Performance Generating Systems in Dance

Performance Generating Systems in Dance by Pil Hansen

Performance generating systems are systematic and task-based dramaturgies that generate performance for or with an audience. In dance, such systems differ in ways that matter from more closed choreographed scores and more open forms of structured improvisation. Dancers performing within these systems draw on predefined and limited sources while working on specific tasks within constraining rules. The generating components of the systems provide boundaries that enable the performance to self-organize into iteratively shifting patterns instead of becoming repetitive or chaotic. This book identifies the generating components and dynamics of these works and the kinds of dramaturgical agency they enable. It explains how the systems of these creations affect the perception, cognition and learning of dancers and why that is a central part of how they work. It also examines how the combined dramaturgical and psychological effects of the systems performatively address individual and social conditions of trauma that otherwise tend to remain unchangeable and negatively impact the human capacity to learn, relate and adapt. The book provides analytical frameworks and practical insights for those who wish to study or apply performance generating systems in dance within the fields of choreography and dance dramaturgy, dance education, community dance or dance psychology. Featured cases offer unique insight into systems created by Deborah Hay and Christopher House, William Forsythe, Ame Henderson, Karen Kaeja and Lee Su-Feh.

'Going beyond the typical theoretical constructs of choreography and improvisation, Pil Hansen’s book indulges in the inventive components of creating dance productions utilizing performance generating systemsWhat could be overly abstract is grounded in concrete definitions that guide the reader toward an understanding of the included theories and possible applications.[...] This text is well suited for a graduate-level dance studies seminar involving practical application of creation methods [...] In addition to graduate study, Hansen’s book is a wonderful source of thoughtful queries, ideas, and experiential knowledge that would benefit any dance educator guiding students in maintaining and deepening curiosity and explorative actions.'

-- Heather Trommer-Beardslee, Journal of Dance Education

Dr. Pil Hansen is professor of the performing arts at the University of Calgary in Canada, President of Performance Studies international, general editor of the Expanded Dramaturgy book series (Routledge), a founding member of Vertical City Performance, and a dance/inter-arts dramaturg. Her empirical and PaR experiments examine cognitive dynamics of memory and learning, and social dynamics of connection, in creative processes. Hansen has dramaturged more than thirty works in Scandinavia and North America and authored or edited over forty publications. Her latest co-edited books are Dance Dramaturgy: Modes of Agency, Awareness and Engagement (2015) and Performing the Remembered Present: The Cognition of Memory in Dance, Theatre and Music (2017).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781789388763
ISBN 10	1789388767
Title	Performance Generating Systems in Dance
Author	Pil Hansen
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Intellect Books
Year published	2023-07-24
Number of pages	174
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable