Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2023 - 22

narratives embedded in location, isolation,
and death.
Some of the clearest responses to the
COVID-19 pandemic were found in the
Thailand exhibit, and its Theatre to Go;
Watch from Home boxes. This project,
winner of the Visionary Scenographic
Strategies in the ECR Award, allowed
patrons to order a theatre experience
in a box. The concept statement for the
project notes that " Theatre To Go invited
four Thai artists, two theatre groups,
and three scenographers from different
parts of Thailand who have been active
in their performing arts work during the
hard time of the COVID-19 pandemic
(2020-2022) to recreate the live experience
theatre box at home. " These boxes
featured 3-D printed furniture and three
different backdrops. Patrons could use
these to stream an augmented reality
performance that would then " sit " in the
shipping box turned into a theatre space.
These performances ranged from recordings
of people in a space that echoed the
miniature theatre space of the box to a
completely digitally rendered environment
for performance.
Singapore also looked at how personThailand's
Theatre to Go; Watch from Home, winner of the Visionary Scenographic Strategies in the ECR Award.
Top: A replica room, which serves as the audience's performance space. Bottom: An attendee watches a
production on a phone while sitting on the bed in the room. | Photos by David Kumermann, Prague Quadrennial
2023.
This ability to mix purposes and invite
interaction from all visitors helped underscore
the 2023 theme of RARE and offered
a deeper context for the artistic and
scenographic reflections on the ongoing
recovery from the pandemic and emphasizing
how humans are actively seeking
to restore interaction and connection. As
Markéta Fantová wrote in spring 2021's
theme and artistic concept announcement:
" In the current state of precarity,
uncertainty, and epochal change, we call
on performance designers, scenographers,
and performance practitioners to
use their RARE imagination and creativity
to help us envision what the world and
theatre could look like in the post-pandemic
future. "
22 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | FALL 2023
Pandemic Response
Before, or perhaps alongside, a reimagining
of the world in a post-pandemic
future, there is a need to process the collective
trauma of the pandemic and artistically
grapple with the existential crisis
presented to all theatre artists during
that time.
Some countries offered their solutions
to pandemic performance, backgrounded
by pandemic-inspired anxiety
and grief, and also filled with the reborn
interest in exploring the domestic environment
that all theatre artists were
forcibly confined to during quarantine.
These exhibitions newly ask ancient
questions about theatre's relationship
to human connection, placemaking,
al experiences can be curated, guided,
and even packaged for patrons with its
Renewed Vision. This exhibit featured
four works framed as a warehouse of
information and experiences that the
viewer needed to seek out and package
as guided by a packing slip. The piece offered
viewers a narrative experience centered
around themes like the objects of
safety (like sanitizing wipes, and masks),
companions, interpersonal communication,
and human interaction with found
environments. Each story had tactile elements
organized on shelves for participants
to touch, open, read, and select as
they were guided through the experience.
Macau offered Home Staycation, featuring
a bed centered in a cage. Monitors
are visible from the bed, and in the corners
of the space are the detritus of constant
testing-a piled record of physical
health checks. This work reflects an individual's
experience as the pandemic
shifted bodily human experience from
that of physical space and connection to
a virtual space.
Denmark's Home Box Theatre explored
the recentering of narrative entertainment
in the home. With interactive
elements, viewers opened drawers on a

Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2023

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