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Dramaturgy Database

Decentring dance dramaturgy – a proposition for multiplicity in dance

This paper proposes that the means by which to engage with and understand the dramaturgical reasoning in these contemporary works is through a decentred perspective. In considering the contemporaneity of current dance practice, together with cultural, scientific and philosophical inquiries into order from chaos or complexity theory, the paper invokes Derrida’s use of the term decentred (used to reposition the dynamic aspects of cultural structures) with Deleuze’s suggestion of rhizomatic thinking, to describe a somewhat idealistic proposition that may enable contradictory practices within dance to inhabit the same philosophical space.

Mokotow, Anny. “Decentring dance dramaturgy—a proposition for multiplicity in dance.” In C. F. Stock & P. Germain-Thomas (Eds.), Contemporising the past: envisaging the future (2015), Proceedings of the 2014 World Dance Alliance Global Summit, Angers, 6–11 July. https://ausdance.org.au/articles/details/decentring-dance-dramaturgya-proposition-for-multiplicity-in-dance.