..Janez Janša: Dramaturgy that establishes a field for a negotiating position

SATURDAY, 15.05.2010
15:00 Dramaturgy symposium: Janez Janša: Dramaturgija, PTL

Janez Janša:
Dramaturgy that establishes a field for a negotiating position

Social development has established a need for fundamental changes in dramaturgy today and its increasingly more important role in the creation of contemporary dance performances. The dramaturgy of a performance tries to respond to the social and political present, the passive community in which we live. By using various levers it demands constant activation on the part of the spectator at the perceptive and emotional as well as the cognitive level. Dramaturgy produces a ground where both the spectator and the performer are established through negotiation. In my contribution, I will try to delineate the relation between dramaturgy and the structure of a performance, present the possible ways of attracting the attention of the spectator/consumer for them to reconstruct and construct anew, through the process of decontextualization, the contexts of the present in which they find themselves.

Janez Janša has studied sociology and theatre directing at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and performance theory at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is author and director of interdisciplinary performances. Janša’s work includes also visual, multimedia and performance art works. He regularly curates interdisciplinary workshops around Europe and USA and he is the initiator of the organization P.E.A.C.E. - Peacekeepers' entertainment, art and cultural exchange (with Mare Bulc). He has published numerous essays on contemporary theatre and art including the book on Jan Fabre. He has been editor in chief of the performing arts journal MASKA (1999-2006). Since 1999 he is the director of Maska, non-profit organization in publishing, production and education, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia.