Scenographic Strategies

A case study of selected models made by opera designer Michael
Levine demonstrates an emphasis on activation of space by the
presence of detailed miniature figures rather than by the creation
of programmatic settings. Investigation of his photographic
documentation of sequences in the production design for the
tetralogy of Der Ring des Nibelungen for the Canadian Opera
Company (2003–2006) reveals his design vocabularies for a
scenographic dramaturgy. The preliminary point of reference in
the discussion is Martin Heidegger’s conceptualization of the
‘thing’ involved in processes of perception as productive to
understanding Levine’s emphasis on the power of a
choreographic human presence. The discussion is framed by the
spatial architectonics and emphasis on models advocated by the
architectural rationalists in post-revolution Russia who sought to
develop a performative architecture with space as its material. The
discussion thus comprehends the significance of the orientation in
space as crucial to the creation of social objects as performance
and the conceptualizing of stage space as constructed public
space more widely.

If architecture is a veritable genre of space creation, then the model is functional. If architecture serves to stabilize, reinforce and build up the structure of the real, models can be understood as the architecture of the imaginary' If architecture can structure our sense of reality, models can loosen and disrupt that structure-revealing the freedom that we have. Topalovic 20lt:3g In architectural design, models have assumed several significant purposes: the most publicly evident are the exhibition models that appear in many urban centres as part of a now familiar material vocabulary miniaturizing large projects. In the architectural atelier, models serve as a mode of research, testing materials and design hypotheses, and elsewhere architectural historians turn to detailed models to study unrealized projects which may exist onry in archival drawings' In design for performance, scale models have often been part of the process of pragmatic dialogue between a scenographer and a director, and later as part of an orientation for the cast. In this chapter, I consider the dramaturgical contribution effected by the presence, and often by the onstage assembly, of an architectural model as an active element within performance.

Eds. Andrew Filmer and Juliet Rufford
Bloomsbury / Methuen Engage series eds. Enoch Brater and Mark Taylor-Batty

BOOK DESCRIPTION
Performing Architectures examines the relationships that exist between theatre, performance and architecture within an expanded field of spatial and artistic practice. The essays that make up the collection ask what new terms, what modes of thinking, and what techniques and practices have emerged (or might emerge) through encounters between architecture and performance. This enquiry is located in three key areas. First, the book focuses on theatre projects – that is: built, speculative or utopian architectural projects for theatre and performance. Second, it focuses on interdisciplinary practices that critically re-examine and transform our experiences of architecture, performance and the built environment. Third, it focuses on interdisciplinary pedagogies that are driven by the question of what is gained for students of one discipline in the encounter between that discipline and the other. The volume provides an essential introduction to the ways in which performance and architecture – as socio-spatial processes and as things made or constructed – operate as generating, shaping and steering forces in understanding and performing the other.

CONTENTS
Essays by a distinguished list of international authors including: Himanshu Burte, Dorita Hannah, Klaus Van Den Berg, Evelyn Furquim Werneck Lima, TAAT collective, Andrew Filmer, Mike Pearson and Cathy Turner, David Roberts, Natalie Rewa, Alex Schweder, Juliet Rufford, Beth Weinstein and Robert Wilson.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
This wide-ranging and stimulating collection offers major new insights into our performative relationship with the world around us. 
Marvin Carlson, City University of New York, USA


A provocative volume that reaches across the world and through time to offer new theoretical and practical perspectives on architecture, dramaturgy and scenography.
Joanne Tompkins, The University of Queensland, Australia


This well conceived and implemented volume brings together thinking on the complex relationship between performance and architecture. Timely and fascinating, Performing Architectures works towards an architectural dramaturgy appropriate for our post-dramatic concerns and practice.
Maurya Wickstrom, City University of New York, USA

The rising global consciousness of environmental degradation brings with it an opportunity to rethink current practices in cultural sectors. In the performing arts, many design methods have little regard for their environmental impact, and are largely unsustainable. This paper will discuss the application of ecological design for performance, with a focus on The Living Stage; a project that explores the potential of ecological strategies to influence the creative process, and deliver new modes of artistic expression. A centrepiece of the 2013 Castlemaine State Festival (Australia), The Living Stage combined stage design, permaculture and community engagement to create a recyclable, biodegradable and edible performance space. The paper has been written to accompany a film on The Living Stage and reveals how the project was achieved through the application of Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowen’s ecological design principles. Moving beyond recycling and efficiency, this enquiry poses a more radical question: ‘Can we create designs that not only enrich our audience, but our community and environment as well?’

To see film: http://vimeo.com/117488908

Spaces, objects and the representation of desire in scenographic praxis and theory fall into one topos of observation, manipulation and critique in the interplay of socio-political realities and artistic imagination. In this volume, artistic and academic research positions aim to identify scenographic strategies in the spatial embodiment and choreography of desire in performative spaces of actual and virtual domains.
With contributions by: Arnold Aronson, Simon Donger, Sodja Lotker, Dorita hannah, hans Op de Beeck, Wafa Hourani, Michael Ashkin, Mariele Neudecker, Olaf Nicolai, Wolfgang Muench, Simon Penny, Lawrence Wallen, Thea Brejzek

The rising global consciousness of environmental degradation brings with it an opportunity to rethink current practices in cultural sectors. In the performing arts, many design methods have little regard for their environmental impact, and are largely unsustainable. This paper will discuss the application of ecological design for performance, with a focus on The Living Stage; a project that explores the potential of ecological strategies to influence the creative process, and deliver new modes of artistic expression. A centrepiece of the 2013 Castlemaine State Festival (Australia), The Living Stage combined stage design, permaculture and community engagement to create a recyclable, biodegradable and edible performance space. The paper has been written to accompany a film on The Living Stage and reveals how the project was achieved through the application of Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowen’s ecological design principles. Moving beyond recycling and efficiency, this enquiry poses a m...

La monografia, frutto di un'indagine sistematica, rappresenta il primo e più ampio studio sui sipari storici italiani, proponendo un’organica lettura del fenomeno che nel corso dell’Ottocento vede diffondersi in tanti teatri di città, poli privilegiati dell’aggregazione sociale, il sipario di storia, un’“invenzione” che va a sostituirsi al telone di contenuto allegorico presente nella tradizione decorativa teatrale fin dal Cinquecento.
Temi di valenza nazionale – “Dante Alighieri”, “Il trionfo di Petrarca in Campidoglio”, “La disfida di Barletta” – si affiancano a soggetti di vivace colore municipalistico, in coerenza con un tessuto politico-sociale che, anche sotto le nuove insegne dell’Unità – anzi, si direbbe proprio in virtù di questa –, non dimentica mai i tanti “campanili” della geo-politica italiana.
Ne esce una singolare “storia d’Italia illustrata” da ripercorrere di teatro in teatro con decine di sipari che celebrano fatti e personaggi del mondo antico, del Medioevo e del Rinascimento, riesumati in rutilanti ricostruzioni di fantasia o in filologiche ambientazioni in stile. Si profila così un allusivo gioco di riflessi tra passato e presente con iconografie che si fanno particolarmente pregnanti negli anni cruciali del Risorgimento e che trasformano questa particolare macchina scenica, usata fin dall’antichità con una duplice funzione pratica e simbolica, in un “manifesto” fortemente rappresentativo dell’identità civica.
Il volume propone una lettura critica complessiva del genere mettendo in luce le molteplici relazioni del sipario di storia con la coeva produzione letteraria, drammaturgica e lirica.
A corredo del testo una tavola sinottica raccoglie in cronologia i centoquarantasei sipari censiti (conservati, perduti o collocati in una sede diversa da quella originale), precisandone le iconografie, gli autori e i teatri di pertinenza.

Scenography is going through a period of renewed artistic exploration and unprecedented academic interest, which, in recent years, has seen numerous scholars argue that its newly expanded practices are capable not only of challenging theatre orthodoxy but also taking on a critical – perhaps, political – function. However, if scenography is currently being celebrated within Theatre and Performance Studies for the pivotal role it is playing in determining a postdramatic ‘politics of perception,’ it has also been considered alongside a number of related design practices that abet neoliberal capitalism’s accelerated processes of commodification.
Exploring a wide range of research on scenography, design, urban studies and political theory, I argue that scenography can act as a valuable tool for disclosing the role of design in reinforcing the strategies of neoliberal capitalism. In the first part of this (author draft) chapter, I trace the mutation of late nineteenth-century commodity culture through mid twentieth-century ‘spectacle’ (Debord) and ‘sign value’ (Baudrillard) to contemporary forms of experience design, brand imaging and urban brandscaping. I rehearse this passage from product to sign to design in order to map the place of scenography within what Foster dubs ‘the political economy of design’ (2002, p. 22). In the second part of the chapter, I use the (predominantly) Marxist theoretical framework established in part one to inform my analysis of an intentionally varied landscape of contemporary performance and scenography practice, including postdramatic theatre, immersive performance and urban activist theatre. Retaining the historical term ‘scenography’ as one which cuts across theatrical and non-theatrical performance contexts and is currently being used in business strategy (as I discuss below), I examine how some scenography for found-space performance is spatially innovative but politically acquiescent to some of neoliberalism’s key ambitions. However, I explore how other approaches to the visuospatial aspects of performance – whether they are designed for ‘edgy,’ ‘alternative’ locations or for traditional proscenium-arch stages – reveal scenography’s latent critical potential.

This PhD Dissertation investigates dynamic performer/spectator relationships and interfaces, focusing on ambulant performances and performative installations. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s nomadology,  ‘nomadic theatre’ is employed as a concept (not as a genre) to explore its potential for researching dynamic constellations of performers, spectators and spaces. Nomadic theatre investigates the quality of encounters; the changing role of the spectator; and the potentialities of lived space in contemporary performance. Nomadic theatre captures movement and mobility while it continues to be a processual concept in itself.

Czech architect-scenographer František Zelenka was a well-known pre-war designer for the National Theatre in Prague, deported by the Nazis to the Theresienstadt ghetto, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, where he participated extensively in the inmates’ theatrical activity. Among his works in the ghetto, the children’s opera Brundibár, designed and directed by Zelenka, stands out. Brundibár was originally created in 1938 by the Czech Jewish composer Hans Krása and the librettist Adolf Hoffmeister in Prague. Despite the harsh living conditions, 55 performances are known to have been held in Theresienstadt between 1943 and 1944. The staging of Brundibár consisted of visual statements that were an integral part of the scenography and acquired meaning in the context of the ghetto. This article analyses Zelenka’s scenography by focusing on the visual metaphors embedded in the stage images he created, and offers an insight on the multiple roles of Brundibár’s original scenography and its impact. The aim is to underscore the power in creating and reading scenographic images under coercive conditions, with Brundibár as a paradigmatic example. It demonstrates the ways in which scenography may serve as a reminder of normality for children dealing with issues that cannot otherwise be confronted. The article concludes with a brief commentary on contemporary adaptations of the opera.

Prima di intraprendere qualsiasi discorso sulla rappresentazione nel mondo dei videogiochi è necessario fare alcune premesse e dare alcune definizioni che a causa del modernismo che caratterizza la materia non hanno ancora una solida letteratura scientifica di riferimento. Distingueremo innanzitutto l'area di gioco da quelli che sono i fondali, inserendo in questi anche le aree non accessibili seppur realizzate con la stessa metodologia della categoria precedente. L'area di gioco è lo spazio dove in generale il character, che sia esso visibile su schermo o meno, comandato dal giocatore si muove o compie delle azioni, parimenti sono area di gioco anche tutte le grafiche selezionabili con un mouse ed in generale tutto ciò con cui è possibile interagire. Non fanno parte dell'area di gioco, come già detto, i fondali piatti ma anche tutte quelle zone che seppur create con la medesima tecnologia, quali la modellazione 3d, non sono accessibili al giocatore e non godono quindi delle proprietà informatiche tipiche degli ambienti di gioco interattivi 1. Resta salvo che sono comprese nell'area di gioco tutte le aree che pur non essendo accessibili godono di proprietà rispetto ad elementi dell'area di gioco, questo concetto complesso è facilmente spiegabile se si pensa alla fisica introdotta nei videogiochi più recenti, se un character cadendo da una torre collide ad esempio con una balconata e per questo effetto cambia traiettoria, l'ostacolo fa parte dell'area di gioco.

This article examines the architectural and scenographic challenge to highlight some important parallels between two of Shakespeare’s history plays - Richard II and Coriolanus - which were performed back-to-back at the Gainsborough Studios: a temporary ‘found space’ theatre in London’s Shoreditch district in 2000. Building on scenographer and theatre historian Christopher Baugh’s observation that ‘a considerable feature of the struggle to find an alternative scenographic identity and a new aesthetic for the theatre during the twentieth century has been centered upon finding ways of integrating the scenic space and the place of performance - the architecture of the theatre’ (2005: 145), the article argues that an important achievement of the project (a collaboration between director Jonathan Kent and scenographer Paul Brown with Haworth Tompkins Architects) was the creation of a flexible theatrical space-time capable of moving backwards and forwards through historical time - from ancient Sparta and Rome to medieval England, Elizabethan England, and millennial East London.

O Laboratório de Estudo do Movimento (LEM) da Escola Internacional de Teatro Jacques Lecoq, em Paris, é considerado um departamento cenográfico, dedicado especialmente à pesquisa dinâmica do espaço e do ritmo, por meio da representação plástica. Seu ensino não é uma transmissão de técnicas, mas um processo de experiências práticas que visa permitir ao aluno encontrar posteriormente sua própria escrita criativa poética. O ensino é baseado em permanências que são: as transferências; o estado de calma ou o neutro; o equilíbrio de forças; a economia de ações físicas.No presente artigo, serão apresentadas ponderações sobre estes quatro aspectos de acordo com a proposta metodológica do LEM. Serão observadas as correspondências entre a pesquisa corporal e a pesquisa plástica, considerando-se possibilidades de aplicação no trabalho cenográfico e arquitetônico. Serão utilizados exemplos de exercícios realizados, fontes bibliográficas de autoria de Jacques Lecoq e outros pensadores nos quais se vislumbra correlações teóricas, minha experiência como aluno no LEM no ano letivo de 2010-2011 e entrevistas.

Este artículo es el análisis de un dibujo que Joseph Gandy hizo para John
Soane. Su objetivo es desvelar sus misterios, el modo en cómo señalan a
Soane sin “nombrarlo” directamente y reflexionar sobre el argumento y la
escenografía que el dibujo contiene, más allá de la habilidad técnica de Gandy.
This article is the analysis of a drawing that Joseph Gandy made for John
Soane. Its aim is to reveal its mysteries, the way in how it point to Soane
without “naming him” directly and to think about the argument and the scenography that drawing contains, beyond Gandy’s the technical skill.

Der deus ex machina Der lateinische Begriff deus ex machina (apò mēkhanês theós im klassischen Griechischen) bezieht sich auf das plötzliche und häufig unerwartete Erscheinen einer göttlichen Figur auf der Theaterbühne, wo er eine für den Menschen ansonsten unlösbare Problematik löst und damit das Narrativ der Aufführung zu seinem Abschluss bringt. Seine wörtliche Bedeutung, " Gott aus der Maschine " , stammt aus den frühen Tagen der Theateraufführung, als ein Schauspieler, der eine Gottheit darstellte, tatsächlich mit Hilfe eines kranartigen Mechanismus auf die Bühne herabgelassen wurde. Derartige übernatürliche Interventionen waren auf der Bühne des klassischen Griechenlands durchaus üblich, allerdings werden sie bereits von Aristoteles scharf kritisiert, der (in Kapitel XV der Poetik) argumentiert, dass

This article analyzes certain transdisciplinary artistic practices in the production of stage sets, considering the relevance of the process within the field of artistic creation. For this, the teaching of the subject “Scenography” in the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Malaga is taken as a case study. This subject belongs to the area of Sculpture, and it tries to question the process of artistical creation of a scenographic space and provides an active training and keep some proposals that develop the researching and experimental spirit of the students at a formal level as much as conceptual one, starting from the literary work “Historias de cronopios y famas” by Julio Cortázar. The approach in this subject seeks for generating a formative space which motivates the research and creativity of the students and promotes the quest of new expressive and symbolic alternatives in the design and creation of scenographic spaces.

THIS CONFERENCE PAPER, DELIVERED AT IFTR 2013, PREFIGURES THE CENTRAL SECTION OF MY SHORT BOOK THEATRE & ARCHITECTURE (PALGRAVE MACMILLAN).

In this paper, I show how early twentieth-century theatre-makers disrupted one order – that of the illusionist proscenium-arch stage – to establish other, more radical uses of architecture on the stage, and how contemporary theatrical experiments use architecture to debunk myths that play out within, and extend beyond, the theatre. With examples ranging from the architectonic scenographies and dramaturgies of the historical avant-gardes to late twentieth and early twenty-first productions by Tanztheater Wuppertal and The Builders Association, I consider how theatre and dance-performance have used the architectural 'real,' and acts of construction and critical un-building to explore their own ‘producedness.'