Thursday, November 07, 2013
Theatre of Squatters
sightlines.usitt.org: This September, OISTAT held its World Congress in Cardiff, Wales in conjunction with World Stage Design 2013. New members of the executive committee were elected, and many working groups met to discuss past and future activities. But it was a brief presentation by scenographer and longtime Peter Brook collaborator, Jean-Guy Lecat, that captured the attention of those who attended the OISTAT Performance Design Commission meeting.
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3 comments:
Site-specific work is a growing trend in theatre. This past summer I worked on an outside production at a bar in Houston and I recently saw Measure Back. For the production outside we used lighting booms to position lighting but Measure Back generally had random conventional fixtures like floodlights or fluorescent tubes lying around in a manner that did not “over-restore” the space. I think this article points out the important point that when doing site-specific work, it may not be helpful to bring traditional theatrical ideas into the space and to instead utilize the challenges the space provides.
First of all I'm happy to see that there is some small effort to save old but architecturally and culturally important buildings. I think that preserving these buildings in any way, whether they be renovated or just used as is, is important. This is because these buildings and spaces are a time capsule for our earlier history as a race, and keeping track of how we have grown culturally is important. No, alot of these spaces may not be able to have the most updated rigging system or lighting technology, but they can still be used as gathering spaces and that should be purpose enough.
I have always been intrigued by site-specific theatre. The unique match between space and story awakens both in a way that isn’t possible in a proscenium arch. In some of these particular instances, the spaces themselves were once theatres. Yet the staff makes no apologies by trying to restore them to what they were, but instead, accepts them for what they are; vacated and deserted spaces. Personally, I would love to work in one of these spaces and believe that site specific joins the ranks amongst projection and other technology as the “new wave” creating intrigue in theatre (Yes, I recognize that many of these are not new ideas, but are have sort of resurfaced). It also seems natural to plug that Cameron Knight is performing in one such work down at the Waterfront, and I cannot wait to see what Quantum has done with the space.
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