Ethnographic fieldwork

As part of the fieldwork, I conducted longitudinal semi-structured in-depth interviews (according to the instructions listed in Waege and Cambré 2001) with the fourteen case study informants over the course of two years. On the basis of a pre-written topic list and probing, I focused on content mining through concentrating solely on the theme of work in the contemporary dance profession in the Brussels or Berlin context. The exact questions were not set, but the topics were to some extent pre-listed. In Brussels, I conducted introductory talks and bi-monthly in-depth interviews with six informants and one key informant between March and December 2015. In total, I conducted an average of three recorded and one unrecorded (introductory) interview per informant (25 in total). Between September 2016 and July 2017, I moved to Berlin in order to conduct the fieldwork to offer the informants some flexibility from my side and to fully acquainted with the dance scene and sector. In total, I conducted 27 interviews, including unrecorded introductory talks and bi-monthly recorded in-depth interviews with six informants and one key informant. These interviews lasted between one and two and a half hours on average. A list of all interviews in detail is provided in Annex 4.

During my two years of fieldwork, I undertook participant observations in the studio while my informants were working on their own creative processes. These observations were of a participatory kind, because I was often asked to provide feedback or advice in terms of sound, lighting, spacing, and sometimes even dramaturgy, especially after try-out sessions. In addition, I attended performances by my informants and chatted to informants during other events in the dance scene where we (mostly by accident) both attended. It should be noted that there was relatively little work in the studio during the time of my fieldwork with regard to my informants’ own creative processes. While several informants had just finished a busy period of creation and were taking it slow in terms of their own artistic work, others did not receive the funding they had applied for and thus had to postpone rehearsals and residencies. Furthermore, several informants were in the project application phase and thus mainly focused on writing and planning, or others mainly worked for other people’s projects during that period. In most cases, several of these reasons were intertwined. These realities are for that matter already very telling about the working conditions in the contemporary dance scenes of Brussels and Berlin.

As a consolation prize to compensate the missing opportunities for studio observation during a creative process, some informants invited me to observe while they were

teaching a workshop, or while they were rehearsing an already finished piece. While these latter observations did not exactly allow me to collect information on how the working conditions affect the creative process and artistic decision-making, they did provide me with an interesting insight into the conditions at the mesolevel, in terms of infrastructure and technical support. For example, I was confronted with freezing studios without functioning Wi-Fi, budgetary concerns affecting rehearsal time and conditions, generous and nutritious meals, and more generally, I could observe how artists are treated on the premises of institutions. Annex 4 provides a list of all observations.

Additionally, since it was clear from the start that much of the work does not take place in a studio, I asked my informants to keep a logbook in which they documented at least a week of work activities. Ideally, they would log down one week within a rehearsal process and one week when not under contract. Most informants provided me with two weeks’

worth of logged activities, however a minority neglected to do so: while they intended to log down their activities, they found it difficult to devote time to this task as they were occupied with several other things. Also, one informant mentioned it was too complicated to distinguish work activities from non-work activities and often many things seemed to happen simultaneously, such as having a Skype-meeting while preparing lunch and answering an urgent email. The logbooks were discussed thoroughly in the interviews, often they were a conversation starter. In most cases, I was able to consult the logbooks before the interview, which allowed me to mark parts that were unclear while preparing my topic list for the interview. Several new topics came up simply by going over the logged activities together with the informant. In case my informant failed to provide a detailed log, we reconstructed a few weeks of work by means of the informants’ calendar, agenda or to-do-list. For the informants, these means served as a helpful reminder-tool to talk about their multiple and concrete work tasks. I provided excerpts from several logbooks throughout this book (two in Annex 7), which I discuss and analyze particularly in part II of this book.

However, my fieldnotes from these observations and logbooks are to a lesser extent directly worked out in this book and most of the qualitative material stems from the interviews. Nonetheless, the importance of participant observation for this research should not be underestimated: these observations were necessary for building up a trust relationship with my informants. I showed interest in what goes on behind the scenes on an artistic level, I was visible in the scene by attending performances and public events (also before and after the fieldwork period) and my expertise about the workings of the sector and my knowledge of who-is-who (thanks to my previous work experience in the field) contributed to gaining trust and recognition. In addition, my feedback after observations, which functioned as a symbolic exchange for their cooperation, was much appreciated. All the above validated me as a qualified researcher conducting genuine research, at least, from my informants’ perspective. The observations and the built-up trust relationship resulted in very rich interviews that summarized the information I had

gathered in other contexts and occasions (in the studio, in the foyer, etc.). The observations, logbooks and fieldnotes thus contributed to the topic list at hand for each in-depth interview.

My aim was to reconstruct how contemporary dance artists observe their work reality and what meanings they give to it and to their actions through the lens of a sample of fourteen contemporary dance artists based in Brussels and Berlin. Or, put differently, I interpreted their understanding of their work reality by means of different theoretical concepts within the interpretive Weberian tradition of deutend Verstehen (Weber 1978) within the social sciences, guided by predetermined research questions and hypotheses, which I discussed above. Hence, I used an interpretive perspective with the purpose of uncovering how the research subjects – project-based contemporary dance artists – define themselves and others. Unlike in the positivist approach pioneered by Emile Durkheim, Weber – but also Georg Simmel or Herbert Blumer for example – argued that the study of social action should depart from the consideration that people attach meaning and purpose to their own actions and social scientists understand these in an interpretive way. In his collection of essays on symbolic interactionism, Blumer emphasizes for example that individuals do not just act from certain intentions or motives, but they also constantly interpret their actions while they act (and they interpret also who they are or how they come across) because they possess self-consciousness. While Weber situates the meaningfulness of actions in the underlying motivation, Blumer – whose writings are much in line with Weber’s although he does not explicitly build on his work – focuses more strongly on deliberately giving meaning before, during and after (personal) actions. As he puts it:

In setting up studies of human group life and social action there is need to take social interaction seriously. It is necessary to view the given sphere of life under study as a moving process in which participants are defining and interpreting each other’s acts. It is important to see how this process of designation and interpretation is sustaining, undercutting, redirecting, and transforming the ways in which participants are fitting together their lines of action. (Blumer 1988, 53)

As he explains, an act turns into a symbol because it is observed as a medium of one or more meanings. In symbolic interaction, therefore, people consider their own behaviors and those of others as charged with meaning (or meaningful). Social facts, such as institutionalized roles or expectations to use Durkheim’s terms, do not determine the course of an interaction process, but as Blumer refines, they provide a framework or starting point that enables dynamic interaction. However, the meaning of a symbol is a question of interpretation. Within the interpretive tradition, people within a culture are seen as primary interpreters who at all times give meaning to words, but also to objects, images, actions and other possible symbols. In interpreting these, we make use of codes, which are socially shared conventions about the bond between symbols and their possible

meanings (much like Durkheim’s social facts) and decipher these codes. Research within this tradition is thus aimed at finding the applicable codes within an interpretation community and wants to read the circulating symbols within that community, as the members usually interpret these. A researcher as an outsider will further interpret the observed symbols and codes drawing on theoretical concepts and insights. The qualitative or ethnographic research I undertook therefore results in my interpretations of interpretations²⁸.

From an anthropological perspective, Clifford Geertz underlines the role of anthropologists as interpreters in the opening essay of his influential book The Interpretation of Cultures in 1973. Geertz poses that in anthropological writings it often is obscured that ‘what we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to’ and this may lead to a view of anthropological research as observational rather than interpretive (1973, 9). However, as he continues;

In the study of culture, analysis penetrates into the very body of the object–that is, we begin with our own interpretations of what our informants are up to, or think they are up to, and then systematize those […]. In short, anthropological writings are themselves interpretations, and second and third ones to boot. (Geertz 1973, 15)

As Sarah J. Tracy puts it, ‘qualitative credibility is […] achieved through practices including thick description, triangulation or crystallization, and multivocality and partiality’ (2010, 843). Thus, I intended to let my informants – the sample of contemporary dance artists based in Brussels or Berlin – speak as much as possible and to empathize with their narratives. While I did not let the other players in the dance scene speak, I did include their expertise less systematically: in the preparation for the quantitative and qualitative study, I had several conversations with field residents and I studied the available information as I mentioned above. In addition, I brought my baggage along and familiarized myself through my own work experience in the field (P.A.R.T.S. and K3|Tanzplan Hamburg) and through a more informal back-and-forth communication with several experts (Patrick Sterckx, Elke Decoker, Delphine Hesters, Simone Willeit, Bela Bisom, Carine Meulders and Rudi Laermans among many others).

Hence, the in-depth interview material with my fourteen informants certainly dominates this book, however, it should be kept in mind that the observations and logbooks were necessary to do the content mining. This approach takes into account that the artists themselves are in fact the experts in their field. The answers and concepts that I seek are grounded in the concrete data only they can provide. Thus, I strove to develop

28 Hence, it was necessary to select informants who were eloquent speakers, which is generally not a problem among performing artists. However, this is also perhaps one of the pitfalls of this approach, because I am actually measuring my informants’ cognitive skills to express themselves.

theories through interpreting the qualitative data obtained. In accordance to the grounded theory method developed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1967 (2008), I continuously compared my findings through analytical induction: I gradually developed theories on the basis of systematically obtained and analyzed research data. This was a process in which I tried to make a circular movement between empiricism and theory according to the analytical induction: from observations, logbooks and interview material, to abstract and general concepts, to confirmatory and contradictory data that were continually tested and compared. As I conducted several interviews with the same informants over a timespan, I was able to probe the developed theories continuously.

Additionally, I examined my developed theories in the different performances (of informants and non-informants), or in casual conversations with other players in the field in both the Brussels and Berlin contexts. Hence, one could say I conducted follow-up interviews to revise my concepts and conclusions until I had reached theoretical saturation. This also explains why I conducted longer or more interviews with some informants and not with others (although this in part is also due to their availability).

While with the quantitative survey, I wanted to collect strictly recorded data to create a status quo (which served as a starting point and on the basis of which I could select my research subjects), the essence of the qualitative approach was the continual interweaving of my data collection and theory development.

While verstehen goes hand in hand with interpretation, it remains necessary to keep a certain distance to reflect and analyze adequately. However, this was at times more difficult than at others: while my familiarity with the field of inquiry was certainly a favorable asset within this research, I befriended several informants, which could potentially hamper my objectivity. Moreover, some informants have pointed out that our conversations had started to become close to therapeutic sessions for them. While these are typical effects of ethnographic fieldwork, I was aware that as a researcher I had to remain cautious as to avoid moral conflicts and to remain as objective as possible, which I was able to do through the systematic treatment of the interview material via the coding program NVivo.

In the process of analyzing the abundance of qualitative data I had collected, I decided to transcribe each interview myself, because, knowing the context, I understood best what was being said. In addition, it is good practice to recollect material for the next interview and the analysis becomes more efficient by keeping key words. Indeed, analyzing data already happens during the transcribing process, if not already before.²⁹ I analyzed my transcribed data and fieldnotes systematically through open coding (Strauss

29 The transcriptions were proofread and edited by Simon Leenknegt before coding. For the most part, this was simply a matter of saving time. An external editor would be able to devote more time to identify difficult understandable words. Additionally, filtering out typing errors and assuring consistency in spelling was important to do text queries and coding in NVivo based on recurring words.

and Corbin 1990), which in practice means that I have used NVivo to find a structure in my content, to organize my data according to concepts, to refine concepts and visualize the similarities and differences between Brussels and Berlin. I have used the more complex tools from NVivo sparingly, however Annex 5 and Annex 8 respectively provide an overview of several charts and my coding scheme. Especially the memos I created and attached to concepts and subconcepts while coding were useful for developing theories in the qualitative data analysis.

Most importantly, I wanted to capture knowledge through the lens of my informants (from a micro perspective) and therefore I opted for a quite extensive inclusion of direct quotations from the informants, while I provided the contextual analysis of these accounts (in line with Geertz’s ‘thick descriptions’, 1973). In agreement with my informants, they were able to proofread any direct quotations before publication as to ensure their anonymity. In rare cases, an informant’s original quote has been reworked slightly upon request, though not changing its meaning. For the same purpose, I decided to translate any quotations that were not in English, after which I had them certified by the involved informants. I wanted to prevent that my word choice for the translation contained too much interpretation. I received consent for all translated quotations, hence, to avoid recognizability of the informants, the translated quotations are not marked in the text nor did I include the initial quote in the original language. Lastly, throughout the book, I occasionally make use of my informants’ folk terms adopting these as analytical terms, meaning that I use the wording of an informant to refer to a concept I differentiated and which reoccurs in other cases. In these instances, quotation marks always accompany the folk terms. Thus, any quotation marks used throughout this book that are not followed by references to a source indicate cited material from the qualitative study.

Finally, and perhaps most unconventionally, I have explored the research questions within the ethnographic fieldwork through the analysis of several performances of precarity in which the precarious nature of artistic work has been made visible on stage in content and/or in form. From a dance studies perspective, in order to fully grasp the working conditions in contemporary dance through the lens of its practitioners, it is necessary to explore the artistic output in which contemporary dance artists in these two fields of inquiry publicly address their socio-economic position and precarious working conditions, next to conducting the quantitative and qualitative study. It should be noted that I perceive the discussed performances also as case studies belonging to the fieldwork.³⁰ At length, I discuss VOLCANO (2014) by Liz Kinoshita, Only Mine Alone (2016) by

30 This somewhat ties in with Norman K. Denzin’s ideas, who argues in his influential book Interpretive Ethnography: Ethnographic Practices for the 21^st Century (1996) that postmodern ethnography is the moral discourse of the contemporary world and that ethnographers can and should explore new sorts of experiential texts - such as performance-based text, literary journalism, and narratives of the self - to form a new ethics of inquiry.

Igor Koruga (in collaboration with Ana Dubljević), Crisis Karaoke (2016) by Jeremy Wade, Meyoucycle (2016) by Eleanor Bauer (in collaboration with Chris Peck), and RECESS: Dance of Light (2016) by Michael Helland. In addition, several other and perhaps more widely-known performances are referred to throughout this book to illuminate particular points, however these will not be discussed in their entirety nor worked out in detail. It merits mention that the performances I discuss in depth within this book came into being in one of the two fields of inquiry, which is not necessarily the case for all performances I refer to. The artists involved in these mentioned performances are autonomous artists who work or have worked project-based in the Brussels or Berlin context and therefore they may or may not be also anonymous informants.³¹ Finally, I also succinctly examine a number of creative processes that stem from my case study fieldwork and consequentially, the artists and their artwork remain unidentified.

To close, I would like to highlight once more the limitations of this research due to the mentioned sampling bias for both the quantitative and qualitative study, in which the sample of participants was based on self-definition and self-selection. Additionally, it merits mention again that the qualitative data remained somewhat restricted as I was not sufficiently able to examine precisely how precarity informs artistic decision-making processes and collaboration within a studio situation due to the minimal observation

To close, I would like to highlight once more the limitations of this research due to the mentioned sampling bias for both the quantitative and qualitative study, in which the sample of participants was based on self-definition and self-selection. Additionally, it merits mention again that the qualitative data remained somewhat restricted as I was not sufficiently able to examine precisely how precarity informs artistic decision-making processes and collaboration within a studio situation due to the minimal observation