Pražské quadriennale 2011

V roce 2010 vyhrálo západočeské město Plzeň prestižní titul Evropské hlavní město kultury pro rok 2015. Titul, který se uděluje od roku 1985 je vždy na jeden rok propůjčován Evropskou unií jednomu či více evropským městům a jeho získání má sloužit jako podnět ke kulturnímu vývoji a změnám v daném městě. “Český stůl” reprezentuje dva jednoznačně nejdominantnější a neambicióznější projekty, které se v průběhu kandidatury Plzně na Evropského hlavního města kultury pro rok 2015 objevují jako klíčové. Jedná se o stavbu nového divadla v Plzni a konverzi památkově chráněného areálu bývalého pivovaru Světovar na kulturní a rezidenční centrum. Oba projekty se nacházejí ve fázi schválené architektonické studie, předpokládaná realizace počítá s rokem 2015. Koncepční řešení “českého stolu” vychází z vítězného architektonického a urbanistického návrhu portugalského studia Lda Manuel Gra a Dias & Egas JosO Vieira Arquitectos, resp. přepracovaná studie českou kanceláří Helika (projekt \"nové divadlo\") a ateliéru D3A (projekt Světovar).

Projekt české sekce architektury „pokládá na pracovní stůl” celou řadu otázek, které nejsou určeny pouze odborníkům a expertům z oboru divadla a architektury, ale jsou záměrně zacíleny na co nejširší veřejnost.

Jaký je přístup k realizaci nových kulturních center? Jak odpovídají představám občanů záměry města a nakolik jsou o nich vedeny veřejné diskuse?Jsou projekty zřetelné a veřejné soutěže transparentní? Spolupracuje město s místní komunitou? Bude mít obsahová náplň mezinárodní přesah? Má město prioritu a peníze na realizaci a zvláště provoz obou ambiciózních a nákladných projektů?

Creative team of Czech Architecture Section: Pavel Štorek /curator, Performing Arts dramaturg/, Tereza Kučerová /architect, Molo architekti/, Tomáš Žižka /lector of Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts Prague, stage designer/

?No!, Pasajes and Visitas Guiadas are three projects that react to the failed modernity represented by Mexico City’s barbaric architecture, which lays ruins on top of ruins of a nation built on broken promises, failed revolutionary projects and the ghosts of a prosperous and democratic nation that never came to be. The works attempt to critically dismantle these locations in order to understand their socio-political and economic realities.

?No! – consists of a collection of happenings that took place at the most important locations of Mexico’s 1968 student movement, by far one of the most consequential events of recent history, one that led to the creation of Mexico’s modern political class, which has failed to fulfill the movement’s aspirations.

Pasajes – Through happenings, objects, image displays, readings and sound interventions (meant to create a distancing effect from commercial passages, plazas and illegal marketplaces), Pasajes highlights Mexico City’s unique and chaotic economic reality, one often overlooked by its participants.

Visitas Guiadas – consists of guided tours inside the former building of Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Abandoned and in ruins, the building set the stage for an exercise in personal and collective memory, reflecting on the site’s significance to the participants and also its significance in projecting and constructing an image of modern Mexico around the world.

The Mexican theatre company Teatro Ojo explores the borders where different disciplines blend together, in order to disenchant the spectator with the everyday landscape. The company’s work makes use of aesthetic creations meant to influence time and space and to create, in the strongest sense of the word, an experience. Their performance projects respond to open and unstable spaces, like public buildings, plazas, streets and shopping centers, while adapting constantly to the contexts that influence these spaces. Their work demands that spectators become mobile and dynamic, capable of synthesizing and identifying the meaning of the constellation of images provided by the artists.

“Building Theatres” looks at the rare event of constructing purpose-built theatres in Athens. From various examples of the last five years, we selected two medium-sized theatre spaces that address the issue of combining cultural heritage with contemporary architecture and theatre technology. The first theatre is part of the renovated National Theatre, built in the 1900s. A new studio theatre has been partly integrated into the old building and forms an extension to the theatre as well. The second theatre has received all the necessary permits from the Ministry of Culture and currently awaits construction. The challenge for this building was to incorporate an archaeological excavation that would still be accessible to the audience. We believe that these two examples of theatre buildings are part of the ongoing dialogue about the relation of a space to its surroundings, its past as well as its future. Building Theatres 1: Machine Theatre Flux Office The architects designed a small performance space built over an archaeological excavation site within the ancient cemetery of the city of Athens in the present archaeological park of Keramikos. Conceptually, the theatre was conceived as a bridge, hovering over the archaeological excavation. Functionally, the design allows for maximum use of the small space by introducing three stacked performance spaces: 1) a semi-enclosed space on the ground floor, semi-sunken in relation to the street and in direct connection with the excavation (which is protected by a glass floor); 2) an enclosed space on the first floor, overlooking the greater area of the archaeological park and the small enclosed garden in the rear; and 3) an open-air space on the roof with a panoramic view of the greater area. Thanks to the use of movable and collapsible/stackable panels (both vertical and horizontal), these three stacked performance spaces can contract, expand and become interconnected, offering the building the ability to host a large variety of events. On a horizontal plane, part of the ceiling and the floor of the main space can be removed, offering the opportunity to vertically connect all three spaces and thus ultimately create a connection with the archaeological excavation. On a vertical plane, a wall section of the first floor’s main space can open up, pivot, or disappear while part of the real elevation’s sliding glass panels can also disappear, enlarging the space and creating a connection with the outdoor areas in the front and rear. Building Theatres 2: Nea Skini – National Theatre STUDIO75 Architects Architecture as a scenography tool: The National Theatre’s “Nea Skini” (“New Stage”) is a new studio theatre constructed between 2006 and 2009. It is part of an extension to the existing National Theatre, a listed cultural heritage building located in the centre of Athens, designed by Hernst Ziller in 1895, completed in 1901 and radically renovated/redesigned between 2006 and 2009. Our aim was to create a flexible architectural environment that supports scenographic synthesis during the early stages of a production, offering the director and the scenographer the possibility of creating the desirable theatre layout. The theatre’s interior structure, which is exhibited here, is based on four retractable seating system units, custom designed for the specific space. These can fold or unfold and can be placed/moved liberally throughout the space. The whole surface of the floor is a “stage”, with the lighting rig covering the entire ceiling. The design achieves a maximum flexibility for creating various spatial arrangements and transforming the relation between the “stage space” and “audience space” depending on the needs of different productions. The seating capacity can vary from 0 to 240. The space contains all the necessary technical support for presenting a repertory of two or three different productions. The various spatial arrangements/layouts are also supported by the acoustics design and the materials used. The linear tech room overlooks the entire space and can even become a visual component of the “stage”. The Hellenic participation is placed under the auspices of the Hellenic National Commission for UNESCO.

Our understanding of theatrical architecture is influenced by the concept of the theatralisation of the urban space. We do not treat architecture as a building, but rather as a space – broadly understood – in which people coexist and build relations with one another. Apart from the scheme of theatralisation, in which these events take place, what is interesting is the sole fact of art being present within the urban space. Independently of the artists’ intentions, their works coexist with other urban objects and constitute a common structure within the urban organism. Four projects will be presented as elements of the urban space influencing its logic and shape. The presented projects will be analysed with the help of the methodology of urban sociology. We will examine their potential and usefulness for Varsovians (all the projects are located in Warsaw). Can art in public space help to draw greater attention to the topic of exclusion, of cultural taboos, towards hidden, forgotten and thorny questions? Do they influence residents’ opinions, and if so – how? Can they constitute a form of therapy for them? Are they able to familiarise them with otherness?

The projects are examined with a view towards their effect and real impact. This is possible because they function permanently within the public space as real objects or as singular situations that have left a permanent mark. In both cases, they are broadly discussed in public forums and bounce back, asking to be re-read and influencing the city and its inhabitants. This radiating power of the projects seems to constitute a real factor that can be examined and measured with the use of sociological instruments.

The Amsterdam Municipal Theatre opened its doors in 1894 and has been the most important theatre in the Netherlands from that day. The largest and most important Dutch theatre company, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, uses the theatre as its home base.

In the late 1980s, Toneelgroep Amsterdam made it clear that the traditional proscenium stage in the Municipal Theatre no longer fitted its artistic needs. Toneelgroep Amsterdam left the theatre and moved to an abandoned factory hall. However, the company eventually wanted a more versatile playhouse that was closer to Amsterdam’s theatre district. After a long search, it was decided to build a new auditorium behind the Municipal Theatre.

Behind the Muncipal Theatre lies the Melkweg (“Miky Way”), an internationally renowned popular music venue. The Melkweg wanted a larger hall for concerts. A study was conducted to see whether it was possible to combine this hall with the construction of a flat-floor-theatre. The answer was yes.

The Melkweg could be extended past the boundary of the Municipal Theatre’s grounds and it was possible to construct a theatre auditorium on top of the Melkweg. Thus the Municipal Theatre and the Melkweg were connected, creating a unique complex in the centre of Amsterdam, consisting of seven auditoria accommodating 5,000 visitors in total.

The new auditorium was completed in 2009. It can be used in many different ways: as a traditional theatre with fixed seating; as a concert hall with standing room for 1,500 people or seating for 850 people and as a blackbox theatre allowing experimenting with different kinds of audience and scenery arrangements. The auditorium combines the atmosphere of a “found theatre space” with the state of the art technology of a modern flexible theatre / concert hall.

The strength of the United States is the diversity of its communities and strong regions, each with their own traditions and architectural character. The USITT-USA Architectural Exhibit presents hundreds of spaces for the performing arts that have been constructed in the US since 2006, all types, sizes, and locations. These performance spaces range from the traditional regional performance center, concert hall, community store theatre, primary school theatres, ad hoc outdoor venues to experimental performance spaces.

In answering the question of “What is theatre HERE and NOW?” through the example of the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop’s theatre building, we can say that the “now” of theatre is a human-scale cultural oasis within an inhuman space. The placement of theatre within the city of Moscow is a complex task. The building of the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop is situated on Moscow’s riverside, surrounded by high-rise office buildings and the high volumes of traffic that are the reality of the Moscow megalopolis today. (The theatre building has found its place in this gigantic scale.) In this context, the building tries to come to terms with these surroundings that are so alien to art. For this purpose, the architecture of the theatre is orientated towards the performance. The foyer is organized using theatrical and architectural tools. The sacred space of the stage comes closer to the visitors, so that in some cases the foyer becomes the stage area as well. This shared space brings together the visitors and the actors, and involves the visitors in the performance even through they do not actually take part in it.

The aim of the Macedonian contribution to the Prague Quadrennial’s architecture section is to generate discussion regarding the exhibition theme by presenting award-winning competition designs for two new theatre buildings in the country’s capital, Skopje. Why competition projects?

Based on the globally known model of public-private partnerships that has become a popular model for municipal investments, the Macedonian Ministry of Culture (architectural competition’s organizer), issued a call for proposals for innovative building designs that would enable the inclusion of extensive commercial spaces alongside the new theatre premises. Instead of viewing this potentially problematic mix as an incursion on established theatre typologies, one can also see the theatre’s incorporation within these new settings as a great opportunity. The presented projects show that – if thoughtfully selected and synchronized – these superimposed functions can generate new spatial as well as cultural models that can transform the theatre building into a more open, more operative and ultimately more interactive venue. As opposed to the historical model of the theatre as a functional singularity, a mix of attractors next to it can generate various cultural mutations or hybrids that may inspire the theatre to respond/perform in different ways. In the end, by developing methodologies for the new functional fabric of a single theatre building, the architects suddenly found themselves in the process of developing tools for upgrading much larger, urban or even regional, contexts.

The Macedonian exhibition is an abstract representation of six physical models of the competition designs. The overall idea is to show the coexistence of and the confluence among the buildings theatre and auxiliary functions. As part of the overall configuration, each model depicts a longitudinal half of each of the buildings, made (like scenography models) from layers of fibreboard that show the large auditorium space and stage, carved out from parallel plates. The fibreboard layers are coloured in white to represent areas of the building devoted exclusively to theatre; wherever there is a use different than that, the fibreboard is coloured differently and accordingly. Each building model also features a Plexiglas plate onto which a cross-section of the building showing the distribution of the various functions is rendered by laser engraving. Finally, the overall look of the display presents a dynamic field of densities created by the mix of functions and the physical fabric, creating a spatial and visual setting.

The ephemeral and spectacular architecture of events is an architecture that can be rebuilt, revisited and rethought. One can take it apart and remove it, only to make it anew. Like the painted-over detail in an old canvas, it is something recreated and reborn. To an architect, it offers the exceedingly rare opportunity of working with the transient. The only permanence is that of an idea or spatial pretext that progresses and transforms itself in an ongoing process of research and creation, themes and materials. The Opéra-palette proposes the transformation of a banal, ubiquitous object – the shipping pallet – into a temporary open air performance space for opera. The pallet is envisioned as a total architectural artefact, serving as building material, structural system and stage set. Its use is a kind of journey: from factory to stage and back. The project is located in Quebec City, in the courtyard of the Conservatoire, next to the city’s principal theatre. The courtyard has remained underused since it and the Grand Théâtre were built in 1970, following an international design competition won by architect Victor Prus. The Opéra-palette will be built in the summer of 2011 for the first Quebec International Opera Festival to be inaugurated by tenor Placido Domingo.

In Chile, as in many other countries, we have unknown performers who tend to work in unconventional spaces and for only few coins (if they make any money at all). There are also persons who unsuspectingly become performers through spontaneous performances that fall outside conventional theatre. The selection of artists in Cheap Tickets corresponds to this marginal group of “performers”, who do not conform to conventional theatre practices.

Now, one could ask: what has architecture to do with all of this? Everything. Architecture is principally concerned with space. The main curatorial aspect of this selection relates to unconventional spaces where unconventional “performance” (in scenic terms) takes place. We are highlighting the importance of marginalised individuals who appear “like” performers on the many stages found in daily life, which help us experience our life, our city and the social, economic and political contexts surrounding us. Unconventional street performances by “unknown” performers reveal unconventional theatre architectures, which test the boundaries between the viewers and the viewed.

In “Cheap Tickets”, we have also considered recent major events in Chile; the earthquake and the rescue of trapped miners, which expose how the everyday world represents a continuous stage for performance. Our exhibition is composed of two videos – "Survival Acts" and "Hyper-public" – where the boundaries between performers and spectators are blurred. In Chile, as in many other countries, we have unknown performers who tend to work in unconventional spaces and for only few coins (if they make any money at all). There are also persons who unsuspectingly become performers through spontaneous performances that fall outside conventional theatre. The selection of artists in Cheap Tickets corresponds to this marginal group of “performers”, who do not conform to conventional theatre practices.

Now, one could ask: what has architecture to do with all of this? Everything. Architecture is principally concerned with space. The main curatorial aspect of this selection relates to unconventional spaces where unconventional “performance” (in scenic terms) takes place. We are highlighting the importance of marginalised individuals who appear “like” performers on the many stages found in daily life, which help us experience our life, our city and the social, economic and political contexts surrounding us. Unconventional street performances by “unknown” performers reveal unconventional theatre architectures, which test the boundaries between the viewers and the viewed.

In Cheap Tickets, we have also considered recent major events in Chile; the earthquake and the rescue of trapped miners, which expose how the everyday world represents a continuous stage for performance. Our exhibition is composed of two videos – Survival Acts and Hyper-public – where the boundaries between performers and spectators are blurred.

We want to thank the performers, workers and regular citizens that contributed to the videos of this exhibition. We also want to acknowledge the generous support of DIRAC (Dirección de Cultura Cancillería de Chile).

The performance space presented in this plan stretches into the space for the audience, which also serves as an immediate changing room, props space, and actors’ space – unlike contemporary acting spaces/theatre buildings, which usually have a separate space for these functions. By serving multiple functions, the audience space gives the audience an opportunity to be close to the actors and the action on stage. As a result, since they are constantly in the midst of the flowing dramatic process, like audiences at African folkloric performances and festivals, the spectators are not just an audience, but are fully-fledged participants in the play’s production process.

Six buildings in Spain that have taken on a new function.

After spending some time being closed, abandoned and deserted, former factories are reopened as cultural centers catering to the descendants of the men and women who used to work there.

One of the projects presented in the architecture section look at the creation of an underground experimental theatre, completed this year by architects Razvan and Ioana Luscov. The architects transformed the abandoned basement of an important theatre building in Bucharest into an art space, a multifunctional stage, a hall and foyer. Once occupied by a theatre company, the basement had been closed in 1948 due to the political climate at the time. It had been in a state of decay until 2008.

The question of such transformations and the general state of Romanian theatre will also be presented through an illustrated history of the 1963 project of the National Theatre in Bucharest, in which architect Romeo Belea covered the building in a new façade that changed the its aesthetics and urban character. We will also present the current architectural debate about redoing the façade.

We have also invited the architect Angelo Roventa to present his project, a temporary extension of the National Theatre in Iaşi, an important cultural centre in northeast Romania completed in 2008: A black cube at the centre of town that hosts one of the theatre’s stages, an object that brings the poetry of the play onto the street.

The presentation will include architectural drawings (plans, cross-sections, elevations), free-hand sketches, 3D perspectives of the buildings’ interior and exterior, “before” and “after” pictures the site and the urban context, pictures of the inside and outside of the buildings, architectural details, statements by the architects and project histories, as well as a description of their role within Romanian theatre today and in the future.

Tyrone Guthrie was a British theatre director who made a unique contribution to theatre architecture, inspiring a particular theatre form, the Guthrie thrust stage.

The exhibit is a celebration of The Guthrie Legacy, tracing the development of the thrust stage form from its first appearance at The Edinburgh Assembly hall in 1948 to the recently completed Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2011. This is explored through five specially commissioned models of The Edinburgh Assembly Hall, The Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario, The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, The Globe Theatre in London and The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. An explanatory text with drawings and photographs traces the history and development of this uniquely British stage form.

The exhibition looks at a social and cultural performance by the Oficina Uzyna-Uzona theatre group, headed by José Celso Martinez Corr?a, who views culture and education as a form of human development and a way of integrating people into the city’s social life. The exhibition project will look at two important architectural designs in the group’s history: – The first, designed by Lina Bo Bardi and Edson Elito in 1989 and concluded in 1995, transformed the theatre into a street with glass walls and a movable ceiling. – The second project, created by the architect Jo?o Batista Martinez Corr?a in 2004 and as yet unfinished, aims to fulfil the ambitions of the director, who has baptized it Oficina Theatre + Popular University + Forest Workshop + Stadium Theatre. The design transforms the urban space and becomes part of the life of its inhabitants. In 2010, this architectural project became a listed building by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Patrimony (IPHAN). The project for transforming the architecture, landscape and urban design of the areas surrounding the Teatro Oficina includes a Stadium Theatre with a high-tech curved retractable roof, as well as a university conceived in organically shaped layers and paths that revive the neighbourhood’s lost integration between the community and the urban landscape.

“And when I see my back in mirrors that reflect me […]

I am filled with the terror of my mystery.”

– Fernando Pessoa, Dialogue in the Palace Garden

An artist who represents a country as curator

Jo?o Brites founded the O Bando theatre group in 1974 along with other theatre artists with whom he had worked during his political exile in Belgium. For the past 36 years, his artistic practice and theoretical formulations have been marked by a special way of conceiving and achieving scenic space beyond conventional stage constraints.

Brites favours theatre that surprises in the way it relates to unexpected spaces and unusual “stage machines”. He has defended a broader architectural conception of set design while at the same time demanding that it be considered a true “visual action” that can involve artists and the audience.

Brites frequently collaborates on performances at diverse national and international venues, and is especially fond of Portuguese folk culture – both its textual (legends, traditions, games, plays) as well as its material components (objects of everyday use, some no longer used but still marked by the anthropological interest manifest in his stage practice). This approach has not hindered him, however, from constantly seeking out different materials, different technical skills and new technological formats for the shows he directs.

Another feature of Teatro O Bando creations are elective relationships with the modern aesthetic, vis-?-vis architectural constructivism and the abstractionist penchant for props and figurations, or visible in his playful parodies that provocatively combine criticism and dream, deconstruction and the signs of a sought-for social utopia.

This project is the result of an artistic path wherein theatre, space and set design have been creatively coordinated and mutually transfigured. Its presentation at PQ11 enables an international dialogue, clearly based on an original and ongoing body of work that is undergoing constant change and renewal. The exhibition encourages a reflection on past work and ways of achieving new aesthetic inquiries and artistic practices.

A set designer whose work is inseparable from his theatre group

Teatro O Bando has shown itself to be a hub radiating disquiet and festivity, a basis for a kind of theatrical creation that has no tradition in our country.

Since its very beginnings, the company has presented itself as a locus of social intervention that rejects inherited theatrical conventions. After the intense early experience of decentralisation based on an open idea of a theatre for children and young people, its language affirmed itself in line with contemporary ethno-anthropology, albeit with echoes of Grotowski, Brook, Barba, Schechner and Mnouchkine. Nevertheless, from the beginning these influences were reworked to include references to expressionist painting and sculpture, dissonant and grotesque size (recalling the Bolshevik Meyerhold), the presence of the Brechtian “epic”, music, technology and the most intimate crafting.

Based on his stage concept – a scenic discourse centred on SPACE, FORM and OBJECT (even before IMAGE) that creates an extreme embodiment of scenic actions resulting from the actors’ confrontation with the “stage machines” and other physical obstacles – the aesthetic of Jo?o Brites must be placed alongside some of the most self-reflecting plastic abstractionism (rooted in the work of Malevich, Kandinsky or Mondrian). At the same time, it shows similarities to surrealist art, underscored by the concept of political theatre “hidden” in an accentuated formal conceptualisation, which in ecosophy (Guattari) weds the most profound identifying rurality. And where these two lines of the erudite and the common conduct meet, the presentation of the human grotesque rises in crescendo – the trademark of the collective.

An intervention project with three components

The Portuguese official representation at the 12th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space aims to be tentacular, composite and interdisciplinary. It is grounded in the work that curator Jo?o Brites developed with Rui Francisco, co-designer and coordinator of this exhibition project. The Portuguese intervention avoids a retrospective approach, instead presenting an interrelated set of three unprecedented interventions, each held at a different location on the same theme: “On the Other Side”.

The three points of the triangle thus created under Prague’s skies are the street installation “From The Back” and the architectural intervention “From Above” (see the text for the Architecture Section), as well as the penetrable work “From Within”. On their own and as a whole, the installations aim to develop the principle of spatial representation. Their interrelationship represents the desire that the dilemma between architecture and scenography might emerge as a problem of creativity.

The Portuguese entry to the 12th Prague Quadrennial recalls the work of Jo?o Brites in a conceptual manner, with particular emphasis on tangible material references to the following past performances: Essay on Blindness (2004), Clandestine Mourning (2006), Jerusalem (2008), and Quixote – Opera Buffa (2010).

> From Within: a penetrable work > 3D models, photos, projections

Inside the penetrable, 3D models, photos, projected images, words and other artifices recover the emotion and memory of past production of scenic spaces, attesting to the proposed metaphor. In the background, a visible wall of large ceramic tiles containing eight niches mirrors the seating arrangement from the public intervention “From the Back”, under projected letters and numbers that slowly and gradually shrink over time. On the ground, there is compost. The sound of people’s footsteps is amplified. In cycles, a light flashes suddenly across this atmosphere.

From Above: An architectural intervention

Prague, St Anne’s Church – Prague Crossroads. On the table proposed by the curators of the architecture section, behind a wall of large ceramic tiles, lives the model of the Teatro O Bando headquarters, designed by the architect Rui Francisco. The four-hectare site is located in Vale dos Barris in Portugal’s Arrábida Natural Park. The exhibition presents maquettes of the buildings (old pig-breeding sheds) and scenic spaces, as well as the “stage machines” that Jo?o Brites and his collective have developed over the years and considered a spatial definition, limiting or freeing up movement and travel.

From The Back

Portugal new

In the wake of the show Jerusalem (2008), we propose an installation for Franz Kafka Square in the historic centre of Prague. It will have the features of a story – a beginning, middle and end – with the end being the beginning and vice versa.

An audience area comprising 44 chairs conveys a memory. They were taken from Lisbon’s S?o Jorge Cinema – 50 years of intensive use had left them in a poor state of repair, unable to meet the technical standards of current legislation. Arranged in four equal rows, they await their public, facing a wall of large ceramic bricks. On the other side of the wall, a row of 11 chairs mirrors the same arrangement.

As a compositional rule, we followed the visual axes of the nearby streets in order to ensure a balanced sensorial approach among the different streets and squares. The chosen north-south orientation bears in mind the site’s latitude and aims for a daily moment of total darkness for both faces of the brick wall.

In the alphabet of forms, we have used the square. There is compost in the ground, acting as a symbol and simultaneously performing a function: as a finishing material between the metal structure holding the chairs and the square’s pavement with its uneven, imperfect and unexpected features.

A sign (Know Your Back) invites the public to have their backs photographed by a resident photographer.

France already posesses a strong tradition of adapted spaces, including those discovered, inhabited and continually modified by Peter Brook and Ariane Mnouchkine over the last 40 years (Theatre des Bouffes du Nord and Theatre du Soleil). These are exemplary spaces from every standpoint, and we present them centrally in this exhibition at a particular point in time (last December 18th), still in evolution, still being renewed and reinvented. Peter Brook’s departure as director of the Bouffes on 31 December 2010 raises the question of the extent to which such spaces are driven by an individual artistic vision: how will this unique auditorium evolve now? Will it look backwards or forwards?

These spaces – and others – have thrived without recourse to the services of an architect. Why have architects failed to engage with theatre creators? Why are they so obsessed with creating something in their own image when this is not what the delicate, responsive, fast-evolving field of performance requires? Should ‚culture‘ be rigourously categorised, confined and contemplated like animals in a zoo, even as many creators yearn for disorder, ambiguity and possibilities for cross-fertilisation?

France offers healthy, contradictory approaches to these problems, as in the exexmplary practice of architect Patrick Bouchain, who has bent the rules of architecture and urbanism in order to obtain freedom and vitality in ‚found‘ spaces such as the Condition Publique in Roubaix, the Theatre du Radeau in le Mans, and the Lieu Unique in Nantes. Municipalities such as Saint Nazaire have also explored the value of indeterminacy and growth in launching incomplete, evolving projects such as Le Life in a former German submarine base.

Our exhibition is presented as an object needing to be discovered and explored, inviting interaction, unfolding, collaboration between viewers. We hope that it will stimulate a reflection on the changes needed in architectural practice, government and society in order to allow the flourishing of cultural activites in a ‚discovered‘ context that is inherently civic (because regenerative and continuous) and ecological.

The major significance of location has been lost for theatre as a concept and phenomenon. Theatre today is ephemeral, with actors, plays and audiences travelling the world freely. The main remaining peculiar feature of a theatre’s particular location is its architectural embodiment, the theatre building, which like its creators is, in metaphysical sense of the word, travelling, until it anchors in a specific place.

Kazakh theatre has deep historical roots. It stems from “steppe theatre” phenomenon, in the original language called “Aytys” – a unique kind of talent contest in the open air, with exceptional natural backdrops and the wind contributing to the unique nature of Kazakh theatre art. The building’s visually floating composition, reminiscent of a yurt, represents the semantics of historical traditions and perfectly reflects the significance of the site. The theatre’s structure asserts its expressive and easily perceived unique spatial form, influencing its surroundings.

The design of the Russian Drama Theatre is based on a diamond in the rough, the precious stone’s state before its transformation into a refined diamond. In this form, it represents the primal state of the idea that is further refined and embodied inside the structure. The mirrored surfaces on the building and the water mirrors surrounding it reflect the environment and people, providing a connection between metaphysical form and the context of the location, here reflected on the soaring cantilever structure of the main entrance. The urban importance of this building, situated across from the Presidential Palace at the very centre of the city’s compositional axes, adds to the iconic building’s quality and makes it fully recognisable as a local symbol.

Projects for two competitions for Lithuanian architects in 2010. 1st places in restricted competition, spring 2010, Astana, Kazakh Republic:

> Kazakh Drama Theatre, Astana, 1st place (Jungtin?s Architekt? Dirbtuv?s: Saulius Pamerneckis, Gintaras Čaikauskas, Tumas Maz?ras)

> Russian Drama Theatre, Astana, 1st place (Trys A.M. Creative tm.: Kazimieras Reimeris, Auks? Garšvait? Reimerien?, Sigita Norvili?t?, Marius Nekrošius, Aušra Siaurusaityt? Nekrošien?; SUTI Gintaras Klimavičius, assistant Marius Savickas).

Communication is an invitation to misinterpret the other. Linguistic translation circles around this impossibility: Caught between verisimilitude and sense, it attempts to reconcile both, knowing it cannot fully capture either. The space between different languages is mirrored in the gap between different forms of artistic and spatial practice. Making a map between a heterogeneous series of different intents (drawings, photos, performance, texts) is never a simple matter, while the map that emerges resembles the cartography of unexplored continents, filled with blank spaces and riddled with blind spots.

Our project involves a game of “Chinese Whispers” at the scale of the city, structured around the impossibility of making a map of the city and its streets, between people and their artistic practice. The blank spaces are not understood as empty zones to be bridged; rather, they are filled with productive potential. They become spaces for a type of translation based in fantasy and speculation.

At the largest scale, the project is a machine for procurement, recording and distribution. Its object is the scenographic potential of the city. At the scale of each node, a single participant is installed in the machine and caught in a circuit of invitation, translation and communication with his or her neighbours. Their objective is to make a singular point in the city.

The selected location, whose morphology the exhibit explores, offers an intriguing narrative for possible discussions on the ideal performing arts space: It is the construction site of the as-yet unfinished new building of the National Theatre of Subotica, as well as the resting place of its historical predecessor. The interwoven, evocative remains of the old theatre and the dynamic, concrete body of the future building lay silently together. Enveloped in this almost symbiotic coexistence, we find subtle voices of the past and an energetic exaltation of the future.

It is in this space of mutual trespass – and not in either of the individual architectures or spaces that constitute it – that we looked for direction.

Formatted as a stereoscopic 3D video tour across the site, the exhibition offers a dissection of two architectural structures in one single space. Both structures aspire at being the perfect architecture for the performing arts, each in its own right; one in the past and the other in the future, amalgamated into architectural meta-space. Standing in this space, in its unintended “now, ” we begin to question whether such a thing as the perfect architecture for performing arts can ever exist.

Sweden has chosen to present a space originally built for a completely different purpose, transformed into what it is used for today.

R 1 was the first nuclear reactor in Sweden. It was a research reactor located in the rocks 25m below the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), not far from the city of Stockholm.

The reactor was active from July 13, 1954 to June 6, 1970. The reactor has since been removed, and the remaining reactor hall was out of use until late 1990 when KTH Media started to use the space for different kinds of performances and media research.

Over the past 10 years, various kinds of crossover performances have been carried out here. The public has thus had the opportunity to listen to acoustic and electro-acoustic concerts, with flutes duelling Moog synthesizers. The German musician Rochus Aust composed the music to “The Futuristic Kitchen”, a 100-year celebration of Futurism. The Swedish production and distribution organization Riksteatern, in cooperation with Cullbergbaletten, performed a “silent” dance performance named “Vibragera,” with only vibrating low-frequency sound coming from the loudspeakers, accompanied by four dancers of which two were deaf. A later production is the experimental performance “Opera Mechatronic”. Eight sculptures, either singing or accompanied by sound, perform robotic dance movements.

Other theatre performances and art exhibitions have proven that R 1 is an excellent space for all kinds of cultural events.

Other activities showing the possibility of the space are photographic exhibitions. Even weddings have taken place in the former reactor hall.

KTH R1 is not only a performance space but also one of the locations used by “Mediated Spaces and Presence Design”, an interdisciplinary research group with combined skills in architecture, media technology, anthropology, film and television. The groups’ studies are focused on spatial and technical design aimed at enabling a mutual gaze and supporting remote presence in synchronous video-mediated spaces.

R 1 is proof that a space originally designed for highly technical purposes can be transformed into an interesting performance space for crossover productions.

P.S. The radiation in the former reactor hall is now lower than the natural radiation found above ground.

In the Pacific, architecture is performative and responsive to the event while performance space is practised as a social field of interaction. Permeable or transient Oceanic architecture such as the fale (house), whare tapere (entertainment house) or hakari (feast stage) and enduring landscape constructions like the raised marae (meeting ground) perform temporal flow, enacting the passage of time through their ephemerality or endurance while enabling flows of people, weather, sounds and events. These open or multi-use structures become performance spaces when used as sites of discursive exchange: theatre architecture in the Pacific then is formed as and through such social acts as meeting, feasting and the rituals of encounter.

New Zealand’s Architecture Section exhibition presents work by New Zealand architects or designers working in theatre architecture, performance and event design fields. Influenced by our situation on the periphery of Oceania these projects (built or unbuilt, performed or proposed) explore how to make performative architectures or practice performance space in the Pacific. Architecture for performance is framed here as an expansive condition that extends from the black box theatre to the social and performative space of the table, from a site-specific event to the meeting place of the marae.

Instead of showing new buildings that serve as shells for performance productions (theatres, opera houses, etc.), the emphasis will be on “scenographical” architecture: projects dealing with performative aspects of our urban and natural environment.

The Slovak exhibition of theatre architecture for the 2011 Prague Quadrennial presents three projects, connected through the word “recycling”.

The first project involves the renovation of a historical building. In 2008, renovation works were finished on the National House in Martin, a theatre building originally designed by architect Blažej Bulla and built in 1881. The project respected the original architecture and added to it with the use of the latest stage, sound and lighting technologies. The project also included an annex building containing a new theatre studio and technical facilities. In a way, we can describe the project as recycling history for the present.

The second project is the creation of a temporary architectural object. Žilina-Záriečie Station is a non-profit organization that converted an old railway station for alternative cultural uses. An interesting aspect of this project is the fact that the theatre is made of an unconventional material – beer crates.

The recycling of the railway station created a multifunctional cultural object, and the recycling of beer crates produced a temporary architectural object – a theatre.

The third project in our presentation comes from Košice, where the “Košice, European Capital of Culture 2013” project took late 19th-century military barracks located in the greater town center and converted them into the Kasárne Kulturpark, a multicultural center for theatre, concerts, expositions and other events. This project creates a new attractive part of town and represents a similar recycling process – the transformation of originally technical architecture into location-design (location-form) cultural architecture.

Theatre is a window on culture, the personification of a society. The design and establishment of a theatre inevitably defines the character and style of the cultural landscape. In 1987, the National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center was inaugurated in downtown Taipei with the physicality of a classical European opera house merged with traditional Chinese palace architecture. Despite the many incongruities of this form of theatre space, it has dominated the cultural scene in Taiwan for more than two decades ever since.

Today, rising political sentiment in favor of a balanced development of the north and south of the island has finally led to the birth of another world-class theatre in a city other than the capital. After two decades, what progress has been made in the design and establishment of a theatre building? Do we possess the clear insight as to what kind of theatre is needed in Taiwan today?

Taiwan presents the Wei Wu Ying Center for the Arts as the feature exhibit in this architecture exhibition. For the Wei Wu Ying Center, an international design competition was hold and Dutch architect Francine Houben was selected to design new building. The art center’s design does not limit itself to oriental imagery. It blends local characteristics while envisioning itself as an urban landmark that, in planning the theatre’s comprehensive functions, takes the individuality and styles of local performing troupes into consideration. The design aims to reflect the unique landscape of modern theatre in Taiwan. As an example of new theatre architecture in 21st-century Taiwan, it no doubt echoes the firm footsteps of modernization in Taiwan and shows confidence and refined maturity.

at the still point of the turning world

: volume, density and emptiness

The Danish contribution to the Architecture Section at PQ11 focuses on impermanence – on performances that reveal and unfold in unconventional spaces. It is a poetic staging of four performative spaces that challenge genres and reinvent spatial definitions. The nature of the exhibition reflects the duality between the density of an archive and the emptiness of the blank canvas forming a stage of temporary traces and memories.

The table is created as an ever-turning, circular archive. Never resting on one image, it traces spatial transformations by using the techniques of an old-fashioned animated flipbook. The stories are told through the classic tools of the architect: pencil, plan, section – and A4 paper, which is traced, folded and cut. The circular archive consists of four archive rolls, one for each of the selected performative spaces. Each roll is a spatial statement, a dynamic object that reflects the nature of each of the performances – its spatial characteristics and typology.

The aim of the Danish contribution is to communicate architecture as a direct spatial and textural experience. To create an installation that reflects the nature of spatial impermanence and ambiguousness – and not just represent it at arm’s-length which is often the case with architectural exhibits.

1. Hotel Pro Forma:

Hotel Pro Forma displaces the notion of theatre into new territories that lie between art and non-art, theatre and non-theatre, between physical and metaphysical expression. It is intrinsic to the concept of the performances that the architecture and the traditions of the venue become part of the performance. Space is a co-player.

Presentation of the performance: Ellen, 2010

2. Madelines Madteater (Madelines Food Theatre):

An interactive dinner performance staged every few months in the neighbourhood of a warehouse on Islands Brygge (Iceland Quay). The eating experience is the key part of the evening performance: It is art that you experience with all five senses.

Presentation of the performance: Kropumulig, 2009

3. Mellemrum Festival (by Kit Johnson X-Act):

Bi-annual site-specific performance festival in Copenhagen. A succession of performances that take over a section of the urban landscape and expose it to a performative interpretation using hidden and unseen spaces in the city. The route around the city connecting the points of performances becomes an important part of the experience.

Presentation of the 2010 Mellemrumsfestival at N?rrebro.

4. MODTAR projects:

MODTAR is an exhibition space located in an eccentric backyard house in the old centre of Copenhagen. It works as a project space, focusing on experimental architecture and architecture as an artistic, scenographic practice encouraging new hybrids in the field between architecture and performative art. The old house and the surrounding courtyard act as a stage for the works and the people who temporarily inhabit it.

The main focus of the Turkish exhibition is the search for new, alternative theatre spaces and, in this respect, the interest in the historical venues.

In Istanbul, during the last decade several abandoned 19th-century industrial buildings have been restored and transformed into cultural establishments. As a result, the characteristic architectural image of these structures has gained a new identity as cultural spaces. This trend began with museums and exhibition facilities, and has been followed by theatres as part of the search for alternative performing spaces. For the architecture section of PQ 2011, we present two theatres that have been created through the transformation of historical industrial buildings, and two adaptation projects – a theatre-train and a theatre-ferry – that make use of two significant, traditional means of public transportation from the last century.

Although these projects differ from each other in form and scale, they nevertheless share certain distinctive characteristics in that they refer to the personal memories of the city’s inhabitants, they contain an imprint of the past, and they take advantage of these unique spaces by creating alternative playgrounds for the needs of an innovative, experimental and modern theatre. The fact that the people share a history with the venues makes them feel at home and open towards new art forms. The contradiction between “old” and “new” adds a new dynamism to the cultural and theatrical life of the city, and connects the past with the future.

Projects to be exhibited:

Project name: State Theatres in Üsküdar; project date: 1 September 2008; opening date: 10 April 2009; architect: Özgür Ecevit; location: Paşaliman?; Üsküdar, ?stanbul

Project name: KREK Theatre in Santral ?stanbul; opening date: 27 December 2010; name of the Concept Designer: Berkun Oya; architect: Bülent Demir; name of the Producer: Nisan Ceren Göknel; location: Santral ?stanbul; Eyüp, ?stanbul

Project name: Theatre Train – “Orient Express”; project date: 14 May 2009 – 19 July 2009; concept designer: Mustafa Avkiran, Övül Avkiran; project designer: Köro?lu, Ali Cem; location: Ankara – Stuttgart

Project name: Theatre on Board (Floating Theatre); project date: 2009; opening date: Unrealized; project designer: Metin Deniz

A geopolitical architectural performance, Moschea del Mondo is conceived as a heterotopian space, providing a room to experience and debate political difference as it negotiates the boundary between East and West along the Mediterranean Sea. A post-colonial Orient Express, it negotiates internal and external borders and provides a new take on the “Switzerland of the East” and “Paris of the East” – titles bestowed on Lebanon and Beirut prior to the civil war.

For the exhibit itself, we have designed a prayer rug as the ultimate travelling mosque. The rug is a map illustrating Moschea del Mondo’s journey to the Mediterranean Sea. The rug will be located in the exhibition space at an angle facing towards Mecca. People can then literally use this rug as a space for prayer, a shrunken mosque minimized to its bare minimum.

The project play bauhaus – stage the satellite examines and explores the Bauhaus stage in its role as a historical as well as contemporary theatre and interdisciplinary performance laboratory with a special perspective on spatial exploration. There are two modes of presentation:

1. “packed”: A set elements are placed close together on an exhibition table, with a video screen providing information about the Bauhaus stage’s history and its contemporary activities, especially those of the “stage satellite”.

2. “unpacked”: During the exhibition period, the “stage satellite” will be used at public places in Prague for three play bauhaus – jam out dance performances and for lecture demonstrations. This means that the elements will temporarily leave the exhibition space.

Founded in 1921 in Weimar and continued until 1926 in Dessau, the Bauhaus stage workshop was an integral part of this famous school of architecture and design. The Bauhaus stage today is a well known major modern theatre project. Oskar Schlemmer’s ideas of a “type stage”, his concept of costume dance, and the Bauhaus dances in particular are regarded as major avant-garde theatre projects. But the Bauhaus’s attempts at developing a “mechanical stage” were of key importance as well. These efforts involved adapting and designing the stage space using technical and kinetic apparatuses while for the most part dispensing with human actors – a trend resulting not least from the dominance of visual designers at the Bauhaus. These projects left their traces in theatre history as exalted experiments and are still an inspiration today, perhaps precisely because they remained unfinished.

The historical “Bauhaus stage” was less a theatre workshop than an experimental space laboratory in which the spatial type of the “stage” served primarily to develop models of thinking about and imagining space on a highly abstract level. At the Bauhaus, the concept of “building” involved not only the design and execution of architecture in the narrow physical sense. Identifying itself in opposition to contemporary academies and schools of applied arts where architects were trained, the Bauhaus defined the concept of “building” as a fundamentalist and universalist design activity that made use of the spatial “organisation of life processes” just as much as the elemental creation of spatial effects through form, colour, light and movement.

The Bauhaus stage Dessau is basically a room that is centrally situated within the architectural monument of the Bauhaus. Placed between the foyer and the canteen, the function of this platform room ensures that the stage project is programmatically embedded in the Bauhaus building. The room can be opened up to the canteen by means of folding, sliding partitions, and the three large double doors allow it to open onto the foyer as well. This meant that, in the 1920s, the stage placed the performing arts in the position of communicative link between the serious, product-oriented work (the workshop wing) and the convivial rituals of leisure time (the canteen). At the same time, however, it demarcated the stage as an autonomous art project.

Today this space is again an exceptional location for theatre and music performances, for artistic events experimentation and research. The main focus is an exploration of the Bauhaus theatre’s view of the stage as a laboratory and platform for the artistic and performative study of the concepts, methods and tools of space.

Since 2011 a “stage satellite” has been touring and performing these ideas as an ambassador, all the while accumulating new connections and collaborations. For performances at public sites in Prague during PQ2011, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is collaborating with dancers from the Theatre Faculty of Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU).

Motto: “The construction itself was actually theatre. In the Flat Theatre everything was theatre. Sitting in the kitchen eating bread and dripping – this also was theatre.” Péter Donáth, painter, scenographer (1938–1996) From private homes to deserted industrial buildings and abandoned Socialist-era cultural centers – the new performative spaces are meeting points for different branches of art. These are spaces whose flexible spatial configuration, ready for a daily metamorphosis, offer a wide array of sensory media and spaces. These venues’ spatial tissues also reveal their designers’ social values and preferences. In this way, theatre can be presented as a hypermedium, the home of all arts. A space where the artistic forms of theatre, opera and dance meet and come into tune with the borderline territories of fine arts (photo-kinetic and electronic arts, installation, environment and performance art), with motion pictures and with media techniques interweaving all these approaches. The traditional conceptual triad of theatre-actor-spectator, clearly isolated from everyday life, loses its validity, with all three emerging instead from a theatrical space-time. It is our bound duty to bemoan the lost spaces as well – those homes of art that in recent years have been “played off” against the cultural sphere.

In this case, theme and design coincide. The Italian table displays nothing other than itself. It produces small, mysterious movements. Proof of feelings. It takes on direct responsibility for saying something about theatre, space and more, without delegating this task to an exhibition of contents and information. To proceed from a situation and from given objects, and then lead them to unexpected turns of energy and meaning is a kind of approach in tune with the “teatro dei luoghi” (theatre of places): a method of operating that sees the place (in this case the exhibiting site itself) as the matrix and inspiration for the intervention. The relationship between theatre and architecture is re-defined. The place produces the action. And the action re-shapes the place. The installation is also a showcase and homage to the excellence of Italian theatre workmanship, represented here by the Delfini Group, one of the most prominent Italian companies of stagecraft. Last but not least, the intervention alludes to the unease suffered today by Italian culture. Even the procedure leading to our participation in this event has been affected by difficulties. It is also because of this unease that the table has decided to show itself.

In 2010, the West Bohemian city of Pilsen won the prestigious European Capital of Culture for 2015. The title has been awarded since 1985 and is granted by the European Union for one year to one or more European cities; its acquisition should serve as an incentive for cultural development and changes in the specific city.

"Czech Table" represents the two most prominent and ambitious projects that appeared to be central to Pilsen's candidacy for the Capital of Culture in 2015. These are: a new theatre building close to the city centre and the conversion of the listed premises of the former Světovar brewery into a cultural and residential centre. Both projects' architectural studies have already been, and the new theatre has acquired a building permit. Pilsen's councillors have also agreed to place the project on a list of municipal investments. Construction of the new theatre and the first stage of renovating the Světovar brewery are expected for 2014-2015.

“Czech Table” works with the winning architectural and urban design for the Světovar project (Prague D3A Studio) and the winning architectural design for the new theatre in Pilsen (the Portuguese studio Contemporânea and the Czech architecture and design studio Helika).

The project presented by the Czech architecture section "lays a number of questions on the table". These questions are not only for professionals and experts from the field of theatre and architecture, but are intentionally aimed at the general public as well. What is the public's attitude towards the new cultural centres? How do the city's plans correspond with the public's ideas and has there been any public discussion? Are the projects clear and are public competitions transparent? Does the city cooperate with local communities? Will the projects transcend national boundaries? Has the city prioritised money and resources for the realization and, in particular, the operation of both ambitious and expensive projects?

Visitors will have an opportunity to compare the project visions and arguments, including the manner in which the projects communicate with the general public.

Thanks to: the Světovar non-profit organisation, the D3A architectural studio, and the Helika architecture and design studio.

Visitors will have an opportunity to compare the project visions and arguments, including the manner in which the projects communicate with the general public.

Ever since gaining independence in 1965, Singapore has presented itself to the world as spectacle: a multicultural entrepôt; an economic miracle; and now, an urban show-stopper.

As the city extends itself up to the sky and out into the sea, its buildings jostle to outperform each other, proclaiming the power and success of those who own and govern the city state.

What we want to present as “theatre now” in Singapore are the private theatres in the heads of the city’s inhabitants as they move along its arteries, dwell in its ‘heartlands’, and consume its spectacles.

spell#7 is a performance company that has been working with the medium of the audio walk. Through our practice, we have experimented with different forms of audio experience – static, on the go and performer-led. Our text-based works aim to create immersive sonic environments, which alter perceptions of the listeners’ surroundings, space and time.

Ghostwalking (www.ghostwalking.sg) consists of 4 audio walks and 3 videos that participants download then activate on their smart phones/mp3 players as they travel along the North East Line MRT train in the city. The performance begins when someone clicks to download, where sounds and videos “possess” the device that is closest to their body. The content becomes their heart, their brain.

Press play and theatre now exists in the space between the ears, in the space between one’s fingertip and a touch screen. Theatre now is the wired body in the environment. The space is activated. The listener performs by being present.

We create the score.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Redesigning, reusing and upcycling in the theatre. How can we be sustainable in our creative process without losing visual values?

The entire project is financed by Eesti Kultuurkapital (Cultural Endowment of Estonia).

www.kulka.ee

Hanoch Levin was – and still is, even after his premature death – the most prominent and influential playwright of Israeli theatre and drama. The prolific body of his work includes plays, poetry and prose. He also directed most of his plays himself. His work for the theatre created a new dramatic and theatrical idiom for Israeli theatre throughout the modern and post-modern era. The worlds he created on stage, in conjunction with the various designers with whom he collaborated, set new standards for dramatic language, spaces and loci. Costume has a very important role in his world, as the characters, defined by their dramatic attire, determine their environment. Levin’s characters and locations are very accurate and specific while also being archetypal and universal. Levin managed to capture the unique urban atmosphere of Tel Aviv, as well as the post-modern notion of places that have no continuity in the fragile lives of people who, rather than fully living their lives, seem to be just passing by. We build cities on the sand; we stock our homes and shelters to provide for future times of trouble; our lives of misery seem to be founded on the illusion of constancy. Yet we are always ready to move on, and suitcases are continuously packed, as all of us are just refugees, immigrants or pilgrims, and the big journey of death can face us at any moment, before our next meal or, as one of Levin’s characters famously says, “in the middle of soup!” Levin’s vision of place may be conceived as a special embodiment of architect/philosopher Paul Virilio’s reading of the collapse of physical distances and time into the new dimension of speed. Levin’s theatre always challenges its designers with the paradoxical demand to depict one’s desire to be elsewhere, to locate itself in a place other than the one in which the characters are physically located.

This exhibition aims to look at the design within the drama. The uniqueness of spaces, places, characters, and stage images as created by and for a great theatre innovator.

Special thanks to Hanoch Levin’s family and estate.

Artistic and academic advisors: Prof Nurit Ya‘ari, Prof,. Ben-Tzion Munitz, Prof Miriam Guretzky, Prof Gad Keinar, Prof Avraham Oz; Avital Lahat-Levit.

The Institute of Israeli Drama: Noam Semel (Founder and Chairman), Gal Canneti (Director), Maya Tavi (International relations and performing rights)

The Israeli participation in PQ is sponsored by The Arts Administration, Ministry of Culture and Sport, KASHTUM – Arts and Science Relations Department, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs

In recent years, Lithuanian theatre has begun to focus increasingly on social and artistic aspects of everyday life. Contemporary European playwrights are being introduced, and local theatres (both state-funded and alternative theatres) have begun to explore urgent issues facing Lithuanian society. This process has posed quite a challenge to the tradition of Lithuanian stage design, which has focused on the aesthetics of a visually attractive and metaphorical theatre.

The landscape of Lithuanian stage design has recently been altered by artists from other fields – architects, painters and sculptors. Some theatre directors have decided to explore the field of stage design, and some stage designers have tried to create a directorial space for performances without the help of the director.

Though Lithuanian theatres stage frequent productions of classical drama, the visual ideas of these performances reflect the new social reality, making use of new spaces, images and new media for controversial representations of this reality.

Still, however, the “real” shape of performances produced on the basis of a collaborative effort between the director and set designer tries to preserve traditional links with a free and “dreamlike” artistic imagination, avoiding a straightforward realistic approach to the performance’s subject and characters.

In the past four years, a series of events, either accidental or planned, brought a major movement in terms of theatre and performance spaces in Cyprus. Theatre companies relocated either because plans for new facilities were finally realized or because of abrupt changes of plans brought on by major disasters, such as fires, storms, collapses or owners‘ decisions for change of use. Four new theatres have been and are in the process of being built, including the State Theatre and a grand-scale cultural centre. Not all the changes are of big scale, as at the same time small theatre spaces are being born, either within the texture of a historically significant building or following the new trends of the white cube. Small independent theatre groups sprout and, despite all the difficulties, plant the seeds for offering a platform for young voices to express themselves.

When thinking of theatre, there is something extremely interesting to be noted about shifting points, about the process by which a new trend begins to formulate, a different expression starts to be formed and a diversion leads the way from what ‘was’ to what ‘shall be’. New theatre groups need new spaces, and newborn spaces need alternative proposals. Therefore, the rebirth of spaces is closely linked with the rebirth of activity and creativity.

By focusing both on specific spaces that have experienced an important “shifting process” and on recent activities within them, we ask the questions: How can the history/biography/past life of a space (theatre, alternative space, transformed space or urban space) be thought of in relation to the performance it is hosting? What are the connections, influences and references that link the space with the performance design and its narrative content? How can scenography be perceived and influenced within the urban space? In some of the cases presented, the links are directly apparent; in others these connections might not be immediate or obvious (contemporaneous) but more of an abstract link.

If we consider the capital city of Cyprus, Nicosia, it is a fact that the city is undergoing important political, geographical and social changes.

The idea of the reunification of the north and south part of the island under a different constitution is the strongest concern, one that affects the divided capital directly. Borders are being opened and passages are being created in place of UN dead-ends, while large numbers of immigrant groups are changing the character of city areas. This urban arena, a constantly shifting space, could be perceived as an urban scenography. This is exactly where small independent spaces are inviting groups and individuals to find a voice, and where the practice of art is in a state of flux. The shifting point is a bridge between contrasting realities as it is manifested either in urban spaces or on theatre stages.

The Cyprus curatorial team will thus focus on the idea of the “shifting time and space” through specific tensions: construction vs. destruction, established places vs. urban ready-mades, textures as historical traces vs. the aesthetic of the clinically new. The notion of creation within an ambiguous state will be demonstrated through the common ground shared by the works of the presented scenographers, performance artists, sound designers and other artists, as well as the kinds of plays that are chosen. A separate section within the pavilion, called “Urban Ready-Mades” will be presented, focusing on hybrid scenography, city interventions, public performances and individual initiatives.

The idea behind the design of the Cyprus national pavilion is based in the process of “moving”, “relocating”, “transporting” from one place to another, even “relocating” or “reallocating”. The recent construction and distruction of several theatrical spaces in Cyprus mentioned before, as well as the use of urban spaces as stage areas, lead to a design that suggests an accumulation of objects, furniture, theatrical props and archives, packed and stacked. An installation of objects, a library of works, a game of discovery, a teaser of dimensions, a cabinet of curiosity, an exposition of works, an interactive world, a sense of mobility and spatial transformation.

The Cyprus participation questions the relationship between spaces/stages that have undergone experienced a transformation or have undergone a change of use, a change of activity, that demonstrate a sense of freedom, of expectancy. The space of possibility, of expectation, moving from “what was” to “what will be“.

The Austrian pavilion depicts the use of modern 3D technology in the process of making models of and creating a set. The exhibited model for André Chénier by set designer David Fielding was fully developed as a 3D computer animation and was printed out in 3D. When creating the huge bust for the lakefront stage in Bregenz, most pieces of the sculpture were cut out by a robot. A short film shows this process and the final result. A live camera links us to the Bregenz stage, where the first rehearsals are about to begin.

A 1:50 stage model will present the set for “Aida”, the opera shown on the lakefront stage in 2009/2010. Every other summer, Bregenz premieres a new opera. The set designer has to take into consideration weather conditions, waves and the lake‘s water levels. In return, he has the freedom to expand his set without the limitations of a preset stage. The set is built on a small existing stage and is expanded and supported by wooden piles on the lake bed in order to meet the demands of the set design.

During the winter season, the Bregenz Festival does an outdoor show in the mountains, where excerpts of the opera from the following summer are performed. The stage and set are carved entirely out of snow.

Presentation Plan – 15 to 20 people, who can stay in Prague from June 16 through 26, 2011, will participate in the performance. – We are not going to present any models by individual scenographers. – Each scenographer / costume designer will create his or her own presentation based on the framework prepared by the curator and exhibit/perform it at the presentation space, 54 m2 at 13A, using their allotted time. We will use PAPER as our mutual material throughout the performance. – The 15 to 20 participants will have 5 minutes each as their allotted time. The story will be linked in sequence, like a marathon relay, to create the space and time all together. – The participants have all agreed with the idea of “Presenting the space and time in which various forms of visual art and scenography are connected.”

The theme of the exhibition is the broadly understood notion of “space.” Space: between people, memory, history, emotions, cultural codes. It is not about space enclosed by walls and floors, or defined in metres. It is about space with a recognized identity. Recognized by history, by the people in it, and by the way these people fill the space. The true image of a place is shaped by the sum of all those factors. Sometimes, the authenticity of a space is revealed only after it is deprived of its outer layers, its artificial epidermis, its coincidentality. Each time, it is about getting to the core of a place. It is about recognizing the structure of the place, the mechanisms governing and controlling our co-existence in it. It is about regaining the right to influence the state of affairs, not only from the position of a passive participant of an event, but also from the position of a legitimate creator of situations. It is about attentive and vigilant existence.

An exhibition must be coherent with the presented phenomena. In principle, the Polish exhibition aim’s to provide a platform for a meeting between recipients and works, an excuse for creating social relations. It should take on the form of an event that breaks down established structures.

In our view, in its essence the white cube – which is, in principle, a neutral exhibition space – not only conditions works of art but also dominates them, turning the content into the content itself instead of presenting the content within a context. It vacuum-packs the artwork, and blocks the natural, spontaneous reactions of recipients. The white cube in the Veletržni Palace gallery is a reflection of a system of rules concerning our behaviour towards of works of art and the way they are perceived within an art institution. The appearance, within the space of the white cube, of a commentary on everyday life stands in opposition to the conventionalization of a gallery and thus demolishes the system of rules applicable within it. With regard to an object that is not a work of art, a recipient must develop a completely different, individual reaction. His commentary becomes the most adequate way of presenting the artwork. The entire presentation takes place from the spectator’s perspective. Now spectators may question (if they wish) the rules and actively influence the shape of the presentation space. They may make a hole in a wall, break through the cultural and social shell conditioning the reception and a definition of art, and open their eyes to the possibilities.

In addition to looking at artistic issues, our theoretical objective is to explain the significance and capacities of scenography in regard to post-modern and contemporary art in general. In our view, scenography is a technique that enables artists to fill material objects with magical content and create surrealistic spaces that involve the viewer in the process of developing an idea. When the shift from modernism to post-modernism began in the West, this process involved theatre as well. The penetration of elements of theatre into the visual arts provoked a sharp reaction from and intense debate among critics. Some critics claimed that theatre and theatricality were at war with visual art, and that the latter had to defeat theatre in order to survive. Art’s association with theatre (and literature) resulted from the spectator’s new position in relation to visual art, resulting from his/her increased participation (in M. Fried’s words, “the experience of literalist art is of an object in a situation – one that, virtually by definition, includes the beholder.” From: “Art and Objecthood,” 1967). A similar antagonistic approach emerged towards space. In the Soviet Union, no one was interested in the events described above, since on this side of the Iron Curtain, avant-garde art was strictly forbidden, and so the autonomy of traditional branches of art was not under any threat. Nevertheless, even during the Cold War, this curtain was permeable and some information did make it through. It so happened that, in our part of the world, thanks to the artists with avant-garde thinking new tendencies became established on theatre stages, with scenography providing “refuge” to the avant-garde. Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili (1941), who represents Georgia at the Veletržní Palace, was one of the leaders of these processes. Alexi-Meskhishvili did not need to break the limits of visual art through the use of theatrical elements; he solved his creative problems simultaneously in two spheres – scenography and easel painting – and elements of the new trends found their natural, organic reflection in his works. As a result, his artistic expression shifted freely from plane to space and vice versa. When he subsequently exhibited his works, the effect of theatrical play caused any means (including collage and installation) to be perceived as the scenographer’s suggestion – as a result, they were not prohibited. So, thanks to the technique of scenography, Soviet audiences were involuntarily introduced to prohibited avant-garde trends (pop art, conceptualism, informal, or site-specific art) and thus acquired the ability to think in objects charged with abstract ideas, symbols and metaphors and equipped with the tools of semiology. Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili uses all instruments as a tool for revealing human secrets. As a result, surrealism also acquired a special, non-classical, post-modernist content in his creative work. Instead of telling or describing a secret, he reveals its existence without damaging its tender fabric. Though for the purpose of abstracting he never makes either body or thing invisible (theatre artists cannot “evade” a figure), he gives material objects (including garments) a new meaning (content). Accordingly, Alexi-Meskhishvili is capable of tearing a man off the stage boards and teaching him to fly (one example that is presented at the Nostic Palace is Ariel’s costume for Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”). At the Veletržní Palace, Alexi-Meskhishvili presents a scenographic composition dedicated to the Georgian poet Vaja-Pshavela, whose 150th anniversary is being celebrated in Georgia this year, and shows the dimensionless nature of the world of magic in both poetry and art. The accompanying music (by composer Giorgi Janiashvili) plays an important role in imbuing the presented installation with a mystic aura. At the Nostic Palace, composer Giorgi Janiashvili collaborates with designer David Janiashvili in order to present a visual-sound installation on the theme of sacrifice. This installation represents an example of “Static Drama” – a concept developed by the composer himself. The young artists’ goal is to involve the audience in the presented drama so that they influence the play with their thoughts and actions. The thus viewer becomes a participant in the process that is taking place within the installation. Static Drama presents a space born in the process of thinking, which gives birth to the new process(es) of thinking. In this case, scenography is considered a technique that allows us to give shape to an idea. Acompanying project at the Nostic Palace is non-competetiv.

The Swiss project looks at photography as a space to be occupied, a space for scenography – it considers the photographic space instead of limiting itself to the physical territory of the stage. This means using photography for more than just a means of recording the scenography, but allowing the images themselves to become spaces that exist uniquely for this medium.

This work evokes an imaginary world of ruins. The photographs suggest the fragile traces of a location that does not yet exist, but that already recalls the past. Experimenting with the tools and expertise of classical scenography and photography (light, stage, decoration) – Körner Union creates an aesthetic journey back and forth through time. By presenting objects from their everyday lives as ancient relics from a different, more general time, the artists create a highly personal world of anticipation, a world brimming over with nostalgia.

The photographs’ intention is to invoke the descriptive dimension of documentary in order to create a topology of these ruins – a precise choice of styles and forms. The project is also a testimony of the physical and performative experience with the objects, in a real space that resembles a studio, stage or film studio.

The resulting feeling is a sense of being lost within this space, a feeling that brings to mind a labyrinthine journey through an imaginary cemetery dotted with picturesque structures, each one a sort of materialistic icon revisited and altered by an apocalyptic breath of wind.

The USITT-USA exhibit celebrates vital new designs mirroring the socio-political issues consuming American performance makers today. Innovative new works stretch existing definitions of theatre and performance while seminal founders and long standing ensembles are recognized for their far-reaching contributions to the profession. The USA curators have gathered work that we feel is uniquely American yet largely new to the world stage. Reflective of those issues consuming American performance makers today, the exhibit addresses issues of identity, healing and obsessions with death and loss after 9/11 and hurricane Katrina; the pull of conscience that is inevitable when engaged in war; anger directed toward the obliviousness of many to the destruction of our planet; the politics of eating, rising political polarities (and ambiguities) in reaction to the first African-American to be elected President; tensions relative to race and gender; anxieties about technology; the role of religion in society and the challenges of the those marginalized whether they are immigrants, differently-abled or queer. The USA exhibit features the work of 36 design collaborations, both self-reflective and self-critical in nature. “The Edge” refers to the brave and precarious edge of creation but also references our country on edge. The construction, assembly, and installation of this exhibit is provided by The School of Drama and Dance in the College of Performing and Visual Arts at The University of Montana. The USITT-USA PQ 11 Exhibit is dedicated to our colleague, Ursula Belden, whose passion, intellect, and tireless efforts enhanced our exhibits in 2003 and 2007.

Other collaborators:
Chris Barecca - Scene Design Curator
Linda Cho - Costume Design Curator
Allen Hahn - Lighting Design Curator
Don Tindall: Sound Design Curator
R. Eric Stone: Associate Exhibit Designer
Jason C. Lindahl: Media Designer
Randy Gener: Curatorial Advisor
Carolina Conte: Videographer
The construction, assembly, and installation of this exhibit is provided by The School of Drama and Dance in the College of Performing and Visual Arts at The University of Montana.
Mike Monsos: Exhibit Project Coordinator
Alessia Carpoca: Assistant Exhibit Project Coordination
Daniel N. Denhart: Managing Producer 
Alexandra B. Bonds: International Liaison


The USITT-USA PQ 2011 National Exhibit is dedicated to our colleague, Ursula Belden, whose passion, intellect, and tireless efforts enhanced our exhibits in 2003 and 2007.

Reinis Suhanov’s installation Space Inside Space evolves the concept of his set for the performance Flood and Solstice in the Sounds of Straum?ni (2010, Valmiera Theatre), which was based on the poem Straum?ni by Latvian poet and novelist Edvarts Virza (1883–1940). Vitza tried to reveal and disclose the ancient and prehistoric quintessence of Latvians and the code of the Latvian spirit. Nevertheless, the PQ exhibit looks beyond questions of Latvian identity. This interactive installation, which integrates scenography, soundscape and light design, talks about the perplexed European identity of today, the very moment of stillness when the old has vanished and the new is about to be born. The author of the Latvian exposition at PQ 2011 is the young and professionally mature scenographer Reinis Suhanovs (born in 1985), who is recognised for his smart, distinctive and intense work for professional theatres in Latvia during the recent theatre seasons. Suhanovs is interested in creating principles of the new space, a universe with the totality of unorthodox sounds, lights, smells, objects and beings. For him, scenography (or spaceography) is an autonomous and complete space rather than part of the world’s everyday interior. A preference for team work over solo work is essential to Reini‘s working method, and the installation Space Inside Space was created in close collaboration with composer J?kabs N?manis and light designer Krišj?nis Strazd?tis. This tendency towards artistic collaboration, starting from the very development of the idea, offers new possibilities for the Latvian performing arts. In a creative partnership with theatre director Viesturs Meikš?ns, Suhanovs recently created a set design for the performances Wine and Weeds, The Golden Horse, Marionettes, Flood and Solstice in the Sounds of Straum?ni, and Coloured Tales – all staged at the Valmiera Theatre during 2008-2011, plus Seven Fausts at the National Theatre in 2010. While still a student at the Art Academy of Latvia, Suhanovs participated in PQ 2007, where he received the Golden Medal for most promising talent in the Student Section for the wit and simplicity of his work. The season 2009/2010 brought him the title of the best scenographer in Latvian theatre.

Bulgaria’s twelfth national presentation at the Prague Quadrennial this year is yet another manifestation of the symbiosis between tradition and novelty. It provides a full-scale picture of the creative process in scenography with a special focus on contemporary, original and unique artistic styles. It offers an overview of innovative approaches and technologies merged with traditional artistic methods. It is an exercise in creating an immense theatre volume within a limited exhibition space, an attempt at probing the boundless horizons of stage creativity and imagination. In this interactive medium, everyone is free to make leave their own PERSONAL FOOTPRINTS IN TIME AND SPACE.