Laboratory on Feedback in Artistic Processes 3

Rethinking the Position of the Dramaturge in
the Artistic Process
Mila Pavićević
30
I was recently provoked by a colleague who asked the following
questions, “What do you do when you work as dramaturge in dance?
I don’t understand, is there a role for someone who just feeds
back? Isn’t feedback just one of the components of a working process?”
As a possible reply, I could tell a few jokes I recently heard
about the uselessness of dramaturges, but I would rather focus on
the notion of exclusivity when it comes to offering dramaturgical
expertise as the primary appointed feedback-giver in a process. It
is evident that the role of the dramaturge as a trained feedback-giver
is increasingly prominent in the context of the independent
dance scene. It seems to me that there has been a proliferation
of freelance dramaturges in this field. Even though a dramaturge’s
position in the working process still remains ambivalent and
vague, it often raises old misunderstandings between theory and
practice again. For instance, while working in Italy and the UK I
realized that the possible answer to the first question is usually
followed by a second question: “So, are you a playwright?” This
usually means that I have to face the disappointment after the
following explanation is given: “I am a writer, but in this case I
probably will not take on the role of playwright.”
However, what I still find the most exciting and at the same time
challenging thing about working as a dramaturge is precisely this
ambiguity. An ambiguity that results from the fact that the very
definition of dramaturgy is not yet really fixed, stable or finished;
there are plenty of possible definitions. These multiple definitions
open up many different ways of practising dramaturgy: different
structures and modes of working, depending on the context of the