ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the writers take on the role of both dramaturges and researchers. Based on a study by second author Østern, involving interviews with participating artists in a contemporary dance production called ‘Two hundred billion and one’, we explore how the communication, both as affective responses and other embodied responses, is facilitated in the process of creating an artistic production. We acknowledge that artistic creation is more than a finished object and replace it with a continuous process of social interaction and negotiation, which allows us to view collaboration and participation as performative agencies rather than formal components. Thus, the collaborative process is transformed into a performance event in itself, which also enables us as researchers to take on the role of dramaturges: exploring the overarching narratives that might occur when disciplinary lines are blurred and the performers move into the great unknown in the quest of creating ‘Two hundred billion and one’.
