Prague Quadrennial Research Articles

Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023, Artistic Director Markéta Fantová, Czech Republic, Prague, 8–18 June 2023

Review of: Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023, Artistic Director Markéta Fantová, Czech Republic, Prague, 8–18 June 2023

The Prague Quadrennial 2023 as a site for intergenerational opportunity

The Prague Quadrennial 2023 as a site for intergenerational opportunity

Nafplion Blues: Prison Stories. The Prisons of Nafplion as Brutal Scenographies

The prison sites and their timeless presence in the city of Nafplion were the starting point for two workshops for students of the University of the Peloponnese. The result of these workshops titled Nafplion Blues: Prison Stories, was presented in the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023 as part of the Greek student exhibition. Students of the module “Performance and space” created the site-specific performance Listen-Watch-Βe Silent in which performers and spectators participated in a pilgrimage procession to former prison sites in Nafplion. The module “Social Theatre” was held at the Agricultural Prison of Tiryns. After a series of theatre workshops, the inmates and the students presented the devised performance The Journeys of the Potato, from Andes to Tiryns: Legends and Truths to only two spectators and the prison guards. In the present paper, the authors focus on the use of the prison – in the present and in the past – as performance space. Prisons function as the absolute dystopian places that oscillate between private and public space: from the Agricultural Prison of Tiryns’ hermetically sealed, private space to the open, public space of the historic city of Nafplion, where the buildings that once housed prisons are scattered throughout the city. In this type of found spaces, the spectators and the performers are moved both emotionally and physically. Through the brutality emitted by the real substance of the sites, the “scenographic city” reveals stories and traumas, while inviting spectators and creators to assume social and political responsibility. Keywords: performance space, found space, public space, private space, site-specific performance, social theatre.

Embedding ecoscenography into performance design pedagogy: three practice-based approaches

Ecoscenography – a framework that reconfigures traditional processes and conceptualisations of designing for performance – offers a unique approach to bringing sustainability into theatre education. It challenges established linear modes of stage production (from idea to performance to disposal) and instead offers a circular, collaborative and place-orientated approach to conceiving, executing and circulating design ideas and products. Ecoscenography is aligned with the emerging concept of ecopedagogy, where more-than-human perspectives are central to teaching and learning practices. The framework’s ‘Three C’s’ – co-creation, celebration and circulation – provides a conceptual alternative to traditional design approaches where students are encouraged to consider the long-lasting impact of the work they conceive. A key enquiry of this paper is to interrogate how ecological thinking can be integrated into performance design pedagogies. Our argument draws on our previous writings of ecoscenography within design pedagogy to focus on an intensive workshop run by the authors at the 2023 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. In reflecting on the outcomes of the PQ workshop, we examine three different methods of embracing ecoscenography as a pedagogical framework within performance design training, and offer guidance to other educators looking to adopt eco-ethical approaches to their design training.

Unsettled assemblies: performance space, infrastructure and architecture at PQ 2023

ABSTRACT The Performance Space Exhibition at the 2023 Prague Quadrennial (PQ) – titled ‘Acts of Assembly’ – explored how theatres and performance spaces operate as sites of assembly and spaces for community. It asked: How do they create connections? How do they facilitate encounters? How do they function as sites for social action and the making of culture? Focussing on the dynamics of different acts of assembly, and positing performance itself as an assemblage, the exhibition explored the productive continuities and antagonisms between more traditional theatre architectures and the broader emergent qualities of performance spaces. This essay reflects on how the exhibition expressed a vision of performance spaces as a vital social infrastructure. It suggests the concept of social infrastructure as a useful analytic for examining how performance spaces support and sustain people and practices. The essay also reflects on the unsettled positioning of theatre architecture and performance space within PQ more generally.

All that there is: A conversation between Thea Brejzek and Katrin Brack, Prague Quadrennial, Prague June 20231

All that there is: A conversation between Thea Brejzek and Katrin Brack, Prague Quadrennial, Prague June 20231

Encruzilhadas: we believe in crossroads – Brazil at PQ23

ABSTRACT This article delves into the research and creative process involved in shaping Brazil's representation at the Exhibition of Countries and Regions during the 15th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. This collective effort aimed to integrate artists and researchers from across Brazil, resonating with the concept of crossroads, where differences converge and coexist. The curatorial team, attuned to the richness and plurality of Brazilian sonic landscapes, endeavoured to expand representativeness and diversity of perspectives and foster meaningful exchanges. The process aimed to address systemic and historical invisibilities, daring cross-cutting perspectives and dynamics, thus showcasing the wisdom embedded in the diverse manifestations of Brazilian identity. Exploring the creative process for a sound installation and seven sound offerings, alongside the site-specific relationship with the venue, exhibition design, and audience reception, the article elucidates the connections with Brazilian and Latin American authors and thoughts.

Curating performances that speak all languages

ABSTRACT This contribution sheds light on PQ Performance as a non-competitive section of the Prague Quadrennial. It describes the process of curating the performance program created on the basis of an open call, for performance designers, directors, choreographers, performers, and artists of all career levels, without any age limit. The call was drafted in English, French and Portuguese and offered the possibility to reply in any of those languages. The 21 performances of the final program were presented in the Prague Market (Pražská Tržnice), the National Gallery (Veletržní palác), Štvanice Island and the streets of Prague. Ranging from physical to site-specific, walking, conceptual, visual, drawing, ritual, costume, puppetry, dance and participatory, all performances operated scenographically, crafting moments of exceptional presence. The article also recalls the epidemic context in which PQ23 was curated and produced, and how artists have, responded to the questions What needs to be performed urgently? How do we address the future of performance design? And how do we take it from here? Finally, the article draws attention to the diversity of cultures and genres that revealed the poetic and critical potentials of space across different expressions of performance and performance design as a language that speaks all languages.

Contested spaces as spectacles

ABSTRACT This article discusses the role of scenographic methodologies in revisiting spaces associated with political conflict and trauma. In doing so, the author presents her artistic research and design process behind the art installation ‘Spectators in a Ghost City’, the exhibition of the Cyprus National participation in the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023 which places the occupied city of Famagusta, abandoned since 1974, as a contested-space-becoming-spectacle. The author describes how analysing the space through a scenographic lens allows a close examination of the city’s materiality and how this, in turn, becomes the source for artistic creation. Focusing on the scenographic process of scaling down, sculptural maquettes and portable models in walking practices are approached as symbolic objects for communicating issues on displacement, space politics, surveillance and agency. In that sense, scenographic methodologies are discussed as thinking processes, a political act of resistance, and a tool for negotiating artistic practices and real spaces of conflict. This process is defined as ‘scenography reversed’, where a real place becomes a dramatised scene, allowing alternative understandings that expand beyond hegemonic narratives. The article places Famagusta as a paradigm of contested spaces and questions whether scenographic methodologies can be a possible approach to reconciliation and conflict resolution.

We created space to reclaim time … and that time made extra(ordinary) space

ABSTRACT Within the concept of extra-space, this article aims to explore the meaning, relevance and consequences of the project HODO and the installation ‘The Resting Assembly’ as part of the official Portuguese student representation at the Prague Quadrennial 2023. In close relation to the cultural context of the project, the underlying ideas of time, space, and place are used to develop the methodological approaches, aims, intentions and decisions that guided the project. Based on these relationships, the article proposes to understand this project under the category of event which guides a way of thinking about scenographic contexts toward their amplification in contemporary practices, while furthering the theoretical dimension of the project. The article intends to describe how the idea that a specific (manifest expression of) time, its suspension or the act of pausing, is initiated by this project/object/performance as a form of agency and aesthetic reflection, contributing to an interrelation between time and space. In this sense, the project is studied as a space–time entity that can open up new possibilities in the Portuguese context of artistic creation and research in the field of scenography.

WELCOME TO THE BAZAAR! THE KAZAKHSTAN STUDENT EXHIBITION AT PQ 2023

This review explores the work of the Kazakhstan Student Exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial in June 2023. In doing so, we contextualize the exhibit within the international festival, describing its concepts and accompanying performances, including Cooper’s Trading Post, «Kurt,» the «Day of Tea,» and the Nauryz Celebration. The notes presented here are based on first-hand observations as well as individual interviews with the design and production team members present at PQ. To accompany this work, we also reflect on the cross-cultural collaborations behind the exhibition, which are the culmination of a five-year relationship between a university in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Conway, SC, in the United States. Thus, the interviews conducted during the second half of the 10-day festival provide not only insight into design and performance choices, but also the processes behind a student-ledcollaboration between two cohorts from Theatre and Design programs separated across time and space. In this way, while we locate the exhibit as a display of scenographic art and performance from the Central Asian nation, we also provide suggestions for international collaboration in designing a display for theatre festivals that may provide a framework for others working on similar projects in the future.

Ethical scenography in the North American Cluster programme at the Prague Quadrennial

Ethical scenography in the North American Cluster programme at the Prague Quadrennial

Curating amidst compounding crises : the Lebanese contribution to the 2023 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space

Curating amidst compounding crises : the Lebanese contribution to the 2023 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space

Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023: The Relevance of Ideas, Goals, and Objectives

The article examines the main goals and objectives of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2023 (PQ–2023), exploring its scenographic and performative practices in the context of the latest cultural programs. The author analyses the aspirations of modern theater artists, architects, multimedia masters and designers of spatial content to implement their ideas in curator projects. The article defines the artistic characteristics of the most interesting projects from Portugal, Catalonia, Cyprus, Slovakia, Romania, Norway etc.; these are the projects, the authors of which act not only as exponents of theatrical ideas but also touch on a wide range of issues relevant today. The author defines the target and conceptual characteristics of the plastic formula of the Ukrainian pavilion Garden of Living Things, the project of curator and scenographer Bohdan Polishchuk. The author analyses the patterns and well-founded regularities of effective installations by Ukrainian artists in the space of the Garden: Wimple by Lyudmyla Nagorna, Boat by Serhiy Rydvanetsky and Natalia Rydvanetska, Reading the Landscape by Inessa Kulchytska, Scales of War by Oleh Tatarinov, Mary’s Dream by Maria Pogrebnyak, Roots. Network of Connections by Yulia Zaulichna, Enjoy it. The Author Bears no Responsibility. Like Russia by Olesia Holovach, Theater of Memories by Olena Polishchuk. The article discusses the manifestations of the authors’ positions at moments of history critically important for Ukraine. The author emphasizes the profound role of artists as successors and developers of the best concepts of the national scenography, in the evolutionary projects of which the national concept has always been combined with the European one.

The state of Australian performance design: A roundtable discussion on scenographic practice, education and research through the lens of the Prague Quadrennial

As the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2019 (PQ19) drew to a close, Australian designers, researchers and educators gathered to discuss the impact of PQ on our scenographic communities while querying the evolutions and challenges facing design practice. Australia’s vast geography made this event a unique opportunity to bring together leading experts from multiple states and capture contemporary perspectives. At the midpoint between the 2019 and 2023 gatherings – a time of global pandemics, political unrest and educational transformation – this article offers the outcomes of this roundtable as a unique snapshot of the state of design practice within Australia through the lens of the Quadrennial. The roundtable was themed around Australia’s presence at PQ19, the effects of PQ19 on those present and the ripples to be felt by those at home, and what attendance illuminated about current developments and concerns in practice, teaching and research. Led by practitioner-researchers Tessa Rixon and Madeline Taylor, the roundtable featured both the curators of Australia’s country and student exhibits; award-winning set, costume and lighting designers with diverse experiences from national opera to independent theatre; and educators and researchers from the nation’s top universities. The resulting discussion presents a unique perspective on the gaps and weaknesses in the design education, practice and research; first-hand insights on the challenges and opportunities available in both exhibiting and participating in the PQ; and the need to actively promote and privilege diverse voices and a multiplicity of representations in the process of claiming a ‘national’ scenographic identity. The roundtable was the first to capture multiple expert first-person Australian perspectives on the PQ while simultaneously contributing to the ongoing international discussion of performance design through the lens of artists, educators and researchers.

Prague is Not Czech: Artistic Project as a Public Service

The presented text focuses on the particular artistic practice employed during the realisation of the project Prague is not Czech, which was established as a collective exhibition within the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2019 (henceforth PQ). The authors of this project, who are gathered within the team Intelektrurálně, decided to carry on with the Prague is not Czech travel agency and to transform it into a systematic socio- artistic research, which uses selected strategies of non-Prague reality as a ready-made and fills them with its own content. Since its very beginning, the project has been based on a concept of radical cooperation. Therefore, a collaborative approach towards creation represents the primary subject that is being reflected within this text (and which is itself a product of the cooperation of several people). Thus, the gist of the presented paper is to introduce initial artistic approaches and fundamental strategies of the project. The following text, therefore, consists of a manifesto written by the initiators of the project and broader theoretical reflection. In the first section, entitled What we do, the authors describe the various forms of the presented project, conditions of its creation and its development. The text is then divided into four parts – according to the project’s essential aspects: Czechness, Participation, Scenography and Experience.

ARCHITECTURE OF NATIONAL THEATER PAVILIONS AT THE EXHIBITIONS OF THE PRAGUE QUADRIENAL, AND IN PARTICULAR, THE FIRST UKRAINIAN

The article highlights the ideas of forming the architecture of scenographic pavilions at world exhibitions that demonstrate works of theatrical art on the example of those that presented theatrical art at one of the most famous forums in the world – the Prague Quadrennial in 1967-2019 (PQ), and in particular, the first Ukrainian ones. Quadrennial events are held every 4 years and present the development of various theatrical arts: architecture, scenography, performing arts, theatre skills, etc. But few of the interesting architectural solutions of national pavilions and installations are represented in professional, educational, popular and scientific publications. Therefore, the authors of the article decided to highlight various architectural ideas of national theatre pavilions (Belgium, the former USSR and Russia, Germany, Slovakia, Spain, Estonia), and in particular, the creation of the architecture of the first Ukrainian ones. The authors – teachers, postgraduates, students of the Department of Architectural Environment Design – relied upon and developed the architectural and scenographic ideas of the world-famous scenographer Y. Lysyk in 2015, 2019. The space of which in the first case was a stage, the horizon and wings of which were similar to the curtain from the performance of Lysyk's ballet "Romeo and Juliet", and in the second case, in 2019, space resembled the "amphitheatre" of the Ukrainian prehistoric theatre for Kupala drama. The horizon was enlarged based on the artist's sketch for the folk opera "When the Fern Blooms".

About the Artist: Latai Taumoepeau

About the Artist: Latai Taumoepeau Katerina Teaiwa Latai Taumoepeau makes live art, drawing from her homeland, the Kingdom of Tonga, and her birthplace, Sydney, land of the Eora Nation. Her body-centered faivā (performance practice) emerges from Tongan philosophies of relational space and time, integrating ancient and everyday temporal practice to illustrate the impact of environmental and social crisis in Oceania. Through her engagement with the sociopolitical landscape of Australia, spotlighting issues related to race, class, and the female body politic, she seeks to bring minority community voices and experiences into the foreground. Taumoepeau has presented and performed works at various events and venues in Melbourne, Queensland, and Sydney, as well as at festivals and galleries in Berlin, Hong Kong, and London. Since 2016, she has been working with Arts House in Melbourne on Refuge, an annual artist-led community preparedness program held in collaboration with Emergency Management Victoria and other community stakeholders (see also Mangioni, this issue). She is also involved in climate change advocacy for Pacific Island nations through various community engagement projects and regional campaigns. In addition to her artistic practice, Taumoepeau has worked for Playwriting Australia, where she facilitated an introductory playwriting program for communities and schools with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and for Radio Skid Row, a community radio station in Sydney, where she engaged communities underrepresented in mainstream media in creative digital media projects. She has also received numerous awards, including the Prague Quadrennial Award for Excellence in Performance Design for Repatriate (2019), which is featured in this issue. Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Stelios Papadakis In the near future, Latai hopes to return to her ancestral home and continue the ultimate faivā of sea voyaging and celestial navigation. [End Page vii] After selecting this issue’s featured artist, I was thrilled to learn that the journal had also accepted Talei Luscia Mangioni’s peer-reviewed article “Confronting Australian Apathy: Latai Taumoepeau and the Politics of Performance in Pacific Climate Stewardship” (this issue, 32–62), which analyzes Taumoepeau’s artistry in more detail. [End Page viii] Click for larger view View full resolution The Last Resort, by Latai Taumoepeau, 2020. Performance, Biennale of Sydney, Cockatoo Island. Photo by Zan Wimberley. In this endurance performance installation, part of the series Stitching (Up) the Sea, Taumoepeau and her co-performer and relative Taliu Aloua channeled ceremonial Tongan practices while wearing brick sandals and worn-out hotel bathrobes emblazoned with the words “The Last Resort.” They proceeded to smash glass bottles and other refuse sourced from Sydney nightclubs. In an October 2020 dialogue with fellow artist Taloi Havini, Taumoepeau explained that her goal in the work, a commentary on the impact of climate change on the Pacific and its dangers to both human and marine life, was “to expose the relationship, the genealogy, between glass and islands and sand . . . that led to the ‘resort life’” (“The Last Resort: A Conversation,” e-flux 112 [October 2020]). Click for larger view View full resolution Ocean Island, Mine!, by Latai Taumoepeau, 2015. Performance, Carriageworks, Sydney. Photo by Sanja Simic. In Ocean Island, Mine!, also performed as part of AusDance’s Australian Dance Week, held 29 April–6 May 2017, Latai Taumoepeau relocated a 500-kilogram pile of ice from one end of the performance space to the other, scooping it up with a shovel and steadily carrying it bit by bit from point a to point b. As the performance description explains, with specific reference to phosphate mining in Banaba, “Back and forth, she works the open-cut mines of the past into the future of climate change; excavating the solid white rock into invisibility” (https://newacton.com.au/events/ocean-island-mine-by-latai-taumoepeau/). For more on this work, which is part of a genealogy of durational performance reflections from Taumoepeau’s suite Stitching (Up) the Sea, see Mangioni, this issue. Click for larger view View full resolution i-Land X-isle, by Latai Taumoepeau, 2013. Performance, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney. Photo by Zan Wimberley. In i-Land X-isle, Taumoepeau suspended herself under a block of melting ice to draw attention to the impact of climate change on...

An archaeology of French scenography: staging the excavation of a collective imagination

ABSTRACT This article reports and reflects on the artistic research process of Excavating the Remains of French Scenography in Prague presented at the site-specific performance festival for the Prague Quadrennial 2019. Conceived as a practice-based research, the project aimed to examine the emotional state of French scenography in relation to the Prague Quadrennial, especially due to the absence of its official national representation in 1995, and since 2003. The article reviews some of the most significant elements, moments and artistic practices that have emerged from this site-specific performance. We begin by recounting the circumstances in which the project was created for PQ19 and go on to explain what motivated Carolina E. Santo and Emmanuelle Gangloff to assemble a historical archive that became one of the project’s key elements. We will then explain the project’s design to invite guest-artists to perform archaeology every day for 10 days. Examining the project’s core concept – intermingling archaeology and scenography – will shed light on questions such as performing the archive, participatory performance and site-specific dramaturgy, while emphasizing the relationship between artistic practice and academic research. Finally, we will show how this project became an observatory of French contemporary scenography and a celebration of its heterogeneity.

TWO APPROACHES TO RESTORING HISTORICAL BUILDINGS AND ENVIRONMENTS FOR THE THEATRE FUNCTION

The architectural reconstruction and technical refurbishing of the new facility of the School of Performance were concerned with accommodating the needs of teaching, production, and performance in a found space, the basement of Ryerson University’s Student Learning Centre with utilizing of the state-of-the-art technologies. Kyiv Academician Theatre of the Podil, one of the leading drama theatre companies in Ukraine, has finally got the permanent home with the state-of-the-art performing facility. However, the fact that construction of the building was sponsored by the Roshen Company owned by Petro Poroshenko, former President of Ukraine, as well as the appearance of the theatre’s exterior caused a lot of public controversies. The experience of these reconstructions was reflected in two documentary films presented at the Our Theatre of the World section of Prague Quadrennial in 2019.