An interdisciplinary analysis of how performance generating systems attract patterns of movement and why that affects dramaturgical agency, cognitive learning, and relational change. Performance generating systems are systematic and task-based dramaturgies that generate performance for or with an audience. In dance, such systems differ in ways that matter from more closed choreographed scores and more open forms of structured improvisation. Dancers performing within these systems draw on predefined and limited sources while working on specific tasks within constraining rules. The generating components of the systems provide boundaries that enable the performance to self-organize into iteratively shifting patterns instead of becoming repetitive or chaotic.  This book identifies the generating components and dynamics of these works and the kinds of dramaturgical agency they enable. It explains how the systems of these creations affect the perception, cognition, and learning of dancers and why that is a central part of how they work. It also examines how the combined dramaturgical and psychological effects of the systems performatively address individual and social conditions of trauma that otherwise tend to remain unchangeable and negatively impact the human capacity to learn, relate, and adapt. The book provides analytical frameworks and practical insights for those who wish to study or apply performance generating systems in dance within the fields of choreography and dance dramaturgy, dance education, community dance, or dance psychology.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements List of Figures 1. Introduction: Performance Generating Systems in Dance Conceptualizing and researching performance generating systems Three analytical and dramaturgical frameworks in application - Dramaturgy - Psychology - Performativity PART ONE: DRAMATURGY 2. The Dramaturgical Agency of Performance Generating Systems Developments in dramaturgical agency Departures from choreography Differences from improvisation Concepts of memory at work Memory and agency in performance generating systems 3. Analyzing and Notating Performance Generating Dramaturgies as Dynamical Systems Notation challenges Dynamical Systems Theory DST-based tools of analysis and notation 4. Recycled Choreographic Memory in relay: Henderson Futuring memory The dynamics of futuring memory Ethics of affecting memory PART TWO: PSYCHOLOGY 5. The Cognitive Demands and Learning Effects of Performance Generating Systems The emergence of dance psychology Notes on methodology An earned presence - Kinaesthetic perception and perceptual integration - Recalling and perceiving through memory - Constraints and distributed, extended cognition - Implicit and explicit learning - Disrupting and manipulating implicit processes - Unlearning and recalibrating perception 6. Learning in Whole in the Head: Forsythe Improvisation Technologies: imaging movement modalities Building an ensemble: collective memory and skill development Opening the near closed ‘soft clock’ - Generating components within narrow boundaries - Self-organizing dynamics and the attractor of emergent performer agency Closing the near open ‘supernova’ - Expanded generating components and exploded boundaries - The self-organizing attractor of ensemble memory and agency Learning WitH an ensemble 7. Unlearning in I’ll Crane for You: Hay through House Testing the boundaries of performance generating systems with Hay through House Generating components - Practice - Adapting performer - Score - Agreement - Transferability Learning to unlearn PART THREE: PERFORMATIVITY 8. Affecting the (Im)possibility of Change: Performativity and Trauma Moving from dramaturgy and psychology through performativity Performativity: discursive Performativity: posthuman Potential of change in performance generating systems: phase transitions (Un)changeable conditions: trauma Performative Agency  9. Transition from Dissociation to Intimacy in Crave: Kaeja Craving touch: sourcing dissociation Creating ‘touch’ Safety through transfer Phase transition towards relational, performative agency  Process strategies  10. Environmental Entanglement in the Dance Machine: Lee Querying belonging: sourcing displacement A simple dance: devising a consensual feedback system  Generating components and phase transition: listening to collective/environmental interaction - Transitions from hesitant/unconnected performance to engagement  - Immersive rest and robust forms of creative engagement  - Invited forms of collaborative engagement  Performative strategies  11. Conclusion: Affecting Agency, Learning, and Change through Performance Generating Systems The conceptualization of performance generating systems Dramaturgical, psychological, and performative case insights  The combined theoretical frameworks and their future application  Appendix: Methodological Negotiations Bibliography Index