Month: August 2019

The Stage Design Lab is located at Yongin University in Yongin-si, Republic of Korea. As specialization of stage art began in Korea in the 1990s, Tae-Sup Lee, a stage designer and professor, designed the space himself, judging that theoretical classes alone could be a problem for cultivating experts.

The Stage Design Lab is a two-story building. On the first floor, there is a production area, a tool room, a props room, a technical director room, and a rest room for students to relax. On the second floor, there is a costume room, a professor’s lab, and classrooms where students take classes. Yongin University is the first educational establishment to have proper professional facilities for students. In this space, students in the Department of Drama at Yongin University take classes on stage art, perform the roles of designers and directors, and make performances.

For four years, students have obtained professional knowledge and practical experience. In this process, students perform many experimental creative activities, discover their strengths and become creators that show their own style.

Video https://youtu.be/C9UaQdcimcE

Country/Region Yongin-si, Republic of Korea

Designer Tae-Sup Lee, Yongin University (KR)

Project Collaborators
Architect: Tae-Sup Lee
Projection Designer: Hye-Ji Jung
Costume & Props Designer: Hyeong-Seok Yoo
Technical Director: Seo-Woo Choi
Lighting Designer: Hye-In Kwon
Lighting Director: Jong-Ho Yu
Sound Designer: Seo-Yeon Son
Stage Manager: Mi-Rae Lim
Performance Director: Se-In Kim

Video Collaborators
Director / Editor: Hye-Ji Jung
Co-Director / Scriptwriter: Hyeong-Seok Yoo
Co-Director / Recordist: Kyeong-Eun Jung
Narrator: Ho-Gil Yoo

Additional Collaborators
Ki-Duk Park, Joo-Na Kim, Hye-Weon Kim, Tae-Hwan Kim, Seon-Hyuk Kim, Young-In Park

Designer Contact
Web: https://www.taesuplee.com

The old Municipal Market, now the Navolmoral de la Mata Theatre, is a free standing structure located at the edge of the traditional town center and the area of twentieth century urban growth. The original “L” shaped edifice was formed by 2 sheds and an open atrium providing access to storage areas.

Surrounded by housing blocks too tall for the scale of the narrow streets, the Market, City Hall, and Church seem to have escaped from a fairy tale. These newer blocks of recent vintage contrast with the dimunitive scale of the public buildings which are a patent reminder of the agricultural origins of the city.

The rehabilitation preserves the ambiance and scenic qualities of the old market, while providing Navalmoral de la Mata and the area with a new theatrical infrastucture. Visually the old market merely changes its roofs; in reality a new building is built within the old—independent in order to avoid humidity and ground water. Made entirely of poured in place concrete, the inner building allows for greater volume and longer structural spans than the old construction; facilitating its new program as a theatre. The old atrium-courtyard is replaced by an access portico, separated from the older construction. This element marks the entrance, links the old and new structures, and makes visible the new activities taking place within. The concrete walls that form the space are bare, bearing the marks of their making. Within the theatre, the walls are covered in flowers; dressed to resolve the technical requirements of the space.

Video https://youtu.be/pUG0uBMAxs0

Country/Region South Africa

Designer Urban-Think Tank / Theatre4Change / Alfredo Brillembourg (CH, ZA)

Project Collaborators
Alfredo Brillembourg, Mandisi Sindo, Hubert Klumpner, Rebecca Looringh-van Beeck

Video Collaborators
Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou, Kurt Orderson

Venue Contact
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Theatre4Change-Arts-Project-274765822690792/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/theatre4change/

Designer Contact
FB: https://www.facebook.com/UrbanThinkTank/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/urbanthinktank/

The old Municipal Market, now the Navolmoral de la Mata Theatre, is a free standing structure located at the edge of the traditional town center and the area of twentieth century urban growth. The original “L” shaped edifice was formed by 2 sheds and an open atrium providing access to storage areas.

Surrounded by housing blocks too tall for the scale of the narrow streets, the Market, City Hall, and Church seem to have escaped from a fairy tale. These newer blocks of recent vintage contrast with the dimunitive scale of the public buildings which are a patent reminder of the agricultural origins of the city.

The rehabilitation preserves the ambiance and scenic qualities of the old market, while providing Navalmoral de la Mata and the area with a new theatrical infrastucture. Visually the old market merely changes its roofs; in reality a new building is built within the old—independent in order to avoid humidity and ground water. Made entirely of poured in place concrete, the inner building allows for greater volume and longer structural spans than the old construction; facilitating its new program as a theatre. The old atrium-courtyard is replaced by an access portico, separated from the older construction. This element marks the entrance, links the old and new structures, and makes visible the new activities taking place within. The concrete walls that form the space are bare, bearing the marks of their making. Within the theatre, the walls are covered in flowers; dressed to resolve the technical requirements of the space.

Video https://youtu.be/fnS-WNYC5GQ

Country/Region Spain

Designer Matilde Peralta del Amo (ES)

Project Collaborators
Architect: Matilde Peralta del Amo
Owner: Consejería de Cultura y Turismo. Government of Extremadura
Mechanical Systems Engineering: JG Asociados
Structural Engineering: Alfonso Gómez Gaite (GOGAITE)
Clerk Of The Works: José Luis Periañez
Photographer: Luis Asin

Video Collaborators
Curator: Ángel Martínez Roger
Video Maker: Francisco Javier Conde Gómez
Artist: Ángeles Vázquez, Compañía Albadulake

Venue Contact
Web: https://www.aytonavalmoral.es/2018/10/01/programacion-cultural-otono-2018/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/teatrodelmercado.navalmoral/

Designer Contact
Web: http://peraltadelamo.com/

An innovative synthesis of curatorial practice, performance design, and architecture – in the form of an annual festival on Wellington Waterfront. Every year The Performance Arcade assembles a temporary structure out of shipping containers and scaffold terracing, providing venue for a range of performance disciplines and practices from around the world and Aotearoa NZ. A conflation of the gallery and black-box theatre occurs, but a third archetype of “the arcade” is also explored. This cellular environment provides a series open thresholds for the passing public to engage in risky, interactive encounters and dialogues with the works. Outside the disciplined environments of art institutions and their permanent architectures new experiences are formed that test familiar relationships and political paradigms. The symbolic quality of the shipping container references systems of global commerce and border crossings. Presented in the liminal space of the waterfront, this treatment turns the site and object into resonant, auto-poetic devices. Every year the design changes, defining The Performance Arcade as an ongoing experiment in performance architecture and presentation, using each thematic framework to generate new design strategies and solutions: from stacked towers of shipping containers to long horizontal arrangements, or from utilising programmatic systems (like the symposium) through to graphic way-finding devices that stretch kilometres across the city. In each iteration the event remains an organism on the move, accruing new meaning and intelligence with each new shape.

Video https://youtu.be/djZeDUWFC2Y

Country/Region New Zealand

Designer Sam Trubridge, Alex Sawicka-Ritchie, The PlayGround NZ Ltd (NZ)

Project Collaborators
Artistic Director: Sam Trubridge
Architecture Lead: Alex Sawicka-Ritchie

Video Collaborators
Videographer: John Conly

Additional Collaborators
Johann Nortje, Sascha Perfect, Keely McCann, Thomas Friggens, Rachel Fox, Kane Forbes, Cohen Stephens, Marcus McShane, David Goldthorpe, Amelia Taverner

Venue Contact
Web: https://www.theperformancearcade.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/theperformancearcade
IG: https://www.instagram.com/arcade_2019
TW: https://twitter.com/arcade_2019

Designer Contact
Web: https://theplaygroundnz.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/theplaygroundnzltd/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/theplaygroundnz/
TW: https://twitter.com/theplaygroundnz

We visit Chiliomodi, a small town near Corinth, Greece. My place of birth.

Theatriki Skini is a theatre group made by local people. It was formed at the very beginning of a long and hard financial crisis, by the need to make dreams happen, to make theatre, no matter what.

I have been the scenographer and the architect of the group from the very start.

The Performance Architecture of Theatriki Skini includes two buildings that are one “Performance Space”. An old warehouse is transformed to a temporary/ephemeral outdoors performance space, for one summer production each year. It lives every summer. In addition to this, a space in the centre of the town was re-designed to a smaller indoors theatre. It is the “permanent home” of the group and hosts smaller theatre productions in the winter. It lives throughout the year. The two performance spaces define the existence of the group. Performance space is an inseparable part of the group’s collective biography.

The cultural landscape of the town has been transformed by the existence of the group, and by the transformation of the two buildings to performance spaces. In this video, I revisit both “theatres” in February 2018, and invite members of Theatriki Skini for a gathering and reflective talk inside the small indoors theatre.

How, performance architecture and my involvement, contributed in making their dream happen? How do they feel about their “performance space”? What architecture is “important” – and what “architecture” is “non-important”?

Video https://youtu.be/EwZAh5Vd6dE

Country/Region Greece

Designer Andreas Skourtis – Performing Architectures (UK)

Video Collaborators
Co-Director: Andreas Skourtis
Co-Director and Editing: Panos Andrianos
Photography – Cinematography: Michalis Andrianos

Venue Contact
Web: http://www.theatriki-skini.gr/

Designer Contact
Web: http://performingarchitectures.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/performingarchitectures/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/skourtisandreas/?hl=en

Located on a slope of a high hill, near the Centre of Languages and Arts Studies, The Temporary Open-Air Theatre at UNIRIO – created by architects and performance designers of the Laboratory of Theatrical Space and Urban Memory Studies – coordinated by architect Evelyn F. W. Lima – was adequate for staging some fragments of The Tempest. The production took place in December 2016, throughout the events of the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare´s Death at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Resources used for construction came from the university and from architect Lima. The specific site was a clearing in the woods in Mario de Andrade Garden, a space with luxurious vegetation where the architects designed a concrete platform, a metallic practicable with three different levels and a staircase. Initially the architectural project included fishing nets to cover the screens, at the suggestion of the performance designers, but, in the end, the architects built the screens out of metallic articulated frames with white nylon nets that would change their texture according to the stage lighting. Putting together some records of the play staged in 2016, the five-minute video explains the theatre joint and collaborative design in the “found space”. Students and professors in the audience interacted with the performers and applauded the theatre architecture, considering it fit for that and other productions as proved in some of their statements after the event. The open-air theatre has been used to stage small productions in the campus for many months.

Video https://youtu.be/L8yxxseArk0

Country/Region Brazil

Designer Evelyn F.W. Lima/Laboratory of Theatrical Spaces and Urban Memory Studies (BR)

Project Collaborators
Leader Architect: Evelyn F. W.Lima
Architect: Francisco Leocádio, Sara Fagundes
Performance Designers: Joana Lavalée, Débora Estruc, Carolina Lyra, Ana Paula Brasil, Regilan Pereira, Carla Costa
Performance Design Advisor: Luiz Henrique Sá

Video Collaborators
Director: Evelyn F. W. Lima
Co-Director: Milena Fernandes
Screenplay and Subtitles in English: Evelyn F. W .Lima
Photography and Images: Milena Fernandes
Lighting Designer: Ana Paula Brasil
Costume Designer Regilan Pereira
Stage Director: Raphael Janeiro
Performers: Edson Santiago, Raphael Janeiro, Natalia Gadiolli

Additional Collaborators
Carlos Alberto Nunes, Carole Gubernikoff

Venue Contact
Web: http://www4.unirio.br/espacoteatral/evento-extensao#ancora_20

Designer Contact
Web: http://www4.unirio.br/espacoteatral
FB: https://www.facebook.com/LaboratorioDeEstudosDoEspacoTeatralEMemoriaUrbana/

The film describes the challenges, difficulties, and successes of turning a found space into the new performance and educational facility of  Ryerson School of  Performance, Canada.

Video https://youtu.be/_ck76tsv1ww

Country/Region Canada

Designer Zeidler Partnership  Architects + Snøhetta Consulted by  Sholem Dolgoy (CA)

Project Collaborators
Conceived and Edited, Camera: Pavlo Bosyy, John Hajdu
Designed: Zeidler Partnership  Architects + Snøhetta
Conceived and Edited: Sholem Dolgoy
Music: Sheldon DeSouza

Video Collaborators
John Hajdu
Pavlo Bosyy

Additional Collaborators
Dr. Peggy Shannon, Vicki St.Denys, Caroline O’Brien, Dr. Cynthia Ashperger, Peter Fleming

Venue Contact
Web: https://ryersonperformance.ca/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/ryersonschoolofperformance/

Designer Contact
Web: https://zeidler.com/

The film describes the story of turning a XIX Ct. residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine into the facility for a known resident repertory theatre company. The planning, design, and construction lasted for more than 20 years and went into several stages of re-designing. The current version, supported by the private funding of the incumbent President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, caused a lot of controversy and public outrage about the exterior look of the building that, as the protesters think, does not fit the historical and architectural context of the neighbourhood. The film presents different opinions and shows how, despite the controversial exterior, the interior of the building and stage technologies utilized in it not only serve the needs of a resident company but make the facility arguably the most technically advanced in the nation.

Video https://youtu.be/LYHx56YazuM

Country/Region Ukraine

Designer Architect  Oleg  Drozdov (UA)

Project Collaborators
Architect:  Oleg  Drozdov
Consultant: Vitaly Malakhov
Theatre Engineer: Oleksandr Riabenko
Conceived  and Edited:   by Pavlo Bosyy

Video Collaborators
Aleksandr  Kozachenko
Camera by SKRYPIN.UA
Сніданок з 1+1
Еспресо
Страна.UA
www.5.UA
Голос.UA

Additional Collaborators
Alla Serhijko, Oksana Palanychko

Venue Contact
Web: http://theatreonpodol.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/podiltheatre/

Designer Contact
Web: http://drozdov-partners.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/drozdov.partners/

The Living Stage NYC explores how community engaged performance spaces can foster dialogue and build social capital. The Living Stage is a global initiative which combines stage design, horticulture and community engagement to create recyclable, biodegradable, biodiverse and edible performance spaces. The Living Stage NYC took place in Meltzer Towers Courtyard on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in collaboration with a vibrant cohort of linguistically and ethnically diverse seniors, fifth graders and gardener-residents. Over the course of six weeks, the asphalt lined park was transformed into a space of lush greenery along with vibrant art installations and eclectic performances that celebrated the community’s identity and potential.

Video https://youtu.be/FVkMM2Gh5Og

Country/Region USA

Designer Tanja Beer, Superhero Clubhouse, XDEA Architects and University Settlement (US, AU)

Project Collaborators
Lead Artist/Designer: Tanja Beer
Co-producer/Project Director: Superhero Clubhouse
Co-producer: University Settlement
Co-designer: XDEA

Video Collaborator
Dylan Lopez

Designer Contact
Web: https://ecoscenography.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/SuperheroClubhouse/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/ecoscenography/
TW: https://twitter.com/TheLivingStage

Punctum’s Public Cooling House is part art house, part bath house. It takes some of the big questions surrounding our “water future” and turns them into a participatory experience of reflection. It provides a public gathering place to beat the heat in a public garden or park setting for our increasingly hot and dry times.

The Public Cooling House is a flat pack, low impact design combining a contemporary interpretation of desert architecture with natural materials and cooling practices to create a poetic system of public cooling. Drawing from simple, ancient evaporative cooling techniques such as the Australian Coolgardie Safe and Syrian wind catchers, its interior includes individual cooling pools and water works by exceptional artists responding to how we might contend with heat waves, water scarcity, and brown outs. The walls are of sustainably grown Australian Hoop Pine ply perforated with a replicated Coolgardie Safe wall pattern. The roof is made from fire proofed canvas woven in Australia and custom made. We use yachting and trucking strapping connecting elements to bring everything together. There are no nails.

In this intimate “house of cooling”, Cooling House Attendants draw from traditional cooling techniques, our relationship with the immensity of climate change, and an imagined “water future” to refresh our bodies and invigorate our sense memories.

A biologist might say it is a semi permeable system of “membranes” surrounding fluid living systems. For audiences in a climate change setting, it’s a cool place for a hot future.

Video https://youtu.be/djZeDUWFC2Y

Country/Region Australia

Designer Punctum Inc (AU)

Project Collaborators
Concept, Co-Design and Artistic Director: Jude Anderson
Co-Design, Drawings, and Construction Co-Ordinator: Morwenna Schenck
Design Assistant: Margot Lapalus
Project Administration: Adrian Corbett
Construction Assistant: Jimmy Naylor
Soundscape Artist – Jacques Soddell
Director’s Assistant And Lead Performer: Tanguy Trillet
Stage And Assistant Site Management:  Tegan Lang
Emerge Multi-Cultural Facilitator: Forest Keegel

Video Collaborators
Artistic Director: Jude Anderson
Filming and Editing: Ideas Agency, Miles Bennett