Asian Dramaturgs’ Network Conference 2019: Dramaturgy & the Human Condition

Dramaturgs work with choices and actions — the ones made by a creative team working on a performance, and their own in relation to how they intend to play their role(s), and what they hope to achieve.

To act with purpose and meaning, dramaturgs must be deeply interested in the human condition, using their knowledge, experience and relationships with performance and artists to produce particular affects and effects.

Dramaturgy and the Human Condition engages with key questions for the dramaturg in Asia navigating an increasingly complex world in need of critical action and speech. Over two days, dramaturgs, art-makers and observers from the region explore performance-making in relation to crucial concerns about being human, raising possible frameworks for responding to change and choice from an Asian perspective.

Roundtable #2: Human Futures & Histories

Speakers: JEAN TAY, LOO ZIHAN, JO KUKATHAS 

Moderator: CORRIE TAN

With the backdrop of Singapore embarking on its bicentennial celebrations, the performance of history in Asia is a potent site from which to excavate alternative and forgotten notions of what is means to be human. Dramaturgs and artists in the region and beyond have worked to reimagine nationalist narratives, unearth marginalised histories, rethink social cultural reenactments as remembrance, and reconfigure political expressions through memorialisation. This panel focuses on the relationship between past, present and future in performance-making, critically engaging with what it means to take on the responsibility and burden of historical reflection in order to (re)imagine the future. Panelists also address questions about how the performance of history can interrogate the role of humans in the present, and advance a critical consciousness towards more inclusive and just futures.

Admission is free. Register here.