The Spiral Dramaturgy
DV video, 31 min 21 s, loop, aspect ratio 16:9, sound, 2019. Film by Kajsa Dahlberg in collaboration with Gritt Uldall-Jessen.
Installation images from Index - The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, 2023. Photographer: Jean-Baptiste Béranger.
In January 2011, my colleague Gritt Uldall-Jessen and I visited Danish dramaturg, author, playwright, and theorist Ulla Ryum (1937–2022) at her home in Præstø, south of Copenhagen. I documented this conversa- tion, which went on for several hours, on video. This film is edited from that 2011 documentation.
We came to meet Ryum with many questions about circular and spiral dramaturgies, concepts she has articulated and elaborated over the course of her career. She sometimes answered our questions, but most of the time did not.
Ryum’s spiral dramaturgy is indebted to her experience living and working in Sapmi, drawing on a rich lineage of Indigenous and Nomadic theatre and dance traditions. It was deployed throughout her career as a methodology that decentres Aristotelian modes of advancing the plot through dramatic conflict.
This non-linear model instead aims to develop space for ethical reflection through the creation of associative relationships between elements of the story, as well as between temporalities of the past, present, and future. In this method, a drive for narrative control is replaced by a desire to create insight and collective knowledge. The audience is not forced to accept how the story develops; instead, the viewer is encouraged to relate to images, situations and elements as possibilities or suggestions.
Production Support:
Initiative and interview: Gritt Uldall-Jessen
Camera, interview, and editing: Kajsa Dahlberg
English translation: Jane Rowley
Audio technician (mastering): Merete Mongstad
Post production: Simon Möller
Special thanks to, and in memory of, Ulla Ryum.