IMAGE.ie: An Irish scenographer – that is a set and costume designer – Katie Davenport has designed for numerous Irish theatre, dance, and opera companies, including the Irish National Opera (INO), the Northern Ireland Opera, THISISPOPBABY and Rough Magic. Tipped for a high-profile global design career, here she tells us more about her day-to-day and why drawing is central to everything she does.
3 comments:
I love hearing about scenographers. The job title makes the perfect amount of sense to me. In the article, the designer says that her job is to create “the entire visible world” within the production. It's almost confusing to me that we have so many different designers for so many things, because if you just have one it sort of guarantees to cohesiveness of the work. You can see it in the photos provided by the article as well. The world is cohesive, believable, and vibrant. I love the idea that one designer could be responsible for all of it. If I were able to do that I probably would as well, but it is essentially double the work if you only normally design for one apartment. So while I'm not sure I'd be able to do it myself I applaud this designer and their ability to do so..
This was a somewhat generic read. I think Katie Davenport’s work is amazing but her interview with these questions felt very AI generated in that they were very standard. The responses didn’t seem dishonest and not every part of the day has to be above average–but as someone studying scenic design I was hoping for a bit more in terms of like a useful tid-bit of advice unique to her. I did catch the section where she recommends drawing, which every scenic professor I’ve ever met advises, and I do think it’s important to watch to gauge how people interact with their environment on a day to day basis. I thought it was funny she said theatre people rarely have to get up too early in the morning, which I believe, but as a student in a college setting I wish we didn’t have to get up for early classes seeing that our work demands us to be up into the night.
While I’m not particularly interested in scenography, I quite enjoyed reading this interview. I view my design process to be quite similar to that of Davenport. Both Davenport and I began our journey as dancers and had similar revelations that the fulfillment of creating shapes of the body could also exist in theatrical design. I also appreciated how heavily she emphasized the importance of relationship-building in the theatre. This is something I’m still learning how to do. Another part of this interview I found interesting is how Davenport has her studio, outside of the home, to work on her designs. One of the things that frightens me about this industry is how artists don’t always get a clear working space outside of the home or theatre. Davenport proved my assumption wrong and that maybe having a professional studio is possible. While I didn’t take away any complex scenography concepts from this interview, I did gain lots of tips that will help me in my career.
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