ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some contemporary descriptions and discussions on what dramaturgs today are doing. Their praxis and reflections lead us through a vast landscape. The challenge is how to generalise without ending up in unfortunate universalisations. Dramaturgy has a long history as concept and as field. What began as a strife between Plato and Aristoteles over poietics in tragedy has today evolved into a broad conceptualisation of dramaturgy. I suggest describing it as a science studying the many different poietics in (theatre) artworks, as they communicate communication of meaning. Producing or receiving the work of art is a process of poiesis and aisthesis. It is an exploration of forms of vitality in communication processed, performed, and directed. The poietic hierarchy has at its top absolute values needed in order to navigate in poiesis and aisthesis. The inviolable and absolute values are statements about the function of art in a society that functions as it does, and values addressed towards how to produce (poiesis) and how to position the spectator (aisthesis).
