be more accepting of my resistances, and identify when they have any substantial reasons for being there, or whether they are just covering up certain insecurities and fears that I need to confront. In that case I need to face them, or learn how to ignore them altogether, by understanding their underlying mechanisms.

I think this is going to be the text I need to read every single day, if necessary, to motivate my thesis writing process!

Today I got completely sidetracked by other things that came up during the day and I still have not managed to work on my thesis… which ended up creating a wave of anxiety…

I am actually still trying to work on some of the other things that I have been doing, but I felt that if I actually stop for a moment and write about all the things that generated the stress, I will be able to move on in a more efficient manner.

I have come to an understanding that working in academia involves sending a lot of e-mails for all short of purposes. And, of course, everyone is always very, very busy being involved in all shorts of projects, so being able to manage your energy and time efficiently is an essential skill if you want to at least try to reduce stress and not be overwhelmed by the tasks that you need to accomplish. Having said that, I find myself having difficulty identifying and selecting what needs to be communicated and how to the people I work with, especially when this communication is being done primarily through e-mails.

Sometimes, I end up staying in front of my pc, debating whether I should send an e-mail, and how should I phrase what I have to say in a way that is clear, concise and it doesn’t make things unnecessarily complicated.

Although I think I have managed to become better at this process over time, there are some instances, when I am asked to deal with something that I haven’t dealt with before, where all these questions and the frustration that follows them become more prominent.

Today it was one of those days, where I had to deal with a couple new situations, hence my inability to concentrate on my thesis.

For now, I have decided to declare this day a non-thesis day and regroup tomorrow.

At the same time, exactly because I wasn’t able to concentrate on my thesis, and because I needed to contact my supervisor for some other non-thesis related matters, I started feeling worried that I am not progressing as much as I should have and that I am letting other matters get in the way.

The truth is that I have been planning on contacting my supervisor to discuss what my progress has been so far, but I haven’t felt that I have a clear overview of my project yet. It seems that I am still torn between arranging an appointment anyways, or wait a bit longer until I have a something more concrete to present. On the one hand, I realize that I might refrain from arranging an appointment, because I am afraid of being confronted by the fact that I am not ready yet. Will I ever be ready? How much more shall I still read in order to feel ready to write a proposal? On the other hand, if I actually see that I don’t have a coherent “narrative” to frame my research yet, shouldn’t I trust my “gut”? Shouldn’t I let this develop naturally?

Really not sure about this…

I had planned to have something more concrete to present last week, but I ended up reading more, so I felt I still needed to have a better understanding of the context.

Right now, this feels like it is dragging…

This why I have just decided to give myself three more days to actually develop a draft of a proposal and then immediately contact my supervisor to arrange an appointment. This should be my priority for the moment…

Let’s see how this goes…

I find it funny that yesterday, towards the end of my study session, I felt that I was actually able to generate some content that can be very valuable for my thesis, and I also had some ideas about what to read next in order to develop a more concrete theoretical framework. I even thought of some questions, that could also serve as the starting point of today’s blog post… I thought I would have so many things to write and I could take my research a step further, and yet, now I feel again a bit lost and the confidence that let to a carefree evening and a hopeful morning is fading…

What happened? What generated my confusion again? And how I can offer some clarity again to my thoughts?

Maybe it will actually help to look back at what I did yesterday and the topics that I got very excited about…

So, yesterday, I started reading the 3^rd chapter of the book on dance dramaturgy that I also mentioned during my previous blogs…The topic of this chapter was an analysis on the relationship between the dramaturg and the audience. The chapter started by stating that one of the common positions that the dramaturg has been associated with is that of the “advocate of the audience”. This is related to the idea that the dramaturg is the first spectator of the work, and that he/she is always positioned at a critical distance (especially when compared to the choreographer/director or other collaborator), which allows him/her to engage with the creative process in a more ‘objective’ manner. However, this position is quickly challenged as reductive, impossible and in the end unproductive within the creative process. This position tends to overlook the subtleties and complexities of the work of dramaturgy. At the same time, she does not entirely dismiss this role… She suggests approaching it as an impossible task. And by precisely approaching it as such, dramaturgical thinking is set into motion. So, Profeta sees this “role”, this relationship with the audience as an ongoing process that constantly takes different forms. It acquires different levels of significance within the creative process, depending on the particularities of each work as well as the specific stage in which the work is situated at every given time. In the chapter, she addresses several theoretical accounts that indicate an alternative way of addressing the audience which is especially marked by the move from dramatic to postdramatic theatre (from performances that have a logocentric approach – the dramatic text being the source on which all other elements where further developed – towards performances that place text, movement, visuals and sounds on the same plane of significance). By challenging the logocentric logic of theatre, new modes of experience and perception are introduced.

However, then another question arises: how can we account for the response of the audience when it is presented with new modes of perception which also generate a multiplicity of points of view, and of experience?

It seems that several dramaturgs point towards the idea that in order for something novel or unfamiliar to be experienced, “it can only occur within a context of familiarity” (94). They suggest that the “secret” (if it is even possible to name it as such) lies in the interplay between what is already known and the unknown, what is expected which can then be subverted into something unexpected. It is a constant negotiation between heterogeneous elements and how they interact with each other to generate something new.  

Another theoretical account when it comes to the position of the audience that Profeta introduces is that of Ranciere’s notion of the “emancipated spectator”. Although there is a rather long theory behind this term, the main point here is Ranciere’s criticism of perceiving the audience as ignorant, as in need to be guided into the world of the performance by the artist and, therefore, assuming a hierarchy between the artist as the holder of knowledge. In other words, the audience are the ones that need to learn what the artist knows. What Ranciere is proposing instead is to presuppose that the audience are always active, they do not need to be guided into what they will understand, and hence, the dramaturg does not need to be preoccupied with “activating” the audience. Although Profeta, recognizes the value of this perspective, she is also critical of some of its implication when it comes to different types of performances but also when taking into account specificities that the role of the artist and the audience entail respectively within the context of a performance.

What happens when the audience willfully decided to assume a position of ignorance? How can the artist and the spectator not know in equal terms when the artist and the collaborators are creators of the performance? And how can we understand the role of dramaturgy in this equation? Regardless of the methods that will be employed, the existence of an audience cannot refrain from being implicated in the thinking and decision-making processes. A work is meant to be performed in front of an audience, it is meant to communicate something. Nevertheless, the characteristics and qualities of that “something” can take different shapes and forms and can also vary from spectator to spectator….

Well, I certainly didnt expect that this long summary will come up…and I feel like there is plenty more that I can write about…

However, it is getting late, but I am dedicated to publish something everyday, so I will leave it here today and I will continue tomorrow…

Books referenced:

• Profeta, Katherine. 2015. Dramaturgy in Motion: at Work on Dance and Movement Performance. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.

I find it hard to come up with something specific to write this morning. I felt like I had a productive day yesterday, but somehow, I find it hard to recall exactly what I read and how it was relevant for my research. Maybe all I need is a little push…

To be honest, although I publish posts every weekday, I do feel a bit uneasy about making them public. At the same time, I see this as a challenge… as a way of exposing myself, my frustrations, my inconsistencies and my “mumbling”, whether they are being read by someone or not.

In my head, I always thought that if you present something it needs to be “perfect”, although I am not even sure what the standards of this perfections are… I think the mind is sometimes creating these imaginary boundaries which have no correspondence with reality, but they still persist and inform the  way you perceive yourself, but also the way you assume other people perceive you. And I guess the latter part is what makes me feel more uneasy, the different ways other people might perceive you through what you present to them.

And I think this is one of the reasons why I have been writing less about what I am actually reading and the topic of my research. Because it still feels undeveloped, and not ready to be presented… But, at the same time, I decided to start writing this blog to encourage me to embrace this bumpy first stage of the research…the state where everything is possible and there are so many choices to be made in order to narrow down the scope of your research.

And I guess, being inconsistent, or confused and not yet as precise and rigorous as you would wish to be is also part of this process. But unless you figure out a way to deal with these initial stages you could not move forward… At least this is how I see it…

I come to realize more and more that each person has their own way of working in projects like that so the trick is to try and optimize your process based on your own needs. And this would also include making mistakes, getting of track, being lost and finding you path again or even realizing that there is another path that you can take that you think it is better.

This is also what I find fascinating about the way dramaturgs talk about their work and their thinking processes.  One of the main skills that I have understood a dramaturg “should” acquire is to be able to adjust to the context and the needs of each performance or creative process. In the chapter I was reading yesterday, dramaturg Katherine Profeta was providing a wide range of examples from her own experience as a dramaturg that would qualify as “research” within the context of dramaturgical processes. In each example, her involvement as a dramaturg was radically different from the rest, or to be more precise , the dramaturgical tools and processes that were employed were different…

I am making this clarification because as she – as well as other dramaturgs – suggest the work of dramaturgy does not need to be – and in fact should not be- performed solely by the dramaturg, but is distributed among the different collaborators. This could be considered as another element of dramaturgical thinking.  

 So, although these “units” of knowledge that were acquired by each example she provided cannot be codified into steps that each dramaturg should follow, I think there is an underlying logic that informs dramaturgical thinking that allows for all these methods and tools to emerge that require exactly the ability to adapt and be flexible to the specificities of each project.

So I guess it is my time to work “dramaturgically” for my research…

The book I am referring to is:

• Profeta, Katherine. 2015. Dramaturgy in Motion: at Work on Dance and Movement Performance. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.

Today, I decided to move the writing of the blog post at the end of the day. Although I did some reading yesterday too, I felt like the weekend slowed down my thinking process , and I couldn’t come up with something to write about before actually finish the chapter that I started reading on Sunday…

Well, today I felt that the writing software that I use when doing research are not always useful…

But maybe it might be easier to describe first my process of working…

Usually, when working on a text I make notes on a separate document…These notes can be specific quotes that I found useful for my research purposes, but it can also be a train of thoughts that were triggered by a specific idea reflected by the text. Depending on the type of thoughts that are generated, I also try to elaborate further on how a specific idea on the text can be connected to other texts that I have read and explore ways in which I can expand on them.

These thoughts are flowing more or less organically while I read, but once I identify them and try to codify them through writing, I also try to go back to the text, read it again and again, to make sure that I have not misunderstood what is being said. This becomes quite important when I identify some connections with other texts. Although I might think I remember what a text was suggesting, it is also often the case that I generalized some arguments. And then, the connections that I made with the other text are not entirely entirely valid. Sometimes the angle needs to be adjusted, while other time it is better to abandon the idea.

This is actually what I used to do during the first period of my research, which I recently identified as problematic. So, I decided to be very attentive to what is actually argued on each paper, especially when I try to see some connections between different authors. Every time I identify a connection, I try to ask myself:

• In what context is this idea presented in each text?
• What are the points of convergence and divergence between the texts and the ideas that I see as related?
• What would be the value of connecting them?
• How is this going to be helpful for my research more specifically? What purpose will it serve?

Another thing that I decided to do is to organize my notes based on the outline of the book. So, as I am writing, I am also including the sections and subsections of the book, and I add a table of contents at the beginning. This makes it easier for me to be able to go to the specific section of the book when I am looking for a specific note. I have never been so systematic with my research, but I have the feeling this method will help. Especially since it is the first time, I am dealing with such a long list of literature for my thesis.

 Finally, what I try to force my self to do after finishing a chapter of a book or an article is to try to make a short summary, or at least be able to codify the main ideas which I find related to my research. This way, I am able to arrive to some preliminary conclusions about the usefulness of that particular text, but also to actively reflect on what I read. By rewriting what I read in my own words, I can comprehend and absorb the material better.

So ideally, I would like to be able to have an overview of all the notes that I have made from all the texts that I have read. Sometimes, I am imagining having a very, very big screen, or even multiple screens that allow me to have direct access to all the notes that I am making from all the different papers I read…But sometimes I feel a bit limited by the fact that the writing software only allows vertical movement… wouldn’t it be fun if you could write on multiple pages as different columns and them being able to move horizontally?

Maybe this is actually already possible, but I haven’t figured out a way to implement

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.

Today, I had a very slow start dealing with some other practical issues so I feel this reflection will be a bit short.

I have decided to shift the focus of my research and start working on less crazy ideas (although I will still keep them at the back of my mind) …

It becomes clearer and clearer now that my main focus should be to try and bring together all the different voices of dramaturgs and try to demonstrate that although, as all of them argue, that there are no fixed methods that a dramaturg can employ, that each performance has its own specificities, so each time the dramaturg needs to adjust to his dramaturgical approach to meet the requirements of each performance, there is still a common way of understanding “dramaturgical” thinking.

I came to understand the creative process of making a performance as a complex problem, with an increasing number of variables that need to be accounted for, and many decisions need to be made but always without any certainty. And these variables are not only concerning the meaning-making processes, or decisions on how to do things… but also the points of view of all the collaborator of a piece. And the role of the dramaturg could be partially understood as the one who tries to balance of all elements together. And, this is what I find quite fascinating… How can you deal with such uncertainty, with such a complex system? What are the guiding principles that allow decisions to be made? What kind of skill is required to work in such a system? These are some of the main questions that I would like my research to focus on… Is there, maybe, an existing framework that can allow me to provide an analytical account of “dramaturgical” thinking. What would be the main elements of such a framework?   

Another important point that I started thinking about recently, was that I had vaguely made a distinction between dramaturgy in the way that I used in theatre productions and dance dramaturgy, but the more I think about it the less explicit the distinction appears in the texts that I have encountered…

So, some more questions started popping up…

• Is this vagueness in the literature intentional? Does it say something about the field of dramaturgy as a whole… Maybe that the way dramaturgical thinking is employed throughout the creative process is so broad that it “intentionally” resists the division into different categories based on the type of performances that it produces?
• And, what does this say about the state of contemporary performances?

Or….

• Are there some medium specificities that make dance dramaturgies different from other types of dramaturgy?
• Would it be maybe worth exploring what the benefits would be if actually the attempt of a distinction was to be made?
• Is there something unique that movement and dance has to offer when it comes to the dramaturgical methods that are employed by the practitioners?

There questions are still rather broad and vague, but I think they some potential, and after some narrowing down and some further clarification, they will help me form the thesis….

Ok, now I feel like I am starting to actually get somewhere…

Yesterday, I had this sudden burst of thoughts while I was on the train, so I noted them down on my phone, and I think they might be a good way to start my thinking process…

I think after you reach some critical points during the thesis process it is important to identify the issues that were creating issues and mental blockages… And then, I remembered a book that I read recently written by Atul Gawande, a doctor trying to figure out ways to deal with complex situations…The title of the book was The Checklist Manifesto and however odd or funny it might sound he uses some really interesting examples on how a good checklist can prevent to a large extend a wide variety of even deadly incidents…I am not going to elaborate further on that but it might suffice to say that it has been mastered by aviation professionals, civil engineers and construction workers and their success depends heavily on checklists…In the book he even presented very compelling examples and evidence in order to encourage more and more doctors to use checklists…

All in all, the point that I want to make is that it might prove also useful to try and employ this strategy for my thesis….these critical points that you might encounter during your thesis are moments when you learn something, whether this had a positive or a negative effect, and by trying to condense and codify them, you might prevent the same issues from coming up again, even in a different form…I don’t know about the rest of the people, but I think that some of the problems that I encounter might manifest in different ways, but actually originate from the same source, maybe that is a thought, a specific insecurity, an attitude that I have acquired over the years and I continue to enact, without me really realizing, and most of the time without realizing how detrimental it might be for my mood, and the way that I decide to approach things….. Soooooo what should my checklist include???

These are the first points that I came up with while on the train:

– Accepting that you might need to let go if an idea — Veery important!!! I tend to get stuck on a specific way of doing things that has proven many times in my life and for very different things to be very counterproductive….

–Learning to identify when advice and help is needed — I have this very annoying attitude towards things most of the times, where I want things to be perfect and I think that I should be able to do everything on my own…But then, you end up getting stuck in your own mind bubble…also very counterproductive as well as frustrating

– Start writing, formulating thoughts, even when you feel you don’t have any— Sometimes ideas don’t just appear, and inspiration can’t just pop out of nowhere. Yes, it is true that some days you have a, let’s say a more “productive” mindset, but unless you maintain and oil your machine regularly, it will eventually get stuck and then you would need twice the effort to make it run again… So, it’s good to start writing…whatever that writing might be, just to open the tap and let the water running. I think this is why I am also doing this blogpost…writing in such an informal context, without being worried how “correct” I am, whether my thoughts construct a convincing argument, they are “well- researched and backed up by other authors, helps me get into the mood and into the flow if writing…In my mind, I am now considering this an essential part of writing my thesis…and I am actually very, very surprised at how many words I was able to generate in the last three days, with literally no struggle, no effort.

– Let the text speak for itself — Another important element: don’t try to impose your own desires and wishes on a text. On a superficial level you might think that two authors are saying similar things, but when that time comes when you need to bring them together it suddenly doesn’t work….and then you get stuck….If you see that something does not flow and cannot be explained and connected in a simple and precise manner, then it might be wiser to distance yourself from the text(s) and rethink your approach…

– By trying to articulate your ideas in an informal setting you are testing the extent in which you have truly comprehended the material — Really useful exercise and also connected with the previous points about accepting help or advice….or even just be excited about what you are doing and try to share your ideas with people who are interested in listening…I think I had underestimated the power of communication during this process…

– If you are not able to construct a consistent narrative then you might need to re-evaluate how your ideas are linked —Also connected with the point on making the text speak for itself…it is very important to be open to the flow that research generates. There are certain things that you can control and other that you can’t… and, in the end, this is the point of doing research: you want to find out more about something…if you already knew everything you wouldn’t enter into this process… but, then, exactly because you don’t know everything, you don’t know exactly where the texts that you are reading will guide you …you start with some assumptions, but maybe your initial assumptions are wrong… of course you start working on a topic that you are more or less familiar with; you already have an intuition and some explicit or less explicit reasons why you choose that, but it is again extremely counterproductive to try to impose your ideas on your research. Sometimes you might need to…just go with the flow…

Well, if I might say, I am quite satisfied with the first draft of my checklist…it will definitely need to go through many trial and error checks and I think I will have something more concrete only after my thesis has finished…maybe even several months later…But I think it will be fun to see where this thing goes…

Today and after a very fruitful discussion that I had with my roommate last night, I was able to finally take my thinking about my thesis a step further. I realized after writing the first blogpost that if I cannot explain my line of reasoning for my thinking in a simple manner then how am I supposed to develop a full master thesis. I was struggling so much to make things connect that I lost my purpose somehow and what it was initially seemed a very exciting project, lost its glow and started becoming a burden. I started feeling trapped into my own decisions. And I tend to blame my self a lot of entering into situations that I don’t know how to deal with. And it is really easy to do that because it was actually my decision to do it. It is so ironic that I am getting fixated on ideas and I am really trying to make them work, but because I don’t allow flexibility and forgive myself, give more time when things are not working, and I end up feeling angry and frustrated without actually doing something to change the situation. I prefer to freeze and enter a stage of self-guild for several days, until I am able to accept the situation and figure out a way to move on. So lets go back to the beginning…

What is my personal drive? Why I am so fascinated by this way of thinking? I think that I have been experiencing the some of the impacts of my education and the way I was brought up in a nonconstructive way. I valued certainty over uncertainty. It has always been easier to place things and ideas into boxes and keep them there and not allowing any flexibility for change of movement. This allows for a high level of security in once sense. If you have things in the right order everything is going to be fine. The same thing happened with dreams and ideas that I have been hanging on to, and not being able to accomplish. And the truth is, I might have been able to accomplish them, but because I was so immersed in this state of self-blame and perception of failure, I could never see the bigger picture and figure out a different way to achieve what I desired at the time. And maybe that was one of the issues, I start with desires, which are really raw and never have a 100% percent correspondence with real life. You start with an idea and you get fixated on some assumptions that this would be the right way to go, but at the end of the day, or throughout the process you realize that this is not how things work in real life. You need to be very attentive to the changes around you and to take into account several parametres in order to try and find a balance between what you want, between what other people want, but also what is really happening around you. Of course, you might say that everything is a matter of perspective. That you can also live in a small bubble or you can adjust the way you perceive things in such a way that they fit your framework. But there will always exist some resistance, the main question is, how do you decide to deal with that resistance[KE(1] ? Do you simply ignore it? Pretend it is not there? Do you acknowledge it and try to work your way around it? Or do you decide to engage with it? With a risk of even discrediting what you have always thought was there? There is a very interesting connection with the fixed mental path that you have constructed in your mind and how the idea materializes in the physical world….

I guess that is already more food for thought for the next couple of days…

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Frustration, Frustration, Frustration! It feels like I am going around circles with this…and the initial idea that I thought would be the “golden” ticket to a good thesis does not feel like that anymore.

Of course, I am exaggerating when I say “golden ticket”, but still, as any researcher, you want your ideas to be innovative and in a way challenge what already exists…

But first, maybe it might be easier to say a few things about me and why I am writing this…I am a Research Master’s student in the field of Performance studies, but I am also really, really interested in sciences. I always had this idea that arts and sciences are really not as different as my educational system presented them to be, and I have always tried to find ways to try and figure out different ways in which they can be interrelated. This is probably also one of the reasons why I was also really interested in philosophy, where this clear disciplinary separation was not as absolute…

Just to be clear, I have never published anything like this before, and it is still not entirely clear to me why I decided to do it…I am quite private with my thoughts, especially the… let’s say “frustrated” ones, but I felt that somehow it might be helpful to be able to articulate them and share them in a different context.

So, after two years of courses and several interdisciplinary seminars, I finally thought that I had found a research idea that could encompass the my two main interests…On the one hand, I became really interested in the practice of dramaturgy especially within the context of performance studies and dance and not so much theatre per say -although it is not so easy to make “clear” distinctions between the different artforms seeing how different media and even different disciples can now be part of the creative process of a performance….

In any case, I found really interesting the way that dramaturgs where talking about their work and how it is a field of study that is as analytical and conceptual as it is practical. What I also found really fascinating was that, at least in the literature that I have come across, that there is a consensus between dramaturgs, and that is that there are no standard methods or tools than can be followed exactly in order to ensure the “success” of each different performance. Nevertheless, their writings are far from presenting radically divergent ideas. They all seem to apply a specific way of thinking that is employed exactly to try to break the existing cliché’s that inevitably enter the creative space when making a performance. Characterizations like finding value in the process of erring, of accepting that you constantly need to deal with the unknown, while trying to figure out the right questions to ask in order to eventually figure out what it was that you didn’t know are an important part of the contemporary literature on dance dramaturgy.

You may say that, yes! of course, this is art, art is meant to be creative, to be unpredictable, not to follow any “rules”… it is not like scientific practices, where you have all these theories that you need to constantly confirm through experiments and to create rigorous processes to validate your findings. And, I would, of course, agree that if you compare these two practices from a distance, of course they are radically different. But what about the “voila” moments? The moments where groundbreaking ideas, methods and theories were introduced, like calculous, the theory of relativity, quantum physics. Weren’t those moments where theorems and theories were precisely challenged and/or twisted? And what I find an even more interesting example is that although quantum physics seems to be so far the best physical theory that we have developed so far, we are still far from reaching a consensus when it comes to a well-accepted interpretation of the experimental results, and even if you don’t think of these ground breaking moments, aren’t scientific practices full of errors, moments of being lost, of not knowing and trying to navigate in uncharted territory?….

…Again, I am aware that I am making some conceptual leaps and simplifying some of the issues that I present.  So please, read this more like a free flow of ideas and an attempt to flesh out all the raw ideas that are guiding my reasoning when trying to come up with a proposal for my thesis….

So here comes the second part of my research interest, philosophy of science… I have taken several courses in philosophy of science and what I found to be very interesting was that although both fields of research are focusing on similar concepts and “problems”, like how to understand and conceptualize space and time, there seems to be very small interaction between the two. So, I was very intrigued by the idea of developing further these observations in within a research project…

In the theories that we are developing there are always some initial assumptions, some primary hypotheses that can be either verified through experiment or practice or disqualified based on experimental evidence. And this is the same in the way that we use the concepts of spacetime. But, of course, over time, the way we understand space time has changed significantly, starting from Aristotle, to Newton, Einstein, and so on.  But then the question is: what generated these changes in thinking about spacetime in a different way?  This is of course a very broad question, but you might argue that what happened was that the previous theories proved to be unable to explain some inconsistences that emerged when technological developments developed more precise tools of measurement. So new models of thought needed to be created in order to account for these inconsistencies….

…And…. unfortunately, this is how far my free flow of writing was able to take me without trying to force myself to produce something “meaningful”… which already suggests that there is definitely a lot more context that I would need to cover to make sense of my initial idea to combine these two fields of research in such a way…

So, of course such a reasoning process this is not enough justification to ensure the “success” and value of my research…How is it possible to balance my personal interests and my assumptions based on my (rather) limited experience on these two subjects, as a research master’s student and create an academic piece of writing?

Based on my experience from my bachelor’s degree, and from discussion with my fellow master’s students, I know that writing a master’s thesis is a challenging task to undertake, but you never fully realize this until it actually happens to you…And exactly because it is challenging, I would like to focus on something that I feel passionate about, something that sparks my interest and I feel like I am learning more not only within an academic context, but also it helps me to improve as a person. At the same time, it is a process that requires you to stay many hours reading texts and books, and then try to create a piece of writing that is consistent, precise, contributes to the ongoing research of your theme, rigorous in its argumentation, clear in the way it is positioned within the existing literature, just to name a few.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand and value the importance of all these requirements, and I admire and respect the authors behind these pieces of writing, because now more than even, I understand the complexity of such a process.

But at the same time, I feel that it is something that is not really discussed, and writing a good thesis requires way more than just being a good academic writer.  I have heard radically different stories from my fellow master’s students when it comes to the process of writing their thesis, and for some it has turned out to be a very rough experience and a big struggle while for others everything has worked according to plan and very successfully if I may add. There are so many questions that come up while trying to work on such a piece of writing…

• You might think you have an interesting idea, but how can you contextualize it within the existing literature?
• When would I know that I have read a satisfactory amount of literature to qualify me as “knowledgeable” on the subject?
• What methodology shall I use?
• How can I ensure that my arguments are rigorous enough? What if I miss a critical perspective that could disqualify my approach?
• How can you be sure that you are not imposing your own perspective on what you are reading?

So, I read and I make notes, and I read again, trying to answer all the above questions, or at least trying to be satisfied with the answers that I try to give to myself. But, I still have this sense of feeling lost and frustrated… and them more questions and doubts arise…

• Is what I am trying to do even possible?
• Or is it a matter of figuring out the proper way of framing the context and my research questions?
• I know that as you try to refine your research topic, it is essential to start narrowing down themes and topics that you originally felt are relevant, but which ones shall I remove and which ones to keep?

I find it also a bit frustrating, after having read several books to realize afterwards, that they might not be as useful as you initially thought they would… it feels hard to let go of something that you took for granted…

….after writing this last sentence, I realized it was actually really ironic since, one of the main assumptions of my research is that both mathematical thinking and dramaturgical thinking are concerned exactly with idea to try to not get fixated on specific patterns of thinking and certain ideas that might inhibit developing new theories or content further. These types of thinking that I am trying to elaborate on are practicing exactly the skill of understanding when it is needed to let some ways of thinking go, or to rethink the way you approach some ideas…

Well, I guess I did an extra step today….