Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2023 - 15

Schellinger created six half-scale period
costumes that provided a stark contrast
to much of the costume work presented
at PQ, which was typically rough, physical,
abstract, and inventive. Schellinger's pristine
small-scale costumes demonstrated
his skill and craft without productions or
performers; the work seemed almost like
a calm throwback in the context of current
visual trends of performance design.
Many young people were fascinated by
Fragments II and spent hours investigating
it. The models and objects allowed the
viewer to witness and maybe even enter
into a designer's process, tools, and materials.
To the old timers of the quadrennial,
Fragments II felt like the old PQ. The
audience experienced the design process
through actual artifacts of performances,
rather than incessant QR codes or highly
abstracted pavilions with no supporting
process materials.
The [UN]Common Design Project, a
part of the PQ Studio programming, was
also exhibited in Veletržní Palác. Students
were given the same prompt: the RARE,
the general theme for this edition of the
PQ. Many of the projects resulted in social
and political activist events relating to public
spaces, and most did not have a central
focus on costume design; however, there
were a few exceptions.
The Rusalka Project from Polish immigrant
Filip Gesse, a student at the London
College of Fashion, garnered attention because
of the scale, materials, and intricate
construction of the costume. The project
documented the performance by Ella
Muir, who wore Gesse's costume made of
straw and grain. Muir compelled passersby
in the London streets to stop and interact
with her. Conversations with the public
ensued about world hunger, war, environmentalism,
farming, and the multilayered
politics infiltrating all of these topics.
Whomanity, created by the Hungarian
University of Fine Arts students under the
mentorship of Fruzsina Nagy, dealt with
domestic violence and the lack of protection
for battered partners in Hungary.
The students created pastel satin dresses,
stitched them together to make a large fabric
surface and then laid them on a public
street. They invited passersby to step in
black paint and walk all over the dresses.
They then unstitched the dresses, donned
them, and wore provocative makeup depicting
physical wounds and perhaps unseen
mental or spiritual damage. Then,
Above: Maquette from Fragments II exhibition, Costumes as
a Trigger for Movement/Vestuario A Escena MX. Ambedo,
designed by Carolina Jiménez for Teatro de la Danza
Guillermina Bravo, 2019. | Photo by Anna Benháková,
Prague Quadrennial 2023.
Above: Maquette of Migrante en Tránsito from the
Fragments II exhibition, Displaced Imaginaries,
designed by Andre Álvarez Olivia, a student from the
Regional Training Program in Scenic Design of Chile.
| Photo by Margaret Mitchell.
Mobile maquette in Fragments II exhibition, Costumes
as a Trigger for Movement/Vestuario A Escena MX.
Gown showing a fast change transformation for the
Queen in Snow White, designed by Sara Soloman. |
Photo by Héctor Cruz Juárez, Prague Quadrennial 2023.
Sara Soloman's realized design of the Queen in Snow
White, showing the exterior of the Queen's gown.
National Dance Company of Mexico, the Witch: Mónica
Barragán. | Photo by Carlos Quezada. Reprinted with
permission of the National Dance Company of Mexico.
Interior of the Queen's gown after an avista fast change. | Photo by Carlos Quezada. Reprinted with permission
of the National Dance Company of Mexico.
FALL 2023 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | 15

Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2023

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