ADN Event Series 2021-22

Event

ADN Re/View Critical Responses & Discussion Vol. I, II, III 

ADN Re/View is a series of e-publications which offer snapshots of the work of ADN, drawing from the transcripts of the presentations and dialogues that occurred at varied ADN events since 2016. Three volumes will be released from July 2021 to January 2022.

Three sessions of online public discussions will take place following the release of each ADN Re/View issue, featuring different panels of dramaturg-practitioners responding to the themes emerging from the e-publications.

CONVENOR: CHARLENE RAJENDRAN

SPEAKERS:

[VOL. I] PETER ECKERSALL, NESS ROQUE, NANAKO NAKAJIMA, CORRIE TAN

[VOL. II] GEE IMAAN SEMMALAR, JANICE POON, HELLY MINARTI, KOK HENG LEUN

[VOL. III] JANET PILLAI, DAVID PLEDGER, CHARLENE RAJENDRAN

Thinking Dramaturgically as Directors: Workshop

FACILITATOR: CHARLENE RAJENDRAN

Thinking Dramaturgically as Directors offers an open and dialogic space for theatre directors to reflect on and critically review their practice and philosophy as practitioners.

The process will draw on experience, ideas and aspirations that inform the way directors work, to analyse, question and evolve dramaturgical frames of theatre making.

This 3-hour workshop is limited to arts practitioners who are Malay, Indian, Tamil identifying and/or are working within the Malay, Tamil or Indian theatre/arts contexts in Singapore. Conducted in person in Singapore.

The ADN Book Project: Dramaturgies in Publication 

CONVENORS: CHARLENE RAJENDRAN, PETER ECKERSALL

CONTRIBUTORS: ANURADHA KAPUR, CHONG GUA KHEE, DANIEL TEO, DOMINIC NAH, NANAKO NAKAJIMA, UGO PRASAD 

Charlene Rajendran & Peter Eckersall embark on a sustained dialogue with a team of dramaturgs-editors to develop a publication that aims to reflect on, analyse and theorise critical areas of dramaturgy and dramaturgical practice in the Asia-Pacific region. This includes ideas and approaches that are developed and created across the varied spaces of practice.

Bodies to Bodies Dramaturgies 

CONVENORS: LIM HOW NGEAN, GUY COOLS

SPEAKERS: MAJA HRIESIK, NIA AUGUSTINA, SASAPIN ‘PUPE’ SIRIWANIJ, SARA VANDERIECK

Featuring an international roundtable of artists, practitioners, dramaturgs who are engaged in and dedicated to the dramaturgy of the performing body in its multitude of performance strategies.

Paired across different corners of the globe - Maja Hriesik (Slovakia) and Nia Augustina (Indonesia), Sasapin Siriwanij (Thailand) and Sara Vanderieck (Belgium) - will share with us their prior online dialogues with each other and bring sharp focus to ideas surrounding the theme ‘Bodies to Bodies Dramaturgies”. 

We are excited to have a meeting of minds of vast and varied expertise, experience and interests in dance, physical theatre and other corporeal performances. 

Ongoing Online: Durational & Digital Dramaturgy

SPEAKERS: CHEN WU-KANG, SUN RUEY HORNG, SHAWN CHUA

MODERATOR-PROVOCATEUR: NIEN YUAN CHENG

The durational and the digital in performing arts continue to fly even as the world begins to enter an era of endemic with mobility freedoms near the horizon. ADN dives into the notions of durational dramaturgy in a digital context with special reference to 14, a 5-hour dance performance through multiple locations, conceptualised by Chen Wu-Kang and Sun Ruey Horng. 

Moderated by dramaturg Cheng Nien Yuan, this roundtable features Chen, Sun and dramaturg Shawn Chua in conversation to unpack durational and digital dramaturgy in all its specificities and complexities.

Translocal Connections: Introducing the Asian Performing Arts Lab (APAL) in Germany

SPEAKERS: MING POON, DANDAN LIU

PROVOCATEUR: FEZHAH MAZNAN

While the world was isolating and going online, there are still emergent small communities – with safe measures, of course – coming together for the arts. These initiatives strive for development and works-in-progress with support from a collective of artists. Such an initiative is the Germany-based Asian Performing Arts Lab (APAL). With the aim of providing a safe ‘holding place’ for artists to spend time developing and trialling artistic ideas, APAL offers short residencies particularly aligning itself with feminist, queer, decolonial and translocal perspective and approaches.

In this forum,  APAL founder Ming Poon and dramaturg Dana Liu will take us through their efforts of setting up residency programmes for Asian artists while taking on the notion of translocalism as a guiding force in performing arts and arts-making. To deepen the conversation, Singapore producer and dramaturg Fezhah Maznan joins us as discussant, with insights to independent peripheral projects that give voice and expression to minority artists in Singapore. 

Contemporary Dramaturgy and Performance Practice

FACILITATOR: PETER ECKERSALL

This workshop will explore questions of contemporary dramatical practice and ‘new dramaturgy’; we will investigate how dramaturgy has become centrally important in the theory and practice of making contemporary performance. Contemporary performance is a wide interdisciplinary field of performance that includes and mixes aspects of drama, dance, performance, media, design, sound and visuality, along with research into cultural theories and ways of being in the world. These are all touchstones for exploring processes of devising new performance forms. Dramaturgy is seen as a creative and theoretical bridging practice that explores how ideas and cultural themes from the world are adapted and transformed in the making of contemporary performance. In essence, the workshop will explore the central idea that contemporary performance is dramaturgical. 

Find out more here: https://bit.ly/ADNworkshop2022

Public Lecture and Discussion: Contemporary Performance is Dramaturgical by Peter Eckersall

LECTURER: PETER ECKERSALL

In this lecture Peter Eckersall will discuss the role of dramaturgy in making contemporary performance. He will explore dramaturgy as an ‘expanded field’ of practices that include creative research, writing, devising practices and social practices.

A key question will be how dramaturgy helps to make performances that are creative and aesthetically innovative while using the medium of theatre itself to make visible our political conditions and debate the future.

What can the performing arts do and what are its limitations? What can dramaturgy bring to questions for performance makers, dramaturgs, and cultural thinkers? How does contemporary performance engage us in the ethical, aesthetic, and political questions of our times?