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Since the establishment of dramaturgy as both a practice and a profession of contemporary European dance in the mid-1990s, one of the most common ways to describe what dramaturgy does is that it bridges theory and practice. At present, this formulaic explanation has become a part of the lore of dance dramaturgy, leading us to forget its roots in the discussions that ignited the field in the mid-1990s. In this article I revisit those discussions, looking through the lens of some of the original experiences that spurred them. In doing so, I am backtracking to the time when dance dramaturgy first received broad attention and became the object and site of discursive, aesthetic, and dance-making politics. This was also the moment when dramaturgy was defined as a profession in the context of a freelance, project-based economy of performance-making.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137373229_2

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