How Little is Enough? Porous & Embracing Dramaturgy for Transformative Encounters

Abstract

The article gives an insight into the dramaturgical tools that are applied in the site specific and participatory performance Island, that was performed in Hrísey, an island north off the coast of Iceland in 2020. The project is a part of the artistic PhD research How Little is Enough? Sustainable Methods of Performance for Transformative Encounters, at Malmö Theatre Academy, University of Lund, that explores sustainable methods of creating transformative encounters with an audience  through participatory and site-specific artworks, with a particular focus on how minimal and sustainable the framework for the encounter can be. The article asks what dramaturgical tools can create condition and provide triggers for transformation through minimal means and introduces two dramaturgical tools, POROSITY and EMBRACE, that can be understood as enablers for transformative experiences. While Cathy Turner who coined the term porous dramaturgy, uses these two terms to describe the same tool, this article argues that porosity and embrace have separate functions. The video unpacks the distinction between these dramaturgical tools and disseminates how they appear and can be understood in the performance, Island.

Keywords

• Sustainability
• Artistic Research
• Socially Engaged Art
• Ecological Art
• Site-Specific Performance
• Human-Specific Performance