Against Neutrality and Minimalism, Choreographing Drama: A Degree Project in four acts

The main purpose of this essay is to reflect on my degree project process whose main question was to wonder around choreographing drama and using feelings and emotions as dance material. Being able to approach the question, the text is written in the format of a play, here in four acts, the fourth act being the performance part of the degree project called Act Four: Scene of Sentimentality. Another focus of this text is to elaborate on the performance-making process and describe its methods such as Walking-Actions, Face Dance and The Tag of Pain. In the text I am referencing several artists that have somehow dealt with drama and/or emotions in their work for example Meg Stuart, Elina Pirinen and Pina Bausch. One of my methods for choreographing drama was to create contradictions. In this essay the strategy for creating contradictions was taking in an "enemy", here it being the 1960s minimalism and the so-called ‘neutrality’ in contemporary dance, and then arguing against the enemy. The essay ends with a meditation on the connection between emotions and dancing