Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2007 - 52

movie set. It employed dance, music, drumming, acting, and
ritual to create a visually rich evocation of contested space
in which ﬁre, tall grass, weathered wood, masks, and a chorus of women suggest an elemental world, but one that transcends the material. Its visual lexicon included the ancient
and modern, high art and low, as well as transmuted elements from non-African cultures, reﬂecting, as Bailey asserts,
the recontextualization and reinterpretion by Africa of the
world's "beliefs, junk, religions, fashions and theories...in
marvelous guises that defy the narrow interpretations of the
compartmentalized West."
An alternative synthesis of the traditional and contemporary characterized Taiwan's exhibition, one of two winners
for Best Use of Technology. Based in Chinese opera, productions like Wind Shadow and Wings extend that form's magical, spectacular, and mythical qualities to breathtakingly epic
heights-but also move it closer to cinematic representationalism and deemphasize its traditional center, the performer-through the use of water, wind, light, ﬂying, projection,
pyrotechnical, and set-movement technologies. Combining
these forces with refashioned fabrics, such as elongated warrior ﬂags made of highly responsive material or traditional
Taiwan: Gold Medal for Best Use of Technology
over-the-hand sleeves lengthened to ten feet, demonstrated,
the jury noted, the Taiwan artists' "facility with and profound
understanding of the possibilities of both modern and ancient technolounder threat" formed of artists and technicians who use such knowledge
gies." Since the Taiwanese exhibit embodied these same qualities-with
to lobby political institutions for their preservation and reconstruction.
two stories of thick, twisting natural rattan obscuring a metal frame and
By withholding a medal, the jury hopes to provoke consideration of what
interwoven with sinuous data and power cables that ran to ﬂat-screen
might constitute theatre architecture of the future. Its high standards for
monitors-the environment of presentation, as well as the consonance
architecture, in fact, played a part in its considerations for production
between exhibit and designs, may have played a factor in its success.
design.
To observe with the jury that the young Boris Kudlicˇka of Slovakia
The jury's gold medal designee for best set design reafﬁrmed the
uses technology "to create images of astonishing effect" fails to suggest
value it and previous juries have placed on sculptural rather than pictorial
his facility with extending the illusion of space or isolating the human
values. Joao Mendes Ribeiro of Portugal received the award as an "archiﬁgure. Based now in Warsaw, Kudlicˇka works in numerous countries ustect who truly understands theatrical space." The roof-like structure of his
ing mechanical and electronic technologies in ways that blur the distincdesign for Don Juan, for instance, slopes in two directions and contains
tion between set and light design. Particularly striking is his use of a full
doors and gaps set within the rakes on which the performers must negotivideo wall of birds ﬂying along what seems a seashore with a bridgeway
ate. Private Property consists of a long, newspaper-plastered wall that
polished to reﬂect it dividing the image horizontally, with the reversed and
revolves 180 degrees to reveal multiple tightly packed living spaces of
darkened image from above reﬂected below the bridge and suggesting an
doors, grates, openings, stairs, blank surface, disappearing table, as well
ocean. His high-tech high-jinks for Don Giovanni at the Los Angeles Opas a bed on which the actors lie vertically, all done in unpainted wood.
era lampooned and "defamiliarized" Italianate scenic practices by tracing
The seventeen door-size openings in unadorned walls for The Hour When
lines of perspective along the black ﬂoor and walls in what appeared to be
We Knew Nothing about Each Other "quotes" the convention of a box
neon and lasers that seem to multiply through space by the use of stageset but in a stark, postmodern way that allows the practices associated
sized mirrored surfaces.
with it and farce to be hyperbolized. His inspired and inspiring designs
Although the PQ jury acknowledged design innovation like Kudlicˇka's,
create spare, interactive spaces that not only inﬂuence actor and audiwhich recalls Josef Svoboda's conﬁgurations of space and technology, it
ence on an affective level but on a physically effective plane, requiring, as
discovered nothing so inventive in architecture. Explaining why the comthey do, the performer to engage with, adjust to, operate, and activate the
mittee awarded no gold medal, the jury's president, José Carlos Serroni
constructions that deﬁne the space. Even without actors on them, their
of Brazil, noted that too many facilities with beautiful exteriors contain
obvious operability creates dynamic suspense. They function as support,
interiors that fail to "represent or take into consideration the creativity
antagonist, obstacle, and plaything of the actor and thus as a performer
and dreams of the directors and these theatre groups."1 Spain, nonethein their own right.
less, won an honorable diploma for the originality and spirit of its newly
The reasons for the jury's choice for Most Promising Talent in the
created International Observatory for Theatres at Risk (theatreatrisk.org/
Student Section and Scenofest were more difﬁcult to interpret. Reinis Sugo/), which aims to be a "collecting point for information on theatres
hanovs' design (Latvia) for the politically charged Master and Margarita
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http://www.theatreatrisk.org/
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2007
