Showing posts with label theatre architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theatre architecture. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Flexibility in Theatre Architecture
Drawing on Jeremy Till’s argument that “time, and not space, should be seen as the primary context in which architecture is conceived,” (2009: 95) and in the light of increasing interest in performative architecture, I'm interested in critically examining notions of ‘flexibility’ in the history of modern theatre. While the much-acknowledged failure of modernism’s desire for empty, neutral, infinitely versatile theatre spaces has in some ways tainted the term ‘flexible’ with negative connotations, other softer, less technologically determined notions of flexibility and adaptability seem to be offering new directions in architecture, as well as serving a “desire to create theatre in places rather than containers.” (Wiles 2003: 266) So, over the next couple of months I'm planning to trace a history of flexibility from the functionalist and technologically driven ideas of the modernist movement, via the perspectives of environmental theatre, to the more allusive sense of temporal fluidity achieved through the adaptive re-use of buildings with prior histories and the increasing popularity of temporary, impermanent structures and ‘lo-fi’ architecture. I'll examine how the term ‘flexibility’ has been used in relation to theatre architecture, what sorts of flexibility have been advocated or explored, and what the connections might be between flexibility in terms of space, physical arrangement and social usage. My intention is to shed light on how past notions of flexibility continue to influence the design of new theatres as well as to consider the relationship between flexibility, adaptability and performativity in the design of theatres.
Friday, April 17, 2009
3 Conferences: 3 Abstracts
Here's three conferences I'll be attending over the (northern hemisphere) summer, with the abstracts for the papers I'll be giving:
1. Living Landscapes (18th-21st June, Aberystwyth)
Terrains of Power: Performing Parliamentary Architecture
In The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1964) Murray Edelman notes that, “The appropriateness of act to setting is normally so carefully plotted in the political realm that we are rarely conscious of the importance or ramifications of the tie between the two.” (99) This statement is nowhere more relevant than when considering the design, construction, and use of parliamentary buildings and precincts.
Such buildings and precincts perform various symbolic functions: they help to construct a sense of national identity, to represent the processes of government, and to assert the authority and legitimacy of the state. More immediately however, at the level of spatial program and built form, they also promote and entrench certain possibilities for movement and interaction whilst discouraging others. In this respect they exert a material influence on the way in which government operates and the way in which the public interacts with it.
In this paper I apply interpretive strategies drawn from Performance Studies to examine two recently constructed precincts: the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood (2004) and the Welsh Senedd on the shore of Cardiff Bay (2006). By focussing on the performative relationship between bodies and the environment I seek to build on existing studies of civic space and capital city design and, in doing so, to assess the extent to which the design of these new precincts might remain “closely tied to political forces that reinforce existing patterns of dominance and submission.” (Lawrence J. Vale 1992:10)
2. Performance Studies International: "Misperformance: Misfiring, Misfitting, Misreading" (24th-28th June, Zagreb)
Duplicitous Sites: Misperforming Parliament
In The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1964) Murray Edelman notes that, “The appropriateness of act to setting is normally so carefully plotted in the political realm that we are rarely conscious of the importance or ramifications of the tie between the two.” (99) This statement is nowhere more relevant than when considering the design and use of parliamentary buildings and precincts.
In this paper I investigate how the ostensive signification of modern parliamentary buildings can be undercut or exposed by practices that naively or deliberately misperform them. Viewed against a variety of protest actions, this paper focuses on the impromptu performance of the choral piece Lament in the foyer of Australia’s New Parliament House on the 18th March 2003. Performed by a choir of one hundred and fifty women who simply walked into the building unnoticed, Lament was timed to coincide with the then Prime Minister’s announcement of Australia’s commitment of troops to the imminent war in Iraq. Through a close examination of performers’ experiences of Lament I will consider the productiveness of this action in exposing how modern parliamentary architecture remains “closely tied to political forces that reinforce existing patterns of dominance and submission.” (Vale 1992:10)
3. International Federation for Theatre Research: Theatre Architecture Working Group (12th-18th July, Lisbon)
Architecture, Audience and Desire
This paper will argue that audiences are not only constructed through their interaction with theatre auditoriums and stages, but also through the relations between an auditorium and the other spaces known or presumed to exist. The popularity of ‘behind-the-scenes’ tours, ‘backstage’ musicals and plays and actors’ memoirs are all evidence of a western cultural fascination with the actual and imagined realms that lie hidden beyond the stage. Such a fascination derives in part from the spatial delineations that mark out theatre space from everyday social space, backstage from front-of-house, and auditorium from stage. The delineations that separate out the spaces used by spectators and practitioners in more traditional theatres are significant because they create what Alice Rayner has described as “a geometry of seeming difference.” This geometry, Rayner suggests, “carries a powerful affect that connects actual spaces to a more general form of aggression and desire.” (2002: 539)
In this paper I will examine how the geometry that Rayner describes is negotiated in the design and use of a number of more modern theatres in Australia and the United Kingdom. Through this I seek to map out dimensions of the relationship between theatre audiences and theatre architecture and suggest how being an audience to theatre involves a tension between a desire for access to the more hidden realms and operations that sustain a performance and a desire to be denied that access.
1. Living Landscapes (18th-21st June, Aberystwyth)
Terrains of Power: Performing Parliamentary Architecture
In The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1964) Murray Edelman notes that, “The appropriateness of act to setting is normally so carefully plotted in the political realm that we are rarely conscious of the importance or ramifications of the tie between the two.” (99) This statement is nowhere more relevant than when considering the design, construction, and use of parliamentary buildings and precincts.
Such buildings and precincts perform various symbolic functions: they help to construct a sense of national identity, to represent the processes of government, and to assert the authority and legitimacy of the state. More immediately however, at the level of spatial program and built form, they also promote and entrench certain possibilities for movement and interaction whilst discouraging others. In this respect they exert a material influence on the way in which government operates and the way in which the public interacts with it.
In this paper I apply interpretive strategies drawn from Performance Studies to examine two recently constructed precincts: the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood (2004) and the Welsh Senedd on the shore of Cardiff Bay (2006). By focussing on the performative relationship between bodies and the environment I seek to build on existing studies of civic space and capital city design and, in doing so, to assess the extent to which the design of these new precincts might remain “closely tied to political forces that reinforce existing patterns of dominance and submission.” (Lawrence J. Vale 1992:10)
2. Performance Studies International: "Misperformance: Misfiring, Misfitting, Misreading" (24th-28th June, Zagreb)
Duplicitous Sites: Misperforming Parliament
In The Symbolic Uses of Politics (1964) Murray Edelman notes that, “The appropriateness of act to setting is normally so carefully plotted in the political realm that we are rarely conscious of the importance or ramifications of the tie between the two.” (99) This statement is nowhere more relevant than when considering the design and use of parliamentary buildings and precincts.
In this paper I investigate how the ostensive signification of modern parliamentary buildings can be undercut or exposed by practices that naively or deliberately misperform them. Viewed against a variety of protest actions, this paper focuses on the impromptu performance of the choral piece Lament in the foyer of Australia’s New Parliament House on the 18th March 2003. Performed by a choir of one hundred and fifty women who simply walked into the building unnoticed, Lament was timed to coincide with the then Prime Minister’s announcement of Australia’s commitment of troops to the imminent war in Iraq. Through a close examination of performers’ experiences of Lament I will consider the productiveness of this action in exposing how modern parliamentary architecture remains “closely tied to political forces that reinforce existing patterns of dominance and submission.” (Vale 1992:10)
3. International Federation for Theatre Research: Theatre Architecture Working Group (12th-18th July, Lisbon)
Architecture, Audience and Desire
This paper will argue that audiences are not only constructed through their interaction with theatre auditoriums and stages, but also through the relations between an auditorium and the other spaces known or presumed to exist. The popularity of ‘behind-the-scenes’ tours, ‘backstage’ musicals and plays and actors’ memoirs are all evidence of a western cultural fascination with the actual and imagined realms that lie hidden beyond the stage. Such a fascination derives in part from the spatial delineations that mark out theatre space from everyday social space, backstage from front-of-house, and auditorium from stage. The delineations that separate out the spaces used by spectators and practitioners in more traditional theatres are significant because they create what Alice Rayner has described as “a geometry of seeming difference.” This geometry, Rayner suggests, “carries a powerful affect that connects actual spaces to a more general form of aggression and desire.” (2002: 539)
In this paper I will examine how the geometry that Rayner describes is negotiated in the design and use of a number of more modern theatres in Australia and the United Kingdom. Through this I seek to map out dimensions of the relationship between theatre audiences and theatre architecture and suggest how being an audience to theatre involves a tension between a desire for access to the more hidden realms and operations that sustain a performance and a desire to be denied that access.
Friday, May 25, 2007
I'm Going to Prague ...
... and this is what I'll be talking about:
‘Implacing’ Theatre Practice: A Theoretical Framework
Despite the increased attention that has been directed towards the function of space and place in the production and reception of theatrical performance little sustained academic attention has been directed towards backstage space and the use of such space by theatre practitioners. In Space in Performance (1999) Gay McAuley concludes that this exclusion of backstage space indicates the extent to which many studies of theatre architecture “are in fact concerned with the building as aesthetic object rather than with its function in a complex social process.” (9)
In this paper I will articulate a theoretical framework through which the function of theatre architecture in performance processes might be better understood. Beginning with Edward Casey’s phenomenological approach to ‘place’, and informed by the work of Edward Soja, I will argue that scholars investigating theatre architecture must take into consideration ‘perceived’ space (space as it is empirically measured), ‘conceived’ space (space as it is represented), and ‘lived’ space (space as it is experienced). The meaning of any place, especially a built place, is always complex and contested, and it is the very tension between ‘perceived’, ‘conceived’, and ‘lived’ space that constitutes the ‘matrix of sensibility’ within which any place is made meaningful.
Such a framework encourages a more holistic understanding of the vital relationship between theatre architecture and theatrical performance and opens up avenues for insight into how theatrical performance is made and re-made in different cultural settings and historical moments.
‘Implacing’ Theatre Practice: A Theoretical Framework
Despite the increased attention that has been directed towards the function of space and place in the production and reception of theatrical performance little sustained academic attention has been directed towards backstage space and the use of such space by theatre practitioners. In Space in Performance (1999) Gay McAuley concludes that this exclusion of backstage space indicates the extent to which many studies of theatre architecture “are in fact concerned with the building as aesthetic object rather than with its function in a complex social process.” (9)
In this paper I will articulate a theoretical framework through which the function of theatre architecture in performance processes might be better understood. Beginning with Edward Casey’s phenomenological approach to ‘place’, and informed by the work of Edward Soja, I will argue that scholars investigating theatre architecture must take into consideration ‘perceived’ space (space as it is empirically measured), ‘conceived’ space (space as it is represented), and ‘lived’ space (space as it is experienced). The meaning of any place, especially a built place, is always complex and contested, and it is the very tension between ‘perceived’, ‘conceived’, and ‘lived’ space that constitutes the ‘matrix of sensibility’ within which any place is made meaningful.
Such a framework encourages a more holistic understanding of the vital relationship between theatre architecture and theatrical performance and opens up avenues for insight into how theatrical performance is made and re-made in different cultural settings and historical moments.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Send me to Prague - Please!
[Send me here]Why? Because I am a struggling early career theatre researcher with no institutional backing (and no money) who has just heard about the conference of his dreams. Today I received an email advising me that the Architecture Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research will be holding their first meeting, in Prague, from the 18th to the 20th June, coinciding with the Prague Quadrennial. This is the conference for me. I attended the Scenography Working Group conference in Prague in 2003, and that was good (and you can read the results) - but this will be better. I have spent four years writing a thesis on the finer points of theatre architecture, and now is the time for me to get out there and discuss the results with the heavies! This will not be a holiday!
(Okay, a little qualification, I do have enough money to live, but my wife has been supporting me rather heavily over the last few years and now I need to return the favour by not directing my income (and hers!) towards conferences, books and other academic follies. So, if you think I'm a bit crazed, think of this as a favour to her.)
That's the gist. Help me out! Who has a killer idea for how I can raise $3500?*
*A free foot massage and simultaneous lecture on the backstage areas of Sydney theatre buildings for the person with the best idea.
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