Prague Quadrennial Workshops at the Zlomvaz Festival

The Prague Quadrennial is in collaboration with DAMU (Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts)organizing series of workshops conducted by international lecturers. The workshops are part of the 20th edition of ZLOMVAZ, a theatre festival of art schools from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. Following the tradition of Prague Quadrennial educational program for students, the workshops explore composition of performances in the public space, masking and metamorphosis as social phenomena, as well as dramaturgy of text installed in space, all under the professional guidance of international acclaimed artists.
 
The workshops are led by Lotte van den Berg, Dutch director, who will focus on the creation of a performance through the eye of the spectator, the artists Julian Hetzel and Michele Rizzo, who will explore transformation and shapeshifting in performance, and Czech artist Tomáš Svoboda, who’s interests lay in the relationship between imagination, image, space and text; the possibility of creating scenography through text.

The Zlomvaz Festival will take place May, 8 – 11, 2013. For more information and to register for the workshops go to Zlomvaz website.

The Zlomvaz Festival is part of the SparedSpace project.

With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union.

The respective workshops have been made possible through the kind support of the Goethe Institut Prag and the Netherlands Embassy in Prague.

Review of The Disappearing Stage in TD&T

The Disappearing Stage: Reflections on the 2011 Prague Quadrennial was reviewed by Linda Essig in USITT's Theatre Design & Technology magazine, Vol 49, No. 1 (winter 2013). You can read the review here 143.0 KB.

The Disappearing Stage is a book of reflections on the recent 12th edition of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. The authors include both domestic and foreign theorists and artists: Marvin Carlson (USA), Christopher Baugh (UK), Thea Brejzek (DE), Beth Weinstein (USA), Guy Gutman (IL) and Barbora Příhodová (CZ). The publication’s editor as well as author of last essay is American theatre theorist Arnold Aronson. The book’s essays look at various projects or aspects of the 2011 Prague Quadrennial, but many of which serve as a starting point for a deeper theoretical evaluation of contemporary theatre and scenography.

Book contents and also Thea Brejzek’s Scenography: or Making Space - available here.

You can purchase the book in PROSPERO bookshop.

Documentary movie Designated Space now available online!

DESIGNATED SPACE from Background films on Vimeo.

Designated Space is a documentary film essay by director Hana Železná exploring space for performance that carries its own story and initiates performative action. The film looks at public, private and theatre spaces as possible stages for theatrical and everyday acting. This highly visual film includes footage of scenographic and architectural spaces from Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2011 exhibitions and projects as well as from other public and private spaces in the city. The film follows the research into scenography as an independent and expanded field.

Script, director: Hana Železná
Photography: Braňo Pažitka
Editing: Adam Brothánek
Music: Michal Rataj
Production: Mikuláš Novotný
Producer: Arts and Theatre Institute – Prague Quadrennial

Happy 2013!

(photo: Viktor Kronbauer, Quiet Nose performance)

Dear PQ Participants, Fans and Friends,

We would like to wish you happy new year 2013 and briefly sum up the old one:

The year 2012 began with two final Intersection events: the Intersection exhibition at the Gallery of Cultural Centre of Belgrade, Serbia organized by Kiosk, and the new version of the Intersection white cubes/black boxes project designed by Rodrigo Tisi in Santiago de Chile – organized by the Festival Internacional Santiago a Mil.

Intersection was wrapped up by Designated Space, a 26-minute film-essay about scenography by Hana Železná. You can now watch the film online.

The Prague Quadrennial 2011 was officially wrapped up by publication of the book, The Disappearing Stage, edited by Arnold Aronson with articles by Marvin Carlson, Christopher Baugh, Thea Brejzek, Guy Gutman, Barbora Příhodová, and Beth Weinstein.

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This year we have focused on events in the Czech Republic and have concentrated on sharing our international connections and information with the local community:
In Prague in April 2012, Devised Dramaturgy, a Shared Space symposium, explored new strategies of creating performance scripts and space and was attended by over 150 theatre artists, professionals and students from 22 countries. The symposium was accompanied by Etiquette, a self-devised performance without actors held in a public space by Rotozaza. This performance was also presented at the Pilsen Theatre Festival in September.

For the Zlomvaz festival of the Prague Academy of Performing Arts we have organized a series of workshops for students of all theatre disciplines exploring the creation of space by the body of a performer.

We are especially proud of the SpaceLab project – a touring scenography residency for 8 Czech scenographers and scenography theorists, within which they had an opportunity to meet colleagues, visit galleries, workshops, theatres and theatre schools, and see performances in Bregenz, Austria, Riga, Latvia and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

In September, we produced the Quiet Nose by Egon Tobiáš, directed by prominent Czech director Jan Nebeský. This site specific performance was created especially for the Nekázanka Street building in the very center of Prague where part of the Arts and Theatre Institute and Prague Quadrennial offices will be moved in very near future.

On December 6th, we closed this year with Scenography 2012 Party and live presentations of this year’s works by local scenographers at the National Gallery.

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We are working tirelessly on the concept for of the 13th Prague Quadrennial 2015 to make it an even more intense, challenging and exciting event! The PQ 2015 concept (including new systems of exhibiting within the main sections) will be officially announced in summer 2013.

Until then, join us to receive the PQ newsletter, send out information about your scenography events, and add/read articles about scenography at: E-scenography.
 
Happy New Year!

The PQ Team

Explore past PQ 2011 in the book The Disappearing Stage

The Disappearing Stage: Reflections on the 2011 Prague Quadrennial is a book of reflections on the recent 12th edition of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. The authors include both domestic and foreign theorists and artists: Marvin Carlson (USA), Christopher Baugh (UK), Thea Brejzek (DE), Beth Weinstein (USA), Guy Gutman (IL) and Barbora Příhodová (CZ). The publication’s editor as well as author of last essay is American theatre theorist Arnold Aronson. The book’s essays look at various projects or aspects of the 2011 Prague Quadrennial, but many of which serve as a starting point for a deeper theoretical evaluation of contemporary theatre and scenography.

Book contents and also Thea Brejzek’s Scenography: or Making Space - available here.

ISBN: 78-80-7008-283-6 Price: CZK 300

Sale in PROSPERO bookshop

Become an online scenographer using the E-scenography service!

E-scenography is an online service created by the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space within the Intersection project.

E-scenography aims to create an informational community to discuss issues connected to scenography, including all performance design disciplines, theatre architecture, and space. Join in!
 
E-scenography provides 3 services:
 
the newsletter IntersectionS – you can post information about scenography / performance design projects (performances, exhibitions, symposia, books, etc.) – to be distributed  to the E-scenography mailing list (currrently about 10 000 email addresses). 
 
the Scenography Education service (the art school database) – you can search for a school connected to performance design and architecture (currently about 200 schools profiles) and active employees of schools can add or edit information about their school in the list.
 
the Scenography Expanding service (an online library) – you can upload and download texts and other materials connected to scenography theoretical and historical discourse.
E-scenography´s content is created by you, the scenographers: stage, costume, sound, and lighting designers, teachers, curators, and theorists.

The services are available for registered users only and it is free of charge.

Go to E-SCENOGRAPHY

Register to E-SCENOGRAPHY

With the support of the Culture Programme of the European Union
Supported by Trust for Mutual Understanding.

The Prague Quadrennial is organized and funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and produced by Arts and Theatre Institute.

See photos from the symposium

About 150 participants from 30 countries visited the Devised Dramaturgy: a Shared Space, international symosium, organized by Prague Quadrennial / Arts and Theatre Institute in cooperation with Archa Theatre and AMU/KALD DAMU with Alfred ve dvore theatre, Four Days in Motion festival, Dance Zone magazine and HAMU.

The video recording from the symposium can be watched at www.primyprenos.cz. Part of the symposium will also be accessible through sound recordings at E-scenography Expanding Library soon. There are also already a few articles related to the topic written by Hans Thies Lehman and Patrick Primavesi, Synne Behrndt and Tim Etchells added to the library.

Check the photogallery here.

Dramaturgy: A Shared Space - video recording

Symposium for the Makers // April 20 / 21, 2012 at Archa Theatre, Prague

Almost 130 participants from 30 countries has registered for the Devised Dramaturgy: a Shared Space, international symosium, organized by Prague Quadrennial / Arts and Theatre Institute in cooperation with Archa Theatre and AMU/KALD DAMU with Alfred ve dvore theatre, Four Days in Motion festival, Dance Zone magazine and HAMU. Here you can find the final program.

The symposium has just started and if you can not be with us at the Archa Theatre in Prague, you can follow us at www.primyprenos.cz. Part of the symposium will be also later accessible through sound recordings at E-Scenography Expanding Library. There are also already a few articles related to the topic written by Hans Thies Lehman and Patrick Primavesi, Synne Behrndt and Tim Etchells added to the library. So you can see us and the participants´contributions as well as discussions or read the articles. Join us!

See the on-line catalogue of PQ 2011

See the online catalogue of the PQ 2011 international competitive exhibition of performance design and architecture.

The Prague Quadrennial Earned the State Twice What It Gave in Subsidies

Thanks to the event visitors to Prague spent over 164 million Crowns and new jobs were created;
The twelfth year of the event in 2011 drew participation from 50,000 visitors from a total of 61
countries.

A study of the economic impact of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space,
held last year in Prague, reveals that it was one of the most successful cultural projects of 2011,
not just for artists, but also in an economic perspective. Research conducted among 18,000
individual paying visitors showed that in connection with their attendance at this event people
spent more than 164 million Crowns and there was an increase in revenue of 393 million
Crowns. Every Crown in the budget of the Prague Quadrennial thus generated almost 6
Crowns in revenue for the Czech economy and two Crowns of GDP.