JEAN-GUY LECAT ON BUILDING THEATRE TODAY: “The difference between a true space and one that is not lies in the criteria that favours or disfavours life. That which favours this concentration is thus legitimate while that which shies away from it is not. Continue reading »
Filed under Performance Design …
CONVERSATION | Jean-Guy Lecat talks about creating a Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn on Jan. 5th
Over the next year, TFANA will host a series of free public discussions, which will focus on each team member’s exploration of how theatrical design can support art. I am honored to kick off TFANA’s Humanities series “Part One: A Conversation with Jean-Guy Lecat,” an exploration on space, architecture and performance design. Our conversation talk is set for Sunday, January 5, 2023 at 5:30pm at the Theatre for a New Audience at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn. Continue reading »
BUT IS IT PERFORMANCE DESIGN? | Tino Sehgal’s “This situation” dreamily implicates the art experience, and quite likely elite academia itself
“The situation” is purely experiential, engaging viewers immediately in real time and space to implore a questioning of the art experience, and experience itself. If “This situation” is not a work of performance design, I don’t know what is. It is not surprising to learn that Sehgal is a trained choreographer; he composes what is then physically interpreted by non-actors, actors and dancers, and in the case of “This Situation,” intellectuals. Continue reading »
CONFERENCE ON BREAKING BOUNDARIES | Looking back at the early marriage of Theater, Architecture and the Visual Arts
This conference, “Ephemeral and Permanent,” focuses on the interrelations of the visual arts and the dramatic arts in Rome broadly between 1300 and 1700. In this context, scenography and pageantry apparatus were as much the domain of visual artists as painting, sculpture, and architecture. Continue reading »
PHOTO GALLERY | Road to opening night of “From the Edge: Performance Design in the Divided States of America”
This slideshow documents the second part of the process. We want to share the work we did in Prague to Americans. We wanted a gallery environment in New York to house the works. And we hope to inspire the next batch of curators and producers to create their own USA national space for the 2015 Prague Quadrennial.
Continue reading »
CURATORIAL ESSAY | From the Edge: Performance Design in the Divided States of America
I would go so far to say that, after post-structuralism, communication is now the dominant force in design innovations. PQ provides designers with an international art-based platform where they can wrest back the current valorization of time-based performance modes, which visual artists have ruthlessly co-opted for their own ends Continue reading »
INTERVIEW Part 2 | From the Edge: Active Searching & The Value of the Prague Quadrennial
“These events, on a practical level, raise the public’s level of awareness of the importance of good creative design. They affirm the professionalism and creativity of outstanding designers and theater architects. And these events have demonstrated an economic impact to the countries that host them.” Continue reading »
Postcards from the Inge interview, Part 3 | A Ripple Effect
The following interview originally appeared in Postcards from the Inge, a blog. It is re-posted here with the kind permission of the author. Interview by AMANDA WHITE THIETJE Well, here it is, friends—the final installment of the Randy Gener trilogy. Thank you for tuning in this week to read Randy’s words, and many thanks to Mr. Gener … Continue reading »
Lesbian herstory as performance design | 100 feminist drawings by 100 artist go to bed with collected objects from Brooklyn Museum
Ulrike Müller’s conceptual project, “Herstory Inventory” is a theatrical installation. It pushes together two sets of created inventory: new art inspired by the Lesbian Herstory Archive, and museum objects from the Brooklyn Museum where it is presently on view through September 9, 2012. Continue reading »
Currently in production | Play excerpt, models, design sketches for Pacific Beat Collective’s “Tala” at HERE Arts Center, July 28 to 31
“Tala” will perform in a workshop production July 28th to 31st at HERE Arts Center in downtown SoHo in New York City. The play, a work-in-progress, is a critique on the nature of political revolutions. Click here to read a play excerpt and see the work of the designers and actors as they prepare for the production. Continue reading »
Book release | “Marco Anelli: Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic”
After becoming an internet sensation, Marco Anelli’s powerful portraits of sitters in the historic 2010 Marina Abramovic performance at the Museum of Modern Art, New York are now collected and available in their entirety in this volume Continue reading »
Performance artist Marisa Prefer sets aside “Breathing Room” at Bushwick gallery
Signal is pleased to present Breathing Room, a temporary environment by artist Marisa Prefer. Viewers are invited to enter a large-scale inflatable sculpture installed within the gallery Continue reading »
Edible diplomacy | U.S. and Croatia political relations served and summed up in food installation
A food installation from Croatia, cumbersomely entitled “KroaTisch–Amerikanische Freundschaft,” directly alludes to important events in the history of Croatian-American political relations. Continue reading »
Slideshow | How to walk over a Balkan performance artist
Want to see how they built Igor Josifov’s “2-Dimensional”? Click on my slideshow. In this unusual performance, the artist is an observer as much as he is observed while the spectator becomes a performer. Continue reading »
Queer New York International Arts Festival proposes “new concept of queer”
In discussing the festival, the curators of Queer New York International Arts Festival have stated that they want to “break through dominant ideas that limit and marginalize queer art, by creating a new concept of queer as a wider platform Continue reading »
Performance review | Seeing the Romanian Cultural Institute’s “Window” through Alice’s looking glass
The Window is a unique theatrical experience, because enigma is a principal aspect of its charms. An inspiring two-part site-specific performance-design project created and directed by Ana Mărgineanu for the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York (RCINY), The Window asks you to pay close attention if you happen to stroll by RCINY’s storefront spaces. Continue reading »
Performance review: Watch a storefront story from a New York sidewalk in this Romanian-American collaboration
“The Window” succeeds in its creative transformation of an otherwise nondescript building space that is normally used as a bookstore, a reception area or a meeting place. If you did know that there is a Romanian consulate and cultural services in that corner of the neighborhood, you definitely will remember that piece of information the next time you pass by. Continue reading »
Postcards from the Inge interview, Part 1 | From The Edge
IT’S PRAGUE QUADRENNIAL WEEK on Postcards from the Inge! Randy agreed to talk with me about the PQ, and there’s so much in this interview I want to share with you that I’m going to post it in three parts, so look for the second installment here and the third installment here. Continue reading »
Postcards from the Inge interview, Part 2 | Active Searching & The Value of the Prague Quadrennial
The following interview originally appeared in Postcards from the Inge, a blog. It is re-posted here with the kind permission of the author. Interview by AMANDA WHITE THIETJE Here is the second installment of my interview with Randy Gener, curatorial adviser and co-creator of the USA national pavilion “From the Edge,” about the Prague Quadrennial. I’ve included … Continue reading »
Postcards from the Inge interview, Part 3 | A Ripple Effect
“The future is increasingly becoming hyper-local and immersive. The designers of the future will have to provide valuable insights into how, why and where we create new performance environments. They will determine the shape of theatre architecture to come. What’s the matter with Kansas if it cannot see that the techniques of illusion shape our reality, and not the other way around?” Continue reading »