Call for proposals:

Performance Research 18.2 (April 2013)

 ‘On Scenography’.

Proposal Deadline: 31 July 2012 (see below for details).


Edited by Sodja Lotker and Richard Gough

Our understanding of scenography has, over the course of the twentieth century, changed radically from stage design as decoration, depicting a location of a (written) play, to the scenic/spatial construction (or intervention) of the place and site of performance -- scenography as a dynamic element in the creation of performance dramaturgy. 

Performance consists of two actively interacting layers -- ‘movement’ and ‘environment’, action and space, dramaturgy and scenography. The interaction between the two creates the potential and possibility for experiencing time and space within the performative act. But the boundaries between the two are often blurry and porous. Dramaturgy becomes scenography, and scenography is dramaturgy. Dramaturgy becomes the environment and scenography dances…

Scenography is the many-layered environment of a performance that creates spatial contexts and activates positioning. The movement of positioning (spatial and mental) is a crucial aspect of contemporary performance perceived as an experience and an event rather than a place for meaning or illustration. Scenography is acting out the historical, architectural, cultural, dramatic, situational, lyrical, archaeological, fragmentary, political, authentic, theatrical, social, physical, catastrophic, psychological… and many other dramaturgical contexts for and of the performance.

So, what are these dramaturgical environments we perform in? How do we influence them, and how do they influence us? Our environments determine how we understand and experience and interact with things: Who constructs these environments? Who is the scenographer? Does the movement in space determine scenography, or vice versa? Can we act out a space? Or shall we act in our space? Can we be environmentalists in the sense of social and political (performative) space? 

This issue of Performance Research -- On Scenography -- will explore layers of scenographic space and the action within it from the micro to the macro, from the spatially smallest to the largest, exploring the sense of spatial scale within performance and its potential. On Scenography will be built as a ‘Russian doll’, exploring the sites and places of acting and action from the minuscule to the private, from the public to the stage and to the city and to the universe, exploring the human sense of ‘self’ within a variety of scales of spaces. (For inspiration see http://scaleofuniverse.com/ )


The Issue Editors invite contributions that address any or all of the following areas: 

Micro-scenographies
Scenography and chemistry
Scenography and language
Scenography in the mind of audience
Scenography and the body
Scenography at home
Scenography on the stage
Scenography and architecture
Scenography and community
Scenography and the city
Scenography and geography
Scenography and outer space


'On Scenography' invites artists, practitioners and theorists to submit proposals for critical articles (between 2,000 and 6,000 words), documents or artist's pages, which position scenography in relation to the contexts and discourses of contemporary culture, to expanded and open concepts of performance and performance-making and in relation to an expanded view of what scenography might mean now as a generative, productive or even redundant term.

Sodja Lotker is the Artistic Director of Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. The most recent edition PQ#12 was held in Prague, Czech Republic in June 2011.

SCHEDULE
•       Proposals: 31 July 2012
•       First drafts: 18 October 2012
•       Publication: April 2013

ALL proposals, submissions and general enquiries should be sent direct to:
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Issue-related enquiries should be directed to the issue editors:
Sodja Lotker: [log in to unmask] or Richard Gough: [log in to unmask]

General Guidelines for Submissions: Proposals will be accepted by e-mail (MS-Word or RTF). Proposals should not exceed one A4 side. Please DO NOT send images electronically without prior agreement. Please note that submission of a proposal will be taken to imply that it presents original, unpublished work not under consideration for publication elsewhere. If your proposal is accepted you will be invited to submit an article in first draft by the deadline indicated above. On the final acceptance of a completed article you will be asked to sign an author agreement in order for your work to be published in Performance Research.