Writing Space: The First Project

Cathy Turner Centre for Research into Expanded Dramaturgies, University of Winchester, UK

'How do I talk about the weekend and everything we experienced without betraying it? I’m afraid I can’t even begin' (Makishi 2008:1)

The following report on the project, its dialogues and its outcomes must be to some extent subjective, despite my recourse to video recordings of most of the events. It is not the kind of project that is well represented by purely factual, objective analysis, though this does play its part. I hope not to misrepresent the conversations too much in my desire to record something of their flavour and content. Because of the possibility of mis-representation, I have refrained from attributing comments except in referring to the leader of each one hour session, where it didn't seem to make sense to insist on anonymity. Students are quoted with their consent.

Introducing the Project

I began to talk about Writing Space at some point in 2006. I was then working on a book entitled Dramaturgy and Performance (published by Palgrave in 2008), with my colleague, Synne Behrndt. One of the book's chapters focused on dramaturgical work with writers and had brought me once again into contact with the world of literary management and development dramaturgy in the UK. In this book we observe:

'[The] interest in the dramaturg is increasingly opening up debates about the many and various ways of working with new writing and other new work...Recently, there seems a growing interest in considering and questioning the established structures of writer development, asking whether it might be possible to imagine alternatives that could produce different kinds of work and nurture different qualities in new writing...[Recent projects] raise the question of whether the UK dramaturg's work might in future become more diverse, and more inclusive...' (2008:133 and 144)

Partly as a result of these observations, and particularly inspired by Claire MacDonald's project, The Space Between Words (thespacebetweenwords.org), I wanted to set up a project to explore a possible model or structure that might answer the desire to create an inclusive environment and that might nurture theatre and performance writing across an expanded field. My own experience as a writer, first a playwright and later a site-specific live artist with Wrights & Sites (mis-guide.com), also informed the ideas that were beginning to take shape. This experience also included my years as an AHRC research fellow at Exeter University (2000-2002), where I researched writing processes within devised theatre and performance writing.

I wanted to set up a project that would be likely to provoke writers towards formal experimentation and into engagement with others from different art-forms, or from different kinds of performance and theatre writing. In May 2007, I was interviewed by young researcher Elizabeth McBain, towards her MA dissertation. In this interview, I raised the following questions around writer development in the theatre:

Do we have to think in terms of workshopping, commissioning? Do we have to always think in those theatre structures that have been established? Do we have to think in terms of the mentor working with the writer or the expert working with the writer? Maybe there are much more fluid structures that we can have, less industry related and perhaps more playful...

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[perhaps] you could use higher education as a place where you could create room for writers to dialogue with each other (MacBain, 2007: Appendix 2, p.68)

Gradually a very simple shape emerged (a simplicity partly reflecting my desire to keep the project manageable and to build experience gradually). Over the course of a weekend, a group of writers from very different performance backgrounds would share ideas around a conceptual theme, that of 'narrative'. They would subsequently produce a short performance text, which would be simply staged by students on the Dramaturgy module. We would then discuss the texts and the project.

I discussed and refined the project with others, both in academic contexts and with writers. Firstly, through the first meeting of The Space Between Words in Aberystwyth in 2007. A little later, in a paper given, with Synne Behrndt, as part of Exeter University's dramaturgy series. And again, in July 2007, at Leeds University's conference, 'Performing Literatures'. I also discussed the project with MacDonald and with Sarah Dickenson from Writernet, both of whom became project mentors.

I applied to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a 'practice-led and applied research grant' (maximum £20,000 fec) to support the project and was successful in gaining £13,000.

These were my initial research questions, as outlined in the grant application:

What kinds of dialogue and work may be generated by taking a ‘radically inclusive’ approach (MacDonald, 2007) in curating dialogues between diverse writers and artists? What are the advantages of this approach? What are the potential pitfalls and difficulties?

How might one work non-hierarchically with writers (taking inspiration from initiatives such as Phelim McDermott’s ‘Devoted and Disgruntled’ discussions), rather than as expert ‘mentor’ or critic?

Might it be productive for conceptual and formal questions to drive a new writing initiative, rather than to arise from it? Is there a need to create more opportunities and stimuli for conceptual discussion and work among writers?

What can the university context offer as a space for developing new or ‘expanded’ dramaturgies? How might we begin to construct frameworks and partnerships to facilitate innovative new writing?

These questions will be returned to in considering the project after its completion.Project Description

Participants

Emma Bennett: An artist and performance maker. Since 2005, she has worked with Lucy Cran and Bill Leslie as These Horses. She is currently studying for an MA Performance Writing at Dartington College of Arts.

Sarah Dickenson: For the past nine years, she has worked as a dramaturg, often with the writers’ organisation, writernet. She recently began to focus on her own writing, with work on The Commotion Time, with writing partner Joanna Ingham.

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Claire MacDonald: Her research interests lie at the intersection of writing, performance and visual art. She currently combines commissions as a writer with teaching, research and curatorial work. She is a Research Fellow at Central St. Martins College of Art and Design and Director of the International Centre for Fine Art Research, University of the Arts London. 

Stacy Makishi: Hawaii-born, she works in a variety of media including live art, site-specific installations, film, new writing and physical theatre. Her works are known for their risky and amusing interrogations of contemporary culture, identity and politics.

Michael Pinchbeck: A writer, live artist and lecturer based in Nottingham. He is currently a Dramaturg with Anglo-Belgian company Reckless Sleepers.

Tanya Ronder: Has written versions or adaptations of Peribanez by Lope de Vegas, Young Vic Theatre and Company B in Sydney, Australia; Blood Wedding by Lorca, Almeida Theatre; Macbett by Eugene Ionesco, the RSC; Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre, Young Vic Theatre, and others.

Cathy Turner: An academic and a performance maker. A core member of Wrights & Sites, a group of artists whose work is concerned with our relationship to place and space.

Steve Waters: A playwright whose work includes World Music, The Unthinkable (Sheffield Crucible, Donmar Warehouse) and his forthcoming play Fast Labour (West Yorkshire Playhouse, Hampstead April-June). He also writes more collaboratively.  He runs the MPhil(B) in Playwriting Studies at the University of Birmingham

The list demonstrates that the group's writing practices range between plays, adaptations, live art and devised or physical theatre. In terms of their own arts practice, writers variously label themselves 'artist', 'performance maker', 'writer', 'live artist' or 'playwright' or use no label at all. The majority of these writers are engaged in dramaturgical work or lecturing or both. What the list doesn't show so clearly is how many are also involved in performing, or how many write for contexts apart from or beyond performance. Many also have experience in fields other than those with which they most closely identify at the moment (myself included).

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Materials sent prior to meeting:

These materials, apart from providing information on the project, were intended to stimulate ideas around narrative, which was to be the central theme of our discussions.

'About Writing Space' BiographiesTimetableDetails of accommodation and directions

'Narrative Revealed in Surrealist Experiment', slightly adapted from Salvador Dali, (1932), 'The Object Revealed in Surrealist Experiment' trans. David Gasgoyne, found in Lucy R. Lippard (1970), Surrealists on Art, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp.87-97.

Calvino, Italo (1996), 'Quickness', from 6 Memos for the Next Millennium, trans. Patrick Creagh, London: Vintage, pp.31-54.

Kellman, Julia (1995), 'Harvey Shows the Way: Narrative in Children's Art', Art Education Vol. 48, No. 2, 'Artful Conversations', March, pp.18-22.

Lehmann, Hans Thies (2006), 'Narrations', extract from Postdramatic Theatre, trans. Karen Jürs-Munby, London: Routledge, pp.109-10.

Levy, Deborah (2006), 'Narrative - The New Black', in Hotel Methusaleh: A Document, ed. Andrew Quick, Imitating the Dog: Lancaster, pp.7-8.

Ondaatje, Michael (2003), 'Just Below the Surface', extract from The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film, London: Bloomsbury, pp.295-307.

Smith, Murray, (2001), 'Parallel Lines', in American Independent Cinema: A Sight and Sound Reader, ed. Jim Hillier, first edition, London: British Film Institute, pp.155-161.

A children's picture book - these were different in each pack.

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The first weekend

Over the course of this weekend, each writer led a one hour session - workshop, presentation, discussion or demonstration - around the subject of narrative.

Session 1: Cathy Turner

Cathy told the group she was to give a performance demonstration and asked that each person observe where their focus was taken to as they witnessed it. She then led the group on a tour of the campus, reading out the texts of e-mails at intervals. On returning to the seminar room, she raised the question of whether the narratives of site, text and audience were in conflict, or whether the written text might be made more porous. The ensuing discussion (while raising the question as to whether 'how to' questions are necessarily the most useful) suggested that performance is inevitably more porous than it might seem to the writer. 'It's up to me to find those moments...you have to let it go...I wonder if you are worrying about what you can't control?' Approaches to these concerns, or 'magic tools', could be found across a spectrum of arts practices. We also discussed the e-mail as a form, both evocative and a pleasingly simple format. 'Do documentary resources sit more easily than fiction [in this context]?'

Session 2: Michael Pinchbeck

Michael reversed Cathy's initial question, 'is narrative a problem?' to ask, 'is problem a narrative?' His presentation, which took in 10 figures as diverse as Geri Halliwell, Roland Barthes, David Lynch and Joseph Beuys, touched on many related ideas, such as the 'live dramaturgy' of his blog for Reckless Sleeper's The Pilots; the 'writerly' performance or text (Beuys: 'art should pass over you like a cloud: a problem that wants to be solved, but not straight away'); narrative implicit in detailed itemisation of objects or journey (enjoying 'the repetition of unecessary detail' and quoting Perec's injunction to 'question your teaspoons'); the staging of failure; narrative created 'through a visual description of what is left behind', as in Ilya Kabakov's The Man Who Flew Into Space From His Apartment and the deliberate confusion of reality and fiction, the live and the recorded, the scripted and unscripted - quoting The Pilots: 'we're a bit lost - where are we?' In many, if not all, these instances, 'it is up to us to make connections, to solve the puzzle - but not straight away.'

Session 3: Tanya Ronder

Tanya began by clarifying that most of her writing work had concerned adaptation. Now confronted with the task of writing without 'a pre-existing structure', and without working in collaboration with actors, she asked, 'How do you make situation and circumstance grow into narrative? How do you cook up dialogue? How do you find the physical level of story-telling sitting at a desk?' Another question was offered, 'Not how, but why do you have to work in isolation? But then, in another sense, why not? Can't the spectrum of writing encompass hugely different approaches?' 'In a way, all theatre work is a response to pre-existing material...would it be interesting for your process to push [adaptation] as far as you possibly could push it, so it was not so much adaptation but response?' It was acknowledged that the relationship between adaptation and original work is porous, but there was also the suggestion, 'it is an enormous job and it is the job...go away, write about it, worry about it, give it to some people, find out about it, go away, write it, worry about it...' Another commented that in her own process, 'it's death to know what will happen: I'm inspired by your block!'

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Session 4: Sarah Dickenson

Sarah began by raising the question of what a 'public theatre' might be and how theatre might relate to its community. As a focus for the discussion she showed some video extracts of The Hoxton Story, a production by The Red Room, performed in various Hoxton locations. She then related this to her concerns in writing a play for a Cornish community - 'how do I locate myself as a maker in that community?' The discussion explored the political tensions around modes of representation and yet their potential for opening up dialogue. Are we too afraid of representation? On the other hand, how might the narrative somehow be created by the members of the community themselves? The group discussed Christo's work, where people become involved in the 'wrapping' of Central Park, for example. The narrative is not given in the process of making something, but emerges in what people make of that process and image. What is the least thing the artist might do to allow people to tell the story? The group discussed the principle of ikebana, in which there is 'always that place that is empty'. There might be a generosity in telling the story but leaving something out.

Session 5: Claire MacDonald

Claire's session took the form of a workshop in which we each listed 'three dates; three spaces; three phrases (beginning 'I...' 'You...' 'He/She...' ); three gestures; three colours; three smells'. Then, in a form of 'art recipe', six people sat in a line and in random order, we spoke a date, then gave a space, phrase, gesture, colour or smell. Claire suggested that this exercise was one she used as a way of working with groups to show that you can create sophisticated things very easily. Also, in workshopping plays, one can find that to interrupt one's work formally can be very helpful. The group discussed dialogue as offer and response (or both) and the idea of what is 'prompted' in various ways within and through a process and work. Then there was a discussion of the 'space' of a text. Claire asked, 'What might happen on the edge of the play or with one foot in the play? Where is the edge of that conversation? What is in the centre?'

Session 6: Emma Bennett

Emma began with a 'performance demonstration' in which she performed a text she had written, but only gestured to its original staging. She then discussed her process in making the text and her original disappointment that audience members had responded strongly to its perceived underlying narrative. She gave three explanations of her process to clarify this. Firstly she explained that she was working with ideas influenced by language poetry, specifically Caroline Bergvall's 'More Pets', in which 'it's like a system of words that seems to give birth to things.' 'I used it as a kind of machine to generate narrative', without having intended to describe a pre-existing story. When the performance generated an emotional response, she wondered whether she had fallen back on an apparent presentation of fragmented or interrupted language as evidence of personal trauma. The discussion examined this sense of disappointment, from varying perspectives. To what extent were the formal, conceptual elements incompatible with the experience of narrative, or were the two inevitably interwoven? Is there any problem with the fact that the choice of words isn't entirely arbitrary? There might be 'magic tools to escape the traps identity places upon us - form does that', but perhaps there is not a problem with communicating one's own sensibility through language. Are there issues of gender and ethnicity around the perception of work and the reception of its formal elements? Emma ended the session by showing a personal photograph which hinted at a possible origin for aspects of the piece.

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Session 7: Steve Waters

As he spoke, Steve showed us the opening scenes of Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, so that his words and the film's images infiltrated one another. He spoke about his experience of Bergman and admiration for the 'rigour' of Bergman's 'chamber cinema', in which he remains faithful to location, actors, themes and time frame in a strangely theatrical cinematography. He commented on the 'tug of ritual away from narrative' in Bergman's work and the way that 'the making of the film' becomes 'an act of ritual'. Rigour 'is about acknowledging scarcity, limit, constraint and thriving on it'. This is 'linked to that much abused idea - of truth, not theological truth, but felt truth.' He quoted Bergman's account of an autobiographical episode that clarified the ending of the film, the 'codification of a rule I've always followed and was to follow from then on: irrespective of everything, you will hold your communion...if there is no other God than your hopeless search, it is important to that God too.' If 'we are the theatre', on a foggy island where god is absent, film and theatre seem linked to the practice of rigour or ritual that feels necessary, committed to its own truth, whether it is witnessed or not.

Session 8: Stacy Makishi.Stacy's workshop was not recorded, and there was no possibility of note-taking within it. This seemed appropriate as Stacy pushed us to respond instinctively and instantly, to evade our own self-censoring processes. This involved some practical exercises, passing movements around a circle, responding instantly to prompts, working with questions and diagrams drawn by others and led to creating small environments and actions within those environments. It was a space of creative and free exchange, of off-the-record, off-the-cuff, joyful response to each other's playful contributions.

The Commission

After the first weekend, each writer produced a text for performance, to be performed by 3-5 students, each text approximately 5 minutes long. Each text was to be written in response to the stimuli of the first weekend.

I was worried that this commission might constrain writers to create something relatively conventional, because the possibility of working more collaboratively with students, while not impossible, was difficult to facilitate in practice. In the end, Stacy Makishi requested - and I was happy to agree - that she should perform her own text.

Despite the constraints, however, the texts are very varied in form, ranging from short plays to a set of instructions or a palette of five e-mails. While they are, in many respects, very different, these texts speak to one another with recurring motifs and forms, contexts, shared points of reference.

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The second weekend

During the second weekend, dramaturgy students from the 1st year of the BA in Performing Arts gave performances of texts written by the writers. In most cases, the performers still read from the scripts, but went beyond the 'rehearsed reading' in staging them. These texts were:

Emma Bennett - Dog (A 'vocal score' for three voices)Sarah Dickenson - The Commotion Time (Though the formal qualities of this reflect a response to the project, this is an extract from a longer work, a community-based, site-specific piece set in Cornwall)Claire MacDonald - In Bed (A set of rules and instructions for making a 'play')Stacy Makishi - How Do I Show You My Love? (A personal ritual) Michael Pinchbeck - Prompt (a formal piece using strict timings and recited page numbers, referencing Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light)Tanya Ronder - Kind Regards, Leanne (a play that takes the form of a young woman's e-mails to God) Cathy Turner - Small Planet (a text that describes/becomes a performance, responding to Elinor Fuchs' article, EF's Visit to a Small Planet)Steve Waters - Untitled, or, as the students called it, Please Forward to Hans-Thies Lehmann (a set of five e-mails that were offered as material for a performance)

As can be inferred from the brief descriptions above, many - perhaps all - of these texts presented formal challenges, sometimes inviting the students to make creative decisions in how the work would finally be structured and all asked the students to ask challenge their assumptions about play texts.

After each performance, there was a brief discussion. By the end of the afternoon, the writers' group found it interesting to observe the ways that the students had drawn on what knowledges they had of theatre and performance, with a methodology somewhere between devising and drama. Because these performances were part of the dramaturgy module, they could be seen as a process of articulation and analysis in action. As one student, Tim Cawley puts it, 'in a sense [this feedback structure] creates Dramaturgs of both the performers and writers…as they both critique, support and suggest ideas on one another’s work.' Further questions were raised: 'what does a text imagine? What work is the text already doing to imagine it unfolding? How does it expect to meet the methods of those who are working on it? It meets what they imagine it is imagining.'

On Reflection

What kinds of dialogue and work may be generated by taking a ‘radically inclusive’ approach (MacDonald, 2007) in curating dialogues between diverse writers and artists? What are the advantages of this approach? What are the potential pitfalls and difficulties? 'Before Writing Space I had the sense of there being ‘proper writers’ – those who can be credited as ‘authors’ in a conventional sense (playwrights, novelists), and that a dialogue between myself and such people was an impossibility...Writing Space was a watershed in my being able to overcome these assumptions and self-imposed limitations. It was the inclusive nature of the project that allowed this to happen'.

All participants agreed that the project was inclusive and most confirmed that they felt it was radically so. Perhaps partly because the project was structured in a way that was neither confrontational nor competitive, partly because of the sheer generosity of the

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participants, there was no defensiveness or embarrassment in the various points of meeting between different approaches and these often served as a source of unravelling difficulties, or offering new and fresh perspectives on each others' processes.

This inclusivity both helped to clarify where we all were as writers - and in some cases, helped to confirm the possibility of being identified as a writer - and also revealed many interesting points of contact, overlap or interesting point of difference.

She said, ' She needed a narrative that's already been told.'    I said 'If I know the story, the story is already dead.'   (Makishi 2008:1)

Another positive aspect of the inclusive nature of the group was the diversity of contributions. This made for a highly entertaining weekend, where one moment we might be watching a short performance, another moment deep in discussion, another moment watching a DVD and then plunged into a practical workshop. There was a lot of talking: animated, committed, complex but also comprehensible and direct - qualities, I think, that are facilitated by having such a mixed group, where it was essential to use a vocabulary we could all share.

   He began by offering a conversation about Geri Halliwell. Fail to prepare and prepare to fail.   And I thought here is a friend. A friend I haven't even met before.   (Makishi 2008:1)

While there was no imperative to create a text that broke radically with one's previous writing practices, there was a sense of encouragement towards trying out new approaches or emphases.

This gives a sense of the advantages of the approach and few difficulties were encountered within this project. Perhaps one might mention the occasional need to summarise a particular context or set of practices which were familiar to some members of the group, while not to others. However, since there was no embarrassment about coming from different contexts, this did not really prove a substantial difficulty. Indeed, if anything participants expressed the desired to investigate each other's processes further and to engage in creative response to each others' work in very direct ways. Thus, there is further to go to develop the potential of an inclusive approach and there seems much to recommend it.

How might one work non-hierarchically with writers (taking inspiration from initiatives such as Phelim McDermott’s ‘Devoted and Disgruntled’ discussions), rather than as expert ‘mentor’ or critic?

'I felt we managed to create a non-hierarchical and an autonomous space for discussion during the first weekend. This had much to do with the informal, organic, sensitive and quiet facilitation and the way in which you led the session. Perhaps we were all a little cautious about opening up to each other on the first day but I think the more we shared, the more we talked, the more we lost our veneer and found a particularly vital creative space during the final session of the first weekend. I loved the way each session was different and led or not led, suggested or not suggested, open for further discussion and debate and found a natural conclusion. In a way...I felt less engaged in the group dynamic we had established in the first weekend and I thought perhaps a new hierarchy was formed in terms of how much students had been enthused by and subsequently focused on specific writers’ work. Also – perhaps there was a hierarchy between the writers and the students involved.'

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All participants agreed that the project was non-hierarchical, with the only provisos being those voiced in the above quotation.

As some participants acknowledged, there were differing levels of expertise in the room but, as one person put it, this 'was a unique opportunity for me to discuss my practice with people of considerable expertise – not only in the sense that I received advice and encouragement, but also in the way we discussed the relationships between our work, on an equal footing.' Certainly the dynamics of the dialogue varied from session to session and through the weekend and 'Towards the end it felt very much like anyone could say anything, which was brilliant.'

The relationship with the students was not non-hierarchical, nor was this an initial aim. On reflection, this may have produced an area of tension, or a lack of clarity, in the second weekend. Students were involved in the project as part of their course-work, which meant that they were not there voluntarily. While the relationship between the students and myself is a good one, and there was finally a feeling of working together, there was still some initial resistance from the students to putting in the hours to rehearse the work and to coming in on a Saturday. Although they were very happy to have been involved, retrospectively, this was the source of some anxiety in working towards the second weekend and some pieces were better served than others (inevitably, perhaps). I have no evidence of this affecting the sense of equality between the writers, but it may well have been disappointing, in a couple of instances, while more gratifying in others.

A point that was also raised was whether the project was too advanced for first year students, and although they learned a great deal from it, and brought a great deal to it, I think this is ultimately fair comment. In future projects, my plan will be to run a parallel, but not integral undergraduate project, while involving post-graduate students on the same non-hierarchical basis as other participants.

The non-hierarchical element was commented on in closing discussions as being of particular importance and it was felt that this was unusual. The professional theatre context may too easily become 'one long try-out', even where the aim is to avoid this feeling. One writer (and dramaturg) commented that the project had already had an impact on her own dramaturgical work, and emphasised the value of the 'grown-up conversation.'

Might it be productive for conceptual and formal questions to drive a new writing initiative, rather than to arise from it? Is there a need to create more opportunities and stimuli for conceptual discussion and work among writers?

'It wasn’t driven by formal questions, more a structured curiosity about each other’s approaches – good.'

'The conceptual question about what narrative is was a real driving force and I think enabled the type of engagement. I think this is precisely the approach that can bridge the gap between different performance forms and enable cross-pollination of ideas and techniques.'

'I think perhaps [a focus on formal and conceptual concerns] was more clear in your opening questions than it remained throughout the process – yet narrative did sort of stay in view. I can imagine a tighter agenda which might produce less interesting discussion but more interesting work perhaps.'

As the above quotations demonstrate, there were some differences of opinion as to the significance of conceptual and formal questions in driving this project.

Perhaps it partly depends on what is understood by the term 'conceptual'. The concept of 'narrative' did 'sort of stay in view' the whole time. However, if one relates the term to

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conceptual art, it suggests a questioning of the very nature of art, or the art-object. In this context, conceptual and formal questions might be those that questioned assumptions about the nature of narrative, language and performance and how they are generated. Such questions were very present within the discussion, but did not always drive it. The discussion was often focused rather on process and strategy and, as the first quotation puts it, 'a structured curiosity about each other's approaches'.

However, the theme of 'narrative' and the conceptual questions that framed the weekend were useful prompts towards, as one participant put it, 'drilling down into the bedrock of our practices' and a comparison of the integral differences between our approaches was suggested in a positive, rather than mistrustful manner.

Despite occasional, and related, 'How do I...How do you...?' questions, it allowed us to focus on the questions 'Why?' and 'What?' in relation to our practices. In other words, this was not a space for 'skill-sharing', or 'script-doctoring', but for examining starting points, assumptions, inspiration, puzzles and challenges in a way that suggested relationships and contrasts between ways of working, and often, unexpected illumination in the dialogue between them.

Looking back over records of the discussions it is certainly clear that the ideas within them had an impact on the texts produced. It is perhaps impossible to gage to what extent the workshop encouraged writers to move beyond or step outside their usual writing habits. Perhaps it varied. My own experience was that the workshop co-incided with an idea that I might have explored at another time, but not quite in the same way, not quite with the same transparency of influence or reference to a shared context, not quite in the same form, for the same performers or with the same tone. One writer spoke, in closing discussions of setting out 'to write without the same narrative walls' and while she felt she had still constructed a narrative, in the end, this need not be regarded as a problem. The point was never to persuade writers away from their own writing practices, but rather to stimulate creative ideas and processes, through conceptual discussion.

A couple of participants suggested that 'a tighter agenda' might have been stimulating in different ways. The next Writing Space project will examine this possibility by framing the project through some introductory activities, while aiming to keep the relationship non-hierarchical.

In a recent, and very interesting report by Script Yorkshire on the 13 writing organisations within the Playwrights Network, the overwhelming emphasis seems to be on training, mentoring, script-reading and commissioning, with generally much less emphasis on dialogue and writers' networks (Writernet and the South West Writing Network are exceptions in some respects). It would be interesting to know what intriguing activities might be masked by the rather opaque word, 'workshops'. While organisations such as Writernet have certainly offered spaces where writers can discuss broader issues, I have not yet identified another space within the theatre industry (if we can still separate this from academia) where this kind of broad philosophical and artistic debate and exchange between diverse writers is fore-grounded (though no doubt it occurs within some writers' groups). Whether primarily conceptual, formal or otherwise, this dialogue might be vitally important.

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What can the university context offer as a space for developing new or ‘expanded’ dramaturgies? How might we begin to construct frameworks and partnerships to facilitate innovative new writing?

'The university context offered a creative space where ideas could be tested without the pressures or hierarchies of a professional context, a safe space for experimentation, a critical context for discussion of the work in the very early stages of its potential development. It felt like a time and space where anything was potential material. The students responded to that notion and made this a unique exchange.'

All were agreed that the university was able to offer a different kind of space from professional theatre contexts, one that might be led by a research agenda and that was potentially freer for exploration and risk-taking. Within the university, writers had the freedom to experiment. Having said this, the university as a context had quite an influence on the work as it emerged, particularly in relation to the student performers. It also produced some apprehension prior to the project, in relation to perceived expectations of academic discussion. While neither of these factors created any serious difficulty, they need to be acknowledged and taken into consideration.

What the students brought to the work was certainly very different from trained actors engaging in a 'rehearsed reading'. It was always suggested that students were to be seen as making a new 'offer' to the development of the work, rather than trying to 'represent it' in any definitive way. Despite this, it was somewhat disconcerting, if rather delightful, to find that the first questions I was asked on distributing the texts were invariably: 'Do we have to perform all of the text? In the order in which it's written? Do we have to follow all the stage directions?' While the answer to each of these questions was affirmative, the texts gave plenty of scope for creative intervention. Furthermore, what this suggests, I think, apart from the students lack of deference to the author, is that they were eager to meet the writing with their own creative ideas and brought to it a methodology based in devised work, which meant that they assumed that the actor's role is also creative and generative of material. Their performances also took place in the context of a module in 'Dramaturgy', which meant that they understood themselves to be actor-dramaturgs. The performances were therefore much more than 'rehearsed readings', if these are to be understood as 'oratory recitals' (Pavis [1996] 2003:201).

It has been clear from my own discussions with South West Writing Network and the Playwrights Network, as well as the report mentioned above, that professional new writing organisations are often struggling for survival and to fulfil the needs of culturally diverse and geographically dispersed constituencies. With an average income of around 70-80 thousand pounds per annum, resources need to be carefully targeted. It may therefore be quite difficult for such organisations to undertake experimental projects with a focus on exploring new methodologies for supporting work. It may also be more difficult for some of them to undertake projects which do not result in deliverable public outcomes - at least as the end point of a development process. The university, with its focus on practice as research and knowledge transfer, has different imperatives and can therefore take a different, less service-based approach to supporting the development of new work. My own initiative is one among several emerging in the university sector - Claire MacDonald's research project The Space Between Words was a vital inspiration to this project, while symposia such as 'Partly Writing' (taking place at Dartington, Oxford Brookes and the Text Festival in Bury) and networks such as WritingPAD are also exploring questions around the expanded field of new writing.

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Conclusions

Many of the conclusions reached through the project are to be found in the review of the ways in which the project met its objectives (above). The project confirmed the viability and positive aspects of its initial objectives. While there is much further to go, few difficulties or tensions were encountered. It now exists as an example of a curated, non-hierarchical dialogue between writers across various forms of performance, within a university context and inspired by a conceptual starting point. This example provides a point of reference for other initiatives (see below) and is a strong basis on which to build 'Writing Space' as a series of linked research projects with the aim of developing new models for supporting writing across an expanded field. As one participant commented in the final discussions, 'we are just scratching the surface of what we might think about dramaturgically'.

The strong sense of dialogue between the texts produced was an unexpected outcome, as was their suitability for use by further student groups. This has created the opportunity for publishing the texts, with introductory material, to be used as a tool for exploring postdramatic texts within the university. While devising and play production are both cornerstones of HE teaching in Drama Departments, there is a need for more resources to assist students in approaching forms of writing across a broader performance field.

Some of the project's achievements are not easily quantifiable and are reflected in many of the feedback comments (extracts below). For example, one participant writes: 'Being brought into confrontation with a strand of theatre work and thought I don’t always engage with was very useful', while another comments, 'There were many, many specific things that people said that I will carry with me, repeat to myself, and employ at moments within my work'. A further participant comments, ' There are many opportunities for writers and artists to be stimulated intellectually through conferences and symposiums etc. But it is very rare for us to be stimulated in a personal way. The workshop had touched me in that mysterious place...the place where art is born. I am very grateful for that.'

The overwhelmingly positive response to the project suggests that its starting points are worth exploring and developing further, alongside the examination of possibilities for variation and further exchange.

Significance in terms of further developments

Feedback from the project suggests that there is a wide spectrum of ways in which it has informed and continues to inform both participant's own writing and their dramaturgical or academic work. In many instances, the project provides a stimuli that informs, rather than directly produces new work. In other instances, participants speculate about the effect on their work, without yet being able to demonstrate it. There are, however, some clearly identifiable contexts in which the project has evidently been significant.

Of the eight performance texts, Emma Bennett's Dog has been developed as a solo performance work and a version of this was performed at I am Still Your Worst Nightmare Live Art Platform at Arnolfini in April (as Soft, Wooden, Hairy), and will be developed further for a showing at Live Art Falmouth in June (as Glistening, Dog, Daylight (1987)). These showings are part of the development of text-work towards her final MA project. Stacy Makishi's How Can I Show You My Love? 'overspilled' into a subsequent work called Lifted at The Lyric, Hammersmith, albeit as a trace, rather than as its foundation. Sarah DIckenson's The Commotion Time was written towards the development of an ongoing

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project, which is still in process. Michael Pinchbeck plans to explore the potential for developing Prompt as the screenplay for a short film.

In terms of academic work and contexts, two participants comment on the project's contribution to their ongoing postgraduate studies, while others comment on its contribution to their teaching in very direct ways. Claire MacDonald is involved in curating a four-day conference, 'Writing Encounters' at York St John University and comments that the project has informed one element of that, while several of those involved in Writing Space (including myself), will be presenting papers or performances at the event, some of which will draw on this project. Steve Waters, as a member of the British Theatre Conference, commented that 'the weekend supplied a very good model' for plans to hold a forum on playwriting next year. Two forthcoming special issues of CTR may be informed by the project - one, on 'new dramaturgies', edited by myself with Synne Behrndt and another, to be edited by Steve Waters and others.

In relation to professional support for new writing outside the university, there have been a number of direct channels through which the project is influencing developing work. I attended a writing retreat at Totleigh Barton this August, where I was able to describe the project and draw on it to contribute to wider discussion with members of the South West Writers Network and Playwrights Network. Sarah Dickenson has also drawn on the project in the context of dramaturgical work with South West New Writing Network, Theatre Bristol Creative Producers and Theatre503.

Two writers from the group were commissioned by Cornershop to write short creatively critical texts as a direct result of their involvement in this project. Cornershop have suggested that they might like to commission others in the future.

Further research arising

I have just submitted a funding application to the AHRC for Writing Space 2: Architextures. This new project will build on some of the experiences of the last, while aiming to go further in terms of interdisciplinarity and experimenting with a small public outcome and a slightly more structured framework.

As mentioned above and under 'Forthcoming published outputs', I am developing a book proposal for a book containing the performance texts and introductory material. If a publishing contract is not possible to obtain, this may, with permission from those involved, become an electronic resource. I have obtained funding from the University of Winchester to develop the introductory essays and other material.

Collaborations

One participant commented 'I feel suddenly plugged into a network of writers with whom I had never imagined collaboration possible before Writing Space.' There has been some ongoing exchange between members of the group and potentially the Writing Encounters conference at York St John University will provide a new forum for meeting up with some of them. This raises the question as to whether it might have been helpful to set up some formal structure for continuing the exchange. However, the next Writing Space project will generate an e-list on JISCmail and participants of the first project will be invited to join it.

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Outputs

Electronic outputs

'Creating a Writing Space', Cathy Turner, written for 'Dramaturgy as Applied Knowledge: From Theory to Practice and Back', International Research Workshop of the Israel Science Foundation, Department of Theatre Studies, Tel-Aviv University, May 27-29, 2008. Found at <http://www.tau.ac.il/~dramatur/>, accessed August 5th 2008.

Summary of the project found at www.thespacebetweenwords.org

Summary of the project found at expandeddramaturgies.com

This report (without the performance texts) will be placed on the Writernet website and research centre website after consultation with participants and revision where necessary.

Forthcoming printed outputs

A book proposal will be submitted to an academic publisher, comprising the performance texts (where agreed) and introductory essays which will be designed to provoke student discussion concerning the analysis and staging of postdramatic texts.

An article will be offered to a peer reviewed journal.

Please see expandeddramaturgies.com for updates on publications.

Performances

Eight performances given by first year students to the participating writers.

Extracts from Participant's Feedback

'I was particularly struck by how the initial weekend led people to respond creatively in a way in which their work might not normally take them, to write outside of their comfort zones.'

'The way that the workshop worked gave immediate respect to the many traditions and backgrounds we came from. There was no sense of hierarchy, or right or wrong. This was very special.'

'I feel that Writing Space was a unique opportunity for me to discuss my practice with people of considerable expertise – not only in the sense that I received advice and encouragement, but also in the way we discussed the relationships between our work, on an equal footing.'

'I liked the fact that the agenda was so open.'

'It was wonderful to be able to step back and be able to recognise different languages and ways of engagement.'

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'Writing Space was a very nourishing experience, one that helped me understand the place of writing in my practice and the place of my writing in a broader context.'

'The university context offered a neutral space with a focus on enquiry rather than product.'

'I think really being able to experience other people’s approaches was fascinating and very useful – I learned a lot from the extended way in which the feeding into each other’s work happened and this made me think that one real outcome needs to be this kind of workshop and presentation amongst different kinds of writers over a longer period of time.'

'There were many, many specific things that people said that I will carry with me, repeat to myself, and employ at moments within my work...These little things are the types of comment and response that I simply would not have encountered in the course of my daily life, from the group of people with whom I usually share my work. It is so important to be able to switch contexts like this, and that ‘writing’ is the activity that facilitates this switch.'

'I found the liberation and creative freedom of the project triggered a particularly creative period in my practice.'

'It made me think a lot about what different kinds of groups bring to the table in terms of being able to act on writing – the students really tackled the task, and yet what they brought were the skills they came to the university with as 1st years in development of skills – and we all see these in our students – they are, broadly, expressiveness, a feel for/need for narrative, the drive to make things connect over time and to complete – all of these things are particular to drama/theatre – if we had very different kinds of skills and backgrounds we would get different ways of approaching dramaturgy. I think that is the next step. I think we could work much more on process and approach.'

'I am intrigued by the emerging debate about how a text ‘cues’ a performance which Claire and the performance day raised; especially when as with my text I removed a lot of cues and found the result rather disconcerting – but interesting nevertheless. I think it’s made me ponder questions of form more explicitly than I had been.'

'Coming in to contact with the students was energizing. The sheer fact of their numbers is of inherent value in trying out new material and garnering opinion. Also the stage they are at in their learning, where they’re not bogged down by too much knowledge and can respond instinctively to what’s in front of them, was very refreshing.'

'It was great to see a first response to the work by the students, rather than hearing it. Because they’d approached it in a physical way, it stopped the performance from becoming an intellectual retort. It kept a lightness and inventiveness to it, which bypassed the bogged-down feeling that first read-throughs can sometimes give you as a writer.'

'As a dramaturg, it gave me a fantastic insight into a writer's process in a very safe environment.'

'I think there is a difference to rehearsed readings with actors – their engagement with the work was different, it wasn’t workaday, but much more explored and responsive.'

'Were I to change anything about the project, it would be to add another day on to it, where we each had individual time with the group of students who had worked on our piece.'

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'I would have valued the opportunity to talk to the students about how they might approach the text and what decisions they might make, or to field any questions about the text and perhaps re-write it if they felt it needed further clarity or more / less direction.'

'I think that’s the point of the project – empowering writers to deconstruct their own barriers and to open up with one another.'

'It’s an unusual gift to have several hours of exploration and discussion with other writers from varying paths, and it proved inspiring, provocative and enjoyable. Comparing approaches to writing, which became innate to people discussing ‘narrative’, was eye-opening and liberating for me. I am clearer about the place I occupy in the bigger theatre picture, as a writer with my current processes.'

'I feel suddenly plugged into a network of writers with whom I had never imagined collaboration possible before Writing Space.'

'I think all writers should have the opportunity to explore in this way! I think it is really useful.'

Student's comments on 'Writing Space'

Student comment on the project came in three different forms. Firstly, they wrote some very brief responses to questions that were discussed in class, about the ways in which the different texts prompted different performance modes and vocabularies. Secondly, several of them wrote about the work in their essay contexts, most often in response to a question inviting them to consider the distinction between 'a play' and a 'text for theatre', as offered in a quotation from the writer Deborah Levy. Thirdly, students responded to me informally, in expressing their thoughts on the project. I do not have extensive notes on this spoken feedback, hence this is a relatively short section.

General comments in class discussion.

'It made me feel more connected to the university'.

'I really enjoyed feeling that I was taking part in real research'.

'It brings it alive and makes it more real. I felt more connected to it.'

Written responses to class questions

'The sermon-like quality of the text in the first part logically leads to the use of sermon structure for the staging. Taking this line of thought to its most obvious conclusion leads us to the use of a chapel/church or indeed any religious structure for the delivery of this text. Hence our original preference for setting the piece in the chapel. The setting also lends itself to the implied setting of the second half. With its broken and apparently illogical phrasing of text it also leads to a more abstract and surreal use of the space, linking specific actions and mannerisms to lines of text. For example, crossing the body with 'pater noster'...this redoubles the historic context and idea of ritual and ceremony within the church as well as the functions and repetition implied by this ceremony.' Tim Cawley, of The Commotion Time.

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'The writings themselves do not necessarily suggest a particular process. However, we searched the text to find a common theme and thought that 'loneliness and isolation' were key factors. So we took our process from these points and built our piece and process around this.' Taffy Lynch, of Please Forward to Hans Thies Lehmann.

'Inevitably when vocalising the text it creates a sense of rhythm because of the forward slashes and broken up text...As well as broken text, the script does contain full sentences...All of the text should be spoken.There are opportunities to work with rhythm and pace as well as using the more structured text to perform monologues and dialogues...the text could be used to create a movement score, a rhythmical score and a score of vocal repetition.' Naomi Marsh, of Dog.

'We found as a group that we made unconscious decisions, i.e. narration split up through people, which we found successful. We...were unable sometimes to explain where these decisions had come from, and why we used them, yet they were good and worked well. This was our main struggle - making decisions, but not being able to analyse them...' Claire Dallard, of Small Planet.

Essay analyses

'[Many of the Writing Space texts were] ‘theatre texts’, which meant the performer had more control over which direction they wanted to take the piece, as well as more input into the overall performance, making a different performance possible for each performer, using this as stimulus.

[…]

‘Interpretation is not the art of construing but the art of construction. Interpreters do not decode poems; they make them.’ (Fish quoted in Rabkin 1985:331)

…A performance is created by interpretation, whether it is a ‘theatre text’ or a ‘play’. The audience member must interpret the performance in the way they personally see fit. This goes for the performer as well.'

Sara May – essay.

'Recently I was part of a Writing Space experimental project in which a group of writers came together to work on various short pieces of writing. They then gave us (me and my cohort) the pieces to work on as a performance. When we performed the pieces we then had a question and answer session discussing both our and the writers’ intents and purposes. In this way, the writers were given feedback by seeing a direct interpretation of their work and we, the performers, got feedback and an insight into the original intentions of the writers and how we could best draw that from the text we had been provided. This is an alternate form of feedback to what is classically used but in a sense it creates Dramaturgs of both the performers and writers…as they both critique, support and suggest ideas on one another’s work. This itself creates many questions and opens a space that would otherwise not have been available where the artists are invited to consider their work from the perception of an outsider. Thus questions, ideas and provocation of the creative process can be found through the entire process of devising, before, during and after.'

Tim Cawley – essay

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'In our dramaturgy lectures we were given a task of working with writers on pieces of text they have written. These texts were presented to us with the title ‘Writing Space Texts’. Although it seems that all of these texts would fall under the category of ‘texts for theatre’, there are one or two that I would say are not so straightforward. The first is In Bed by Claire MacDonald. In the title of the play, she makes the point of putting, ‘In Bed: A Play’, which indicates that it is not a ‘text for theatre’, but a play. But when I started to read this ‘play’, it is obvious that it is a ‘text for theatre’, because instead of giving the artist lines and stage directions to memorise, it gives instructions to the artist in order for them to create a performance including their own personal input.

The other one I found debateable as to what category to put them in was Kind Regards, Leanne, by Tanya Ronder. When looking at the context of the text it is clear that the end result of this text would probably be considered as ‘text for theatre’, because it does not seem to have an exposition, development and denouement, but when you look at the structure of the piece, it is definitely written in the format of a play. It starts off by setting the scene with clear stage directions through the piece…So taking everything into account, I would say that it falls between the two…'

Jo Hoare - essay

'When working with Emma Bennett's Dog, I personally found it quite hard initially not to simply read through the text as if I was at a script reading. However, after a while I found that as a group we began to do the total opposite. We found that we started to move into more physical work every thing and as a result the piece began to look like there was too much happening on the stage at one time. It was beginning to look far too busy on the stage and as a result it looked too messy. We then looked at the text again and found that at times there was a need for moments of movement and at other times the text was strong enough to stand on its own. As a result of this we looked at these separate moments and let the words in the text lead us into what we should do on the stage, as it were.... [Emma Bennett] told us that we had opened up new ways of performing the text that she herself would not have thought of. An example of this was in the text words were broken down by slashes. We decided to take these slashes and put a drum beat on each one to signify the break between the words. We then decided to take the idea of using the drum further and used the drum to create different beats during different moments of text.'

Lucy Demuth - essay

Bibliography

Makishi, Stacy (2008), How Can I Show You My Love? Unpublished performance text.

Makishi, Stacy (2008b), e-mail to the author.

Pavis, Patrice [1996] (2003), Analysing Performance, transl. David Williams, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Ryan, Liz (2008), 'Comparative Study of New Writing Support in the UK', found at <www.scriptyorkshire.co.uk> accessed August 5th 2008.

www.thespacebetweenwords.org, accessed Aug 5th, 2008.

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With thanks to all the students who participated in the project and have allowed me to cite their comments and use photographs of their performances. Thanks also to the participating writers and particularly to Stacy Makishi for allowing me to quote from recent e-mail correspondence. Thanks to William Richardson for the photographs.

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