Dramatic space is a multi-faceted term.  Ludwig Wittgenstein applied a spatial-temporal aspect of "language-games" to Linguistics, while Rudolf Laban, a developer of a pioneering dance notation called Labanotation, talked about Space Harmony in concordance with Choreutics, Eukinetics and ballet.  Dramatic space, according to Laban, is established by an equilibrium between the orientation of the dancer’s body to the orientation of a surface.  In other words, dramatic space is an interaction between all the participants of a performance;  at the same time it’s a relationship of these participants to their ambiance, whether that ambiance is represented by nature or by physical man-made structures.
             It is interesting to note that Wittgenstein and Laban, both immigrants, both writing in German, randomly taken by me out of the pile of books, covered with violet dust, experimented with games.  Wittgenstein’s widely acclaimed and notorious language-games can be compared to Laban’s "Raumspielpuzzle" (space-game-puzzles).  While not completely familiar with Wittgenstein’s games, I can assume that both language-games and space-game-puzzles do, to some extent, involve probability.  To make a reader more familiar with Laban’s space-game-puzzles, I cite here a quote from the book by Vera Maletic The Development of Rudolf Laban’s Movement and Dance Concepts*:  in a space-game-puzzle, "one can either assemble the cards containing directional symbols according to the rules of spatial games based on Laban’s space harmony laws or one can draw them by chance arriving at unpredictable sequences."
             The concept of randomness is used in painting, music, literature, and dance.  It can be called a helpful tool in creating a dramatic space.  In painting, dramatic space can be built by an artist who faces a painting from a certain distance and throws paint and/or other objects onto a canvas.  Jackson Pollack’s paintings were created on a floor which became the stage on which his actions were recorded.  In this case, dramatic space is present not only on a flat surface, within the objects, shapes and colors of a painting itself, but also between an artist and his/her creation.  The constituents of dramatic space might be the distance from a canvas to a painter, a rage of a painter and passivity or silent forcefulness of a painting.  Discussing randomness in music, I can mention the composer John Cage, an author of 4’33" and a performer of Erik Satie’s 18 hours long "Vexations" (Satie’s "Parade" will be discussed few paragraphs later), who employed the I Ching for composing.  As Vera Maletic states, "charts referring to musical tempi, duration, sounds, and dynamics would be manipulated in various ways resulting in compositions by chance." (142)  Dramatic space exists not only in art and theatre but also in music.  An effect of dramatization can be created by an assemblage of tempi (of a monologue or a song), direction/s of a musical phrase (or of a movement of ballet dancers), silence, and a stable or unstable position of notes (or of supporting actors) toward a tonality (or toward a theme of a play or toward main actors.  The elements of dramatic space are universal for all the disciplines:  besides the already mentioned directions of movement, they include the surrounding and supporting structures such as chords and rhythm in music, walls and placement of participants toward each other in the theatre, and a juxtaposition of an artist/creator and art.
             Dramatic space exists outside the artist but can also be found within.  Contrary to a kinship of an artist to an outward world (e.g., of a ballet dancer to an audience), there is a dramatic space inside a creator.  "In a mysterious, puzzling, and mystical way, the true work of art arises ‘from out of the artist.’  Once released from him, it assumes its own independent life...It is not, therefore, an indifferent phenomenon arising from chance, living out an indifferent spiritual life, but rather possesses... further creative, active spaces."*  An artist experiences the dramatic space within him/herself, between an embryo of his/her work and his/her persona.  Also, an artist creates a dramatic space outside of his/her physical body, between his/her work and him/herself.  In his/her turn (what gender is creation?) a work of art, according to Kandinsky, "plays a part in the creation of the spiritual atmosphere," possibly creating dramatic space between itself and other creations that hang around in the same museum, or a train station, or a museum of train stations.
             Dramatic space has to do with architecture and geometry.  For example, in the ballet "Parade" dramatic space was intensified by cubist costumes designed by Picasso: some dancers were wearing three-dimensional structures representing skyscrapers made of cardboard.  Parades themselves contributed to a dramatization of space.  Usually in France parades were the means to attract the audience to a theater performance:  before the "real" performance, there was a "preliminary" performance, a parade.  The show tent was separated from the audience by a curtain or a fence, and in front of these obstructions there was another theatre, another dramatic space, a parade.  In this way, dramatic space was created not only within the "real" theatre but also between the "real" theatre and an "artificial" one, between "real" art and its reflection.
             In conclusion, I can say that composition can’t exist without dramatic space.  Without framing and referencing the work of art, one can’t compose.  Dramatic space is a multi-layered structure whose radiant carcass is mutually permeable by artist and his/her art.  Dramatic space is where a stage is.  In music, painting and dance dramatic space is where we create it;  it’s where we are.

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