In 1994, Marianne Van Kerkhoven, the Flemish godmother of dance dramaturgy wrote a short, seminal article on the subject – ‘Looking without pencil in the hand’ – of which the title alone is already a manifesto. This contribution builds further on Van Kerkhoven’s insights: how the dramaturge has to stay necessarily invisible in the creative process (s)he is supporting; how in order to capture this invisible role, a lot of metaphors have been created. It continues with looking at the different roles of the authors’ own practice: that of somatic witness, dialogue partner and editor. It concludes reasserting the practice of the (dance) dramaturge as a creative practice in which the whole body is involved and in which somatic proximity to the creative process is as important as critical distance.