Synne Behrndt

Teaching at Stockholm University of the Arts

I teach and convene courses on BA and MA Performing Arts. In Stockholm I have taught across the programs Film and Media, Acting and Performing Arts. I am currently the Head of program for the MA in Performing Arts.

Profile

I am a lecturer, dramaturg and performance scholar, specialising in dramaturgy and creative processes and processes of creation. My recent and ongoing research focuses on the ways in which artistic thinking and creative processes can contribute to – and be part of the picture of – "solution finding" when it comes to the complex questions and issues facing culture, society and communities: One question is how performance-making, artistic and dramaturgical thinking can contribute to finding solutions to challenges which call on ever increasing interdisciplinary approaches. Moreover, what kinds of models and dramaturgies are being developed by contemporary performance makers in light of changing sensibilities and conditions for creation?

My external practice includes dramaturgical collaboration within dance and devising, most recently I have worked as dramaturg for choreographer Milla Koistinen on the performances One Next to Me, Breathe, Magenta Haze and the upcoming Grit (For What it’s Worth). Other collaborators include David Harradine and Fevered Sleep, Douglas Rintoul, Annika Lewis/Kassandra Productions and Christine Fentz/Secret Hotel.

I hold a "PhD by Works in the Public Domain" from the University of Winchester (UK).  

Areas of Expertise

• Dramaturgy
• Dance dramaturgy
• Devising and creative processes
• Performance and text analysis
• Performance and theatre history and practices

Key Publications (ORCID: 0000-0002-3603-9113)

"Strange Constellations. Five observations on time, change and attention in Fevered Sleep", in Love and Not knowing. Fevered Sleep (Performance Research Books), eds. Cull Ó Maoilearca and Pell, 2024.

Dramaturgy and Research in Devised Theatre, (NAMU, Prague), co-written with Sodja Lotker and with research funding from Stockholm University of the Arts, 2024.

"Models of Creation and Devising", in The Routledge Companion to Contemporary European Theatre and Performance (Routledge), eds. Remshardt & Mancewicz, 2023.

"Dramaturgy and the Facilitation of Encounter", in special issue "Dramaturgies in the New Millenium" in Forum Modernes Theatre 44 (Narr Verlag), eds. Pewny; Callens & Coppens, 2014.

Invisible Things: Documentation from a Devising Process, co-written with David Harradine (Fevered Sleep & the University of Winchester), 2010 and second edition 2019.

"Dance, Dramaturgy and Dramaturgical Thinking", in "New Dramaturgies", special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review 20: 2, 2010.

"People Show in Rehearsal: People Show 118 – The Birthday Tour", in Devising in Process, edited by Alex Mermikides and Jackie Smart, Palgrave Macmillan.

Dramaturgy and Performance, co-written with Cathy Turner (Palgrave Macmillan), 2008 and second edition 2016.

Editorial work

New Dramaturgies (book series, co-editor Cathy Turner, Palgrave & Springer Nature)

Elements in Contemporary Performance Text (advisory board, Cambridge University Press)