Chapter XI: "Dramaturgy at Work": A book launch
Saturday 21. November 2026
Time: 15:00-18:00, and please stay for a glass of wine in the bar
Language: English
Participation is free of charge, but you need to register:
Dramaturgy seminar: Dramaturgy at Work.
Dansens Hus invites performers and creators within the dance and performing arts field to participate in seminars on different forms of dramaturgical thinking.
The 11. edition of the dramaturgy seminar takes the form as an extended book launch of Dramaturgy at Work: Threading through Experimental Dance, Performance and Theater (Routledge 2026) by Bojana Cvejić. Five voices that all have been a part of earlier seminars are invited to respond to the book.
Books are made to be be read and used; not only interpreted, but also commented and tweaked. Snelle Hall, Mette Edvardsen, Nikhil Vettukattil, Nora Frizzi Auerbach and Fredrik Floen will pick out passages from the book and respond to them from the perspective of their own work as artists, dramaturges or educators.
In the period 2022-24, Cvejić wrote the book on dramaturgy based on her practice as dramaturg in dance and theater in Europe since 2000, often in dialogue with other artforms. The invitation of Pil Hansen, editor of the Expanded Dramaturgy book series at Routledge followed from a series of lectures and workshops, which Bojana taught at Dansens Hus in Oslo (2022-2024), but also in Brussels, Amsterdam, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Madrid, Lisbon, Belgrade, Zagreb, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Toubab Dialaw in the period 2006-2022.
The series of the dramaturgy seminar at Dansens Hus expanded to more than 10 sessions ("chapters") over more than three years, which deservedly built a larger context of practical dramaturgy with a diverse lineup of voices coming from beyond Norway. Cvejić’s book is only one in an array of approaches that the series has featured.
About the book:
Starting out from the author’s extensive practice as a dramaturg and educator, Dramaturgy at Work identifies and elucidates the varied selection of dramaturgical tools that have been used in the experimental practices of contemporary dance, theater, and performance in Europe since the early 2000s.
In order to trace the elements of dramaturgy that are at work in the creation and production of a performance, this book focuses on how performances “work” dramaturgically. It illuminates questions, work processes, situations, and decision‑making through stories that unravel the making of a performance. Drawing on scenes across various contexts in Europe and beyond, with their self‑organized platforms, magazines, and workshops, this book ventriloquizes a multiplicity of voices, of more than 40 dance‑makers and theater makers, performers, dramaturgs, and artists from other disciplines. It understands dramaturgy as larger, more informal and diffuse than the work of the dramaturg alone. Structured around four dramaturgical clusters—material, methods and procedures, operations, and social relations—this book proposes a nonlinear framework through which creation processes can be examined. These clusters address material resistance, heuristic inquiry, audience‑probing operations, and the dramatization of social relations in collaborative work.
Biographies:
Bojana Cvejić is author of nine books, among them Dramaturgy at Work (Routledge, 2026), Toward a Transindividual Self (co-written with Ana Vujanović Archive books, 2023), and Choreographing Problems (Palgrave, 2015). As a practicing dramaturg, performer or director, she has co-created many performances that have toured extensively internationally. Bojana has been active in the self-organization of collective platforms for experimental artistic production, critical theory, research and self-education in Europe and former Yugoslavia (Performing Arts Forum, Saint-Erme since 2005; TkH/Walking Theory 2001-17), which have informed her research in social choreography, transindividuality, and anti-fascist political solidarity. Since 2017, she is Professor at Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KhIO). Her current research Choreographing Antifascism (supported by KhIO) has evolved in three chapters of a public study program for Kaaitheater (Figures of Fascism and Antifascist Solidarity 1), in collaboration with P.A.R.T.S. Brussels (Figures of Fascism and Antifascist Solidarities 2) and Kanal Pompidou Brussels (upcoming Figures of Fascism and Antifascist Solidarities 3), including the study and performance program for Dansens Hus Oslo (Choreographing Antifascism March 2026).