{"id":198,"date":"2021-10-31T08:23:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-31T08:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/?p=198"},"modified":"2026-06-19T10:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T10:08:11","slug":"heterarchical-dramaturgies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/24\/heterarchical-dramaturgies\/","title":{"rendered":"Heterarchical Dramaturgies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Katalin <\/strong>Trencs\u00e9nyi<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

This essay, following Chantal Bilodeau\u2019s call for new dramatic theories, investigates the patterns with which we are thinking about the world when (re)presenting it on the stage. If the Aristotelian form can be interpreted as hierarchical, conflict-led and expressing patriarchal values, what are those heterarchical dramaturgies in contemporary theatre that promote a more equal worldview? Looking at recent examples of drama, performance and contemporary dance, this paper draws up a parallel universe of new dramaturgies (including complex systems theory, game theory and musical dramaturgy) that are open, playful, dynamic, not binary, non-linear and promote a more complex worldview. It examines the emerging theory behind them and discerns what value and overall meaning arise from using these dramaturgies in theatrical composition.

Keywords:<\/strong> Aristotle, heterarchical dramaturgies, new dramaturgy, dynamic systems theory, dramaturgy as stratigraphy, archipelago dramaturgy, game theory, musical dramaturgy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GALILEO:\u00a0<\/em>The universe has lost its centre overnight, and woken up to find it has countless centres. So that each one can now be seen as the centre, or none at all. Suddenly there is a lot of room. (Brecht[1]<\/sup><\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Provocation<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In an essay published as part of the Theatre in the Age of Climate Change-series of the online theatre portal, HowlRound, <\/em>Canadian playwright, translator and artistic director of Arctic Cycle Chantal Bilodeau announced her decision: to no longer rely on the dramaturgical rules that were laid down in Aristotle\u2019s Poetics <\/em>(\u201cWhy I\u2019m Breaking Up with Aristotle\u201d). Her reason for leaving behind the theory that has shaped and defined the majority of the dramatic works of the Western culture in the past 2,500 years is that our Anthropocene age needs a new narrative that cannot be achieved through using Aristotle\u2019s arguably dated model. The Aristotelian structure, states Bilodeau, is not only a model for structuring drama but it also inherently includes values: a patriarchal-hierarchical way of thinking about the world and the human race\u2019s place in it as an aggressive conqueror\u2014a worldview that is no longer morally sustainable in the twenty-first century. \u201cIs it ethical to embrace a dramatic form that was designed to justify inequality and violence?\u201d asks Bilodeau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Bilodeau\u2019s understanding of Aristotle\u2019s Poetics<\/em> seems somewhat narrow (notably, her criticism of \u201cAristotle\u2019s pyramid\u201d is based on Gustav Freytag\u2019s interpretation of Aristotle\u2014inherently reading into it values of a nineteenth-century Western society\u2014rather than the original work[2]<\/sup><\/a>), yet the suggestion of looking beyond the popular view of the Aristotelian paradigm to explore and (re)discover other forms merits further consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In European cultures (and in others that adapted its worldview and idea of representation), the Aristotelian plot development with its triad (beginning, middle and end) structure and plot direction from complication to solution is certainly the most popular model to shape a dramatic work. This triangular form, in Freytag\u2019s interpretation (the one Bilodeau constructs her arguments against), is characterised by a progressive linear narrative moving towards an apex. According to this understanding, the story starts with an instigating incident, which sets a rising chain of actions in motion, heading up to the climax, which then is followed by a falling line of action towards the plot denou<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>ment<\/em>. In this interpretation, the \u201cAristotelian\u201d plot structure revolves around conflict (conflicting forces) and confrontation and ends in one element conquering the other. This triangular-shaped plot is a very reliable form; therefore, it has remained popular. Today, it can be found everywhere from drama to cinema; moreover, its use is extended to shaping various narratives beyond the domain of the arts, including \u201creality\u201d TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, the structures we create when telling our stories also reflect our values. The shapes of a society\u2019s stories are at least as interesting as the shapes of their pots and spearheads, noted Kurt Vonnegut (qtd. in Jones). Moreover, Bilodeau suggests that \u201cthe structure we use to build our societies, and the structure we use to shape our stories, are one and the same.\u201d She therefore demands: how can writers formulate a new vision and serve societal change, if structurally their work is bound to an oppressive format?<\/p>\n\n\n

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Aristotle<\/em> by Jusepe de Ribera. Oil on canvas, 1637. From the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. Rights: The Clowes Collection. Photo: Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Apart from ethical and political problems, Bilodeau lists epistemological reasons that make the Aristotelian model problematic today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, writing plays where scenes have a neat cause and effect relationship in the Internet age where ideas emerge through associations, and where biomimicry is replacing old mechanical principles, seems archaic. And with quantum physics telling us that two realities can exist at the same time and that an observed behavior is forever changed by the act of observation, shouldn\u2019t we explore all the possible realms of existence and consciousness rather than stick to a thin sliver of observable reality? Humans are not the center of the universe anymore. Time is no longer linear. Our species could go extinct. These are profound ideas that should inform how we structure our stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the following, I would like to take up Bilodeau\u2019s invitation by questioning this postulate of European theatre and see whether if we look beyond the most popular dramaturgical model, other dramaturgies can be recognised. This investigation seems timely when our society is in transition: what are the patterns with which we are thinking about the world when (re)presenting it on the stage? What are those non-hierarchical dramaturgies that can promote a more equal worldview?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The urgency of these questions and their relevance to current theatrical practices was highlighted by an open letter to dramaturgs, written by British playwrights in March 2021 and signed by over a hundred colleagues worldwide: \u201cWe need to talk about Dramaturgy.\u201d In this letter, the signatories highlight \u201ccertain patterns of injury specific to writers of colour after bruising encounters with Eurocentric dramaturgy\u201d (Abdulrazzak et al.). The points raised in the letter reveal how the dominating dramaturgical theory (and subsequent practices) can contribute to the oversight of works that use different dramaturgies that are rooted in different cultures or knowledge systems and thus can lead to the systemic exclusion of plays written by playwrights of colour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This dramaturgical monoculture is especially concerning, considering that as soon as we move our glance away from the geographic (and socio-political) area where the Aristotelian paradigm is prevalent, a plethora of different traditional dramaturgies can be found: the rasas of the Natyashastra, the spiral dramaturgies of Indigenous cultures, the carnival\u2019s anti-establishment dramaturgy, the circular Hero\u2019s journey of myths and legends or the conflictless Kish\u014dtenketsu composition\u2014to mention just the most obvious ones. Since this field is too vast to explore within the remits of a single essay, here I will focus on contemporary theatre within the European culture only to show that even inside this framework there are plenty of non-linear dramaturgies to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Towards a New Dramatic Theory<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Bilodeau\u2019s essay generated a lively conversation on the HowlRound<\/em> portal, which led to a subsequent podcast interview with her by Mike Lueger. In this conversation, Bilodeau further explored this idea and began to outline possible new dramaturgies. To define the framework within which these were to be envisioned, Bilodeau describes a heterarchical worldview<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The heterarchical worldview is circular. It\u2019s not as much a power structure. It\u2019s a distribution of power. It\u2019s more collaborative. It\u2019s networks, so people are connected in a bunch of different ways. If there is power, it\u2019s more shifting, so it\u2019s not like one person or one entity always holds it. It kind of shifts depending on what\u2019s needed. … In a heterarchy, in general, more people have more agency. qtd. in Lueger<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of an alternative poetics that contains other than the male experience has been part of the discourse of feminist literary criticism since the late 1970s. These examinations first concerned the genre of the novel, which was perceived as standing on Aristotelian premises of conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an essay, \u201cAristotle\u2019s Sister: A Poetics of Abandonment,\u201d Lawrence Lipking noted \u201chow much literary theory serves masculine interests\u201d and that \u201ca woman\u2019s poetics\u201d should repair this imbalance (78). His suggestion for a female poetics for the existing canon of female literature was one that was not based on myth and culture\u2014socio-political constructs that women have been historically excluded from\u2014but on their \u201ccommon experience and common suffering\u201d (72). Exploring for \u201cunmanned spaces\u201d within the framework of the existing Western, male-shaped paradigm, Lipking arguably found this universal female knowledge in \u201cabandonment.\u201d He then imagines Aristotle\u2019s sister, Arimneste composing her alternative poetics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPoetry,\u201d she writes, \u201cis the expression of a life, personal, incomplete, and proportioned to the self; employing whatever language and conventions one has been allowed to acquire; presented in fragments; and achieving through sharing the emotions of loneliness and abandonment, a momentary sense of not being alone. (77)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although at first sight \u201cabandonment\u201d may not sound aspiring to future female writers, however, this poetics offers opportunities. What is notable here is the freedom of form it proposes\u2014since fragments or incomplete forms are not adhering to the Aristotelian beginning, middle and end format; and the opportunities for a variety of artistic language and style that is offered in this \u201cfemale poetics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others sought to propose a more affirmative concept for an alternative literary theory to replace the prevailing one. For instance, Ursula K. Le Guin in her 1986 essay, \u201cThe Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,\u201d suggests a move away from the theory of conflict to another, non-violent theory that culturally precedes the story of the hero: the story of the \u201ccontainer,\u201d the holder, the recipient. Her position is that the \u201ckiller story\u201d (and the worldview it represents) has reached its end, and if we as a society don\u2019t want to die with it, we need to seek a different one, the \u201cuntold one, the life story.\u201d This one, however, is a non-violent narrative that is not driving towards a settlement but perpetual sustenance. In the \u201ccarrier bag narrative,\u201d we can also observe an emphasis on process conscious working:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Conflict, competition, stress, struggle, etc, within the narrative conceived as carrier bag \/ belly \/ box \/ house \/ medicine bundle, may be seen as necessary elements of a whole which itself cannot be characterized either as conflict or as harmony, since its purpose is neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Sisal basket being woven in Kenya. Photo: Shopobatala for Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Around the same time, Danish-Greenlandic author, playwright, director and theorist Ulla Ryum put forward the concept of circular and spiral dramaturgies, \u201ca network of actions in a circular, ascending sequence,\u201d an open structure, as a non-Aristotelian narrative technique. This she named \u201cfemale dramaturgy.\u201d  Ryum accompanied her essay on these new dramatic forms with annotated illustrations that depict spider web-like shapes. What is even more notable in Ryum\u2019s arguments is that instead of the causality of linear, \u201couter\u201d dramatic actions, this dramaturgy, through its interactive effect, generates inner associative processes, \u201cinner actions\u201d (Ryum; Arntzen).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question of whether there exists a dramaturgy that does not build on patriarchal values appears in a blog post written by dramaturg and theorist Du\u0161ka Radosavljevi\u0107 (\u201cA Question, a Case Study and Seven Digressions\u201d). <\/em>She refers to Leonard Shlain\u2019s book (The Alphabet Versus the Goddess)<\/em> about a female worldview that was lost with the rise of literacy.<\/em> According to Shlain, this female perspective is \u201cholistic<\/em>, simultaneous<\/em>, synthetic<\/em>, and concrete\u201d<\/em> as opposed to a \u201clinear<\/em>, sequential<\/em>, reductionist<\/em>, and abstract<\/em> thinking\u201d that defines the male outlook (Shlain 1). Radosavljevi\u0107 agrees that this female worldview cannot be expressed through Aristotelian dramaturgy, and in her essay, she attempts to outline a \u201cpre-Aristotelian mode of theatre-making,\u201d based on her empirical experience of observing female theatre makers at work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Radosavljevi\u0107, this \u201cfemale dramaturgy\u201d can be described as: \u201cfragmentary, [prefers] cyclical structures; [the authors] tend to dwell on a specific theme rather than pursuing action-filled plots; their storytelling is more ornate and full of digressions; and they are possibly more conflict-averse.\u201d She proposes that the emblematic figure for this kind of creative process might be Penelope from the Odyssey<\/em>, weaving and un-weaving her cloth, \u201cbeing more interested in repeating rather than completing an action.\u201d In her essay, Radosavljevi\u0107 uses expressions that point towards a new vocabulary when describing this kind of work, for instance, she employs the metaphor \u2018embroidering\u2019 when talking about the embellishments of the plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Radosavljevi\u0107\u2019s proposition is echoed in artist, writer and curator Janis Jefferies\u2019s ideas expressed in her essay, \u201cRavelling and Unravelling,\u201d starting from a postulate that \u201cplots are woven as well as garments\u201d (61)\u2014a premise rooted in the etymology of the word \u201ctext\u201d (from the Latin \u201ctexere<\/em>\u201d to weave). Jefferies then describes an aesthetic (and politics) through the metaphor of weaving: \u201cweaving manifests the intersection of two threads, the warp and the weft, running at right angles to each other, going in different directions, yet coming together to form a substantial and flexible whole\u201d (70).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This aesthetic is characterised by an emphasis on (repeated) labour and a more process conscious approach, which, according to Jefferies, has an \u201cinherently feminist politic and poetic\u201d (69). Then, referring to Barbara Clayton\u2019s book, who names this meandering, process-conscious strategy and poetics Penelopean<\/em>, Jefferies concludes with a quote from her: \u201cas a process, it participates in a network of ambiguities that undermine stable and fixed meaning\u201d (Clayton 39).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the essay, Jefferies recalls the etymology of the name of Penelope: \u201cHer name, an acronym of \u2018pene\u2019 (web) and \u2018ops\u2019 (eye) suggest an insight into a problem with the tools at her disposal\u201d (64); and notes that in many of Plato\u2019s dialogues \u201cweaving is used as an ontological metaphor and a way of analyzing knowledge itself\u201d (70).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In prehistoric European cultures (unlike, for instance, in cultures in north Africa), weaving is identified as a female activity. In Greek mythology, there is another mortal female figure who is renowned for her knowledge in spinning and weaving: Arachne. According to the myth, she challenged Athena (the goddess of women\u2019s handicrafts and an accomplished weaver), and, as a punishment, she was turned into a spider[3]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Arachne <\/em>by Otto Henry Bacher. Etching, 1884. From the open-access collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Notably, the spider image appears in Deleuze\u2019s 1976 essay on Proust, when introducing the body without organs (corps sans<\/em> organes<\/em>)  metaphor for a narrator who is weaving the web of the narrative:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

. . . she answers only to signs, the merest sign surging through her body and causing her to spring upon her prey. The Search is not constructed like a cathedral or like a gown but like a web. The Spider-Narrator whose web is the Search being spun, being woven by each thread stirred by one sign or another: the web and the spider, the web and the body are one and the same machine. . . . Involuntary sensibility, involuntary memory, involuntary thought that are, each time, like the intense totalizing reactions of the organless body to signs of one nature or another. It is this body, this spider\u2019s web, that opens or seals each of the tiny cells that a sticky thread of the Search happens to touch. (181\u201382)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Deleuze writes about the working process of a narrator of a novel, the description of this heightened sensibility and the capability of \u201cspinning in any direction\u201d vividly evokes that lived dramaturgy experience<\/em> of those who have ever devised a new performance, when the piece and its dramaturgy are being generated and shaped at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With these examples, we can now recognise metaphors emerging for these different worldviews and, consequently, about these different ways of thinking about composition: the Aristotelian linear paradigm <\/em>versus the complex system<\/em> of the Penelopean woven (and unwoven) fabric or the Arachnean web<\/em>. A linear cause and effect development versus a non-linear, dynamic and complex one: interconnected and mobile systems, where directions are not necessarily predetermined and multiple viewpoints are allowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is striking about this latter, non-linear approach to composition is that it sits seamlessly within Eugenio Barba\u2019s definition of dramaturgy. Barba in the Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology<\/em> uses the etymology of the Greek word (\u201cdrama<\/em>\u201d and \u201cergon<\/em>\u201d) and defines dramaturgy as \u201cthe work of the actions\u201d in a performance; whereby an action is \u201ceverything that works directly on the spectators\u2019 attention, on their understanding, their emotions, their kinaesthesia\u201d (75).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barba\u2019s definition has two consequences for dramaturgy: first, it expands beyond the dramaturgy of a written text (a play), since it is considered as the weaving together into a \u201ctexture\u201d of everything that can become an action; that is, \u201cnot only what is said and done but also the sounds, the lights, the changes in space\u201d (Dictionary <\/em>75). The second consequence of this is that Barba moves beyond defining dramaturgy as a linear development of the narrative\u2014or the linear development of \u201cdoing time\u201d in space (to borrow Tim Etchells\u2019s metaphor)\u2014and acknowledges dramaturgy as a simultaneous plurality of various horizontal layers of different constituents that are also woven together in a performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Barba recognises a more complex relationship between these levels of organisation of a performance, and he notes that we can talk about three interconnected layers of dramaturgy (On Directing and Dramaturgy<\/em>). These are: the organic or dynamic dramaturgy of a performance (the sensory\/kinaesthetic composition), the narrative dramaturgy (the meaning) and the evocative dramaturgy (the spectators\u2019 response). \u201cEach of these levels has its own logic, its demands and objectives\u201d (10). In this model, the linear, narrative dramaturgy\u2014something that would traditionally be defined as \u2018the dramaturgy\u2019 of a play\u2014features as only one of the horizontal components, it is sandwiched between vertical layers that are at work at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, whereas in the Aristotelian, hierarchical paradigm we can observe a linear, logical, cause and effect progression, the Arachnean, heterarchical paradigm<\/em> approaches the world holistically, in its complexity. \u201cDramaturgy is for me learning how to handle complexity,\u201d noted Marianne Van Kerkhoven, the \u201cfounding mother\u201d of new dramaturgy <\/em>in her keynote lecture \u201cEuropean Dramaturgy in the 21st Century\u201d <\/em>(11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, the move towards narrative paradigms other than the Aristotelian in the history of the Western theatre cultures began much earlier: mainly as a result of formative meetings with cultures beyond the European theatre traditions. For instance, Antonin Artaud, whose encounter with a Balinese dance performance set off an inspired exploration that resulted in his ideas about the Theatre of Cruelty<\/em>. Theatre innovators of the following generation (Grotowski, Barba and so on), who, finding inspiration in the tradition of oral, folk and indigenous cultures, developed the practice of theatre anthropology<\/em> and thus drew attention to many different forms of storytelling and dramaturgies. From the 1960s onwards, theatre and dance performances that were created through collaborative processes and improvisation led to the formulation of the theory of new dramaturgy<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Van Kerkhoven who, in the early 1990s, suggested the term new dramaturgy<\/em> to use for those compositional methods that were not compatible with the Aristotelian theory[4]<\/sup><\/a>. The theory of those theatre and dance performances belongs to the paradigm of new dramaturgy<\/em>, which questions the primacy of the text in a performance and which aims to weave together the various components of a performance in a less hierarchical, more open and playful form. The corresponding creative process is no longer a two-step process (Danan 5): the author writes the play that is then interpreted and staged by the director, but the performance and its dramaturgy (its temporal-spatial structure) are developed at the same time with the development of the piece in the rehearsal room:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[It is a] quest for possible understanding, [where] the meaning, the intentions, the form and the substance of a play arise during the working process. . . . In this case dramaturgy is no longer a means of bringing out the structure of the meaning of the world in a play, but (a quest for) a provisional or possible arrangement which the artist imposes on those elements he gathers from a reality that appears to him chaotic. In this kind of world picture, causality and linearity lose their value, storyline and psychologically explicable characters are put at risk, there is no longer a hierarchy amongst the artistic building blocks used. . . . (Van Kerkhoven, \u201cOn Dramaturgy\u201d 18\u201320)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is notable in this definition is how Van Kerkhoven\u2019s description of new dramaturgy mirrors Deleuze\u2019s above-mentioned concept about the \u2018body without organs\u2019 when describing the creative process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New dramaturgy offered a comprehensive term and vocabulary to approach composition that did not correspond to Aristotelian principles and describe collaborative practices. There have been attempts to replace the adjective with a more accurate one that would be still open enough to contain the plurality of systems and variety of aesthetics the term \u201cnew\u201d was supposed to cover. In the ensuing discourse, this was also referred to as \u201copen\u201d (Van Kerkhoven), \u201cexpanded\u201d (Eckersall), \u201cpostdramatic\u201d (Lehmann), \u201ccontemporary\u201d (Lehmann and Primavesi), \u201cslow\u201d (Eckersall and Paterson), \u201cporous\u201d (Turner), \u201ceco-critical\u201d (Gade); and it has also been suggested \u201cqueering\u201d new dramaturgy (Campbell), thus opening the term up to non-conformist, antinormative and anti-institutional aesthetics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These manifold adjectives suggest that, by questioning the postulate of Aristotelian dramaturgy, parallel new universes of dramaturgies can be found (and rediscovered) beyond (or next to) Poetics<\/em>. To conclude this part of my essay, I am proposing to combine the theory of new dramaturgy<\/em> with the theory of complex systems <\/em>to arrive at a new dramatic theory which, for its name, could perhaps take the adjective Bilodeau put forward and be named: heterarchical dramaturgies<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having briefly outlined this emerging dramatic theory and its possible theoretical origins, in the second half of this essay, I would like to investigate systemically: What are the occurrences of these heterarchical dramaturgies <\/em>in contemporary theatre and performance? What are the main principles behind them, how do they operate and what value and overall meaning arise from these different dramaturgies in theatrical composition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organising a Performance<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

When creating the \u201ctexture\u201d of a performance, we look at occurrences, recognise patterns, movements and correlations, and arrange the constituents of a performance into a composition, a dynamic form<\/em>. By creating a unique chemistry between familiar and unfamiliar, excitement and reassurance, stories are formed, narratives emerge, emotions are evoked. The way we compose, our dramaturgy will depend on and reveal what we think about time, space, culture and theatre\u2019s role within the given society. When leaving behind the linearity of the plot and the hierarchy of text (that is, the Aristotelian dramaturgy), there are a variety of systemic, heterarchical approaches to organising performative abundance and shaping complex systems on a (micro-)dramaturgical level that can be observed in contemporary theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dynamic Systems Theories<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Dynamic systems theory is a \u201ctheoretical framework that is used to understand and predict self-organizing phenomena in complex systems that are constantly changing, reorganizing, and progressing over time,\u201d displaying \u201cnonlinear behavioural changes\u201d (Connell et al.). Applied to dramaturgy, it regards both the creative process and the texture of the performance as dynamic systems. For a starting point, some dramaturgs when theorising the dramaturgical practice take the theory of James Grier Miller\u2019s living systems<\/em> (Little), others start from Niklas Luhmann\u2019s theory on social systems<\/em> (Szatkowski).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living systems<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

For dramaturg Ruth Little, this means recognising that \u201cwe are all within these universal patterns and processes\u201d and thinking ecologically about the liveliness of the artwork, interconnectedness, patterns, and change (\u201cDynamic Structure and Living Systems\u201d). This seems to echo Peter S. Stevens\u2019 thoughts, which looks at shapes and patterns that occur naturally and observes the aesthetics found in spiralling, branching patterns, meandering and explosions. Stevens noticed \u201cthat the immense variety that nature creates emerges from the working and reworking of only a few formal themes\u201d (3). Then, he demonstrated, through laws of science (turbulence, flow, surface tension, close packing, the constraints of space and so on), how they evolve.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Gritstone outcrop in Derbyshire. Photo: courtesy of the author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Novelist and theorist Jane Alison takes a similar position to Little\u2019s, noting that these forms are not only around us but within us (our capillaries, our cells, our organs repeat these forms we can recognise in nature); moreover, we instinctively follow these natural patterns. Therefore, she suggests, they could be effectively used in shaping narratives too, as described in her book Meander, Spiral, Explode<\/em>. Alison\u2019s suggestions for the use of these narrative patterns in novels, such as wave, spiral, radial, branching and other fractal patterns, or cellular, repeating patterns (21\u201322), can easily apply to the shaping of a performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Little\u2019s thinking about dramaturgy, though, the emphasis is not on the pattern itself but on its creation and most importantly its disturbance. Like Stevens, she too is more interested in the process that brings about these changes than the pattern. Little argues that: \u201cliving systems<\/em> are fluent and adaptive; they incorporate feedback and change and are constantly moving, flowing. They slip free of rigid principles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, for this approach, dramaturgy extends beyond the literary realms and becomes a \u201cfar more open, dynamic field of practice where the attention is on the process itself, on the unfolding and becoming and all forms of change\u201d (Little qtd. in Meade). This way dramaturgy becomes: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

a field of knowledge and a practice [. . .] considering and behaving as though the work itself is alive, and that all of its parts are in relation with one another in the same way that any ecological system is. (Little qtd. in Meade)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, what dramaturgy does is to consider the constantly changing relationship between action and meaning. Consequently, \u201cmeaning is [. . .] found not in the pattern itself, but in its disturbance, and the creation of new patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dramaturgs who apply living systems theory (for instance, Little working with choreographer Akram Khan or with the Canadian urban dance ice skating company, Le Patin Libre) are informed by an understanding of non-linear dynamics. For instance, in the ice dance performance of Vertical<\/em> by Le Patin Libre, the formation, disruption and reforming of new patterns can be observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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