The Centre for Dramaturgy and Curation (CDC) began as a conversation between curator Arie Rain Glorie and myself about how we might work together.

 

We're interested in what these two disciplines can offer together as intersecting, expanding, colliding fields of practice. 

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As practitioners working in these respective fields, we wanted to carve out a space in which we and our peers could engage in independent research, balance doing with questioning, and find moments to learn from each other. 

 

If dramaturgy is the study of how plays work, then what happens when you bring dramaturgical thinking outside of the theatre?

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If curation is the exploration of how art is selected, arranged, framed and experienced, then how might we take that thinking beyond the gallery walls?

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In January 2019 we launched the Centre for Dramaturgy and Curation as an independent platform for these conversations. We set up an office at Siteworks, giving space, time, advice and support research projects from some twenty practitioners across theatre and visual arts. 

 

We also held a series of public events bringing different parts of our community together – a potluck lunch of creative offerings in the wake of the 2019 Federal election, a festival of healing made by the young people of House of Muchness, and an 8-hour non-stop conversation around the state of playwriting in Australia.

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We’ve provided dramaturgical and curatorial support across a huge range of projects - a concert, a card game, a series of walking tours, a temporary public art project, a bunch of new plays, our own wedding, and a performance installation work about yeast. Working individually and as a duo, we bring our experience and expertise to bear, helping artists and non-artists to work through even the most complicated creative and conceptual challenges. 

 

In the wake of COVID-19 we’ve moved out of our Siteworks, continuing to do what we do remotely and in the digital sphere. In April we launched a call for proposals for our new Manuals for Dramaturgy Series. These commissioned works invite dramaturgs to share their ideas and experience through a series of creative how-to guides that will be available free through our website later this year.

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