Public defence, Costume design, Dipl. Ing. Kiymet Oberpriller (Ninel Çam)

Title of the thesis: Dancing Dialectics. Thinking with the Moving Body Stepping into the Unknown

Thesis defender: Kiymet Oberpriller (Ninel Çam)
Opponent: Prof. Tone Pernille Østern, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Custos: Prof. Sofia Pantouvaki, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture

Practice-based artistic research exploring the conditions for a collective flow state in creative dance-making

In her doctoral thesis, choreographer and artist-researcher Kiymet Oberpriller (artist name Ninel Çam) explores the conditions under which dancers can enter a collective flow state during creative dance-making: a state characterised by deep immersion in the activity, focused presence, total engagement and emancipation.

The research is based on four Body–Movement–Space Creative Dance workshops, two at Aalto University in Helsinki and two at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, each culminating in a demo performance shared with an audience. Improvisation was the principal working tool. Oberpriller held a dual role: she facilitated the workshops as a “midwife-choreographer” while observing the processes that unfolded within them as an artist-researcher. She combined autoethnography, detailed phenomenological transcriptions of the workshops’ audiovisual recordings, and writing as a thinking tool within an extensive, rhizomatically structured Research Diary.

The study draws on Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s Flow Theory and Otto Scharmer’s Theory U. Its main result is a new concept: Dancing Dialectics. It describes the ability to hold a suspended space and time in which opposing forces do not block or hinder one another but support, secure, and strengthen one another. Oberpriller compares this to belaying in rock climbing, where opposing forces keep the climber safe. Given the necessary  suspended time and a protected sphere, these forces can dance with each other, which supports the unfolding of the creative process.

In all four workshops, the dancers’ attitudes noticeably shifted from one moment to the next. The dancers became the owners of their project, communicated smoothly and without ego-driven friction, discarded favoured ideas without hesitation, and were eager to continue working. According to the study, collective flow does not simply happen by chance, nor can it be forced. It becomes possible through the cultivation of Dancing Dialectics.

Since Dancing Dialectics relates to the creative quality of being human, it may also open new questions for research in other disciplines, while dancing and creative dance-making offer an embodied way to practise it.

Key words: dancing dialectics, practice-based artistic research, creative dance-making, collective flow, autoethnography, Theory U, jouissance

Thesis available for public display 7 days prior to the defence at Aalto University's public display page. 

Contact information: ninel.cam@gmail.com