Educating Theatre Artists For The Future Before I start this presentation: I am a Scenographer and Professor of Scenography and I have served as Chair of OISTAT Education for the last 8 years. This presentation is based on my teaching experience at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA and several design schools in Europe. Much of the information is gathered through the seminars of the Education commission in schools across the world as well as through conversations with colleagues – members of the Commission. I hope that this brief overview on current trends in design education will be useful for our Taiwanese colleagues. Contemporary theatre is not a coherent formula of aesthetic and artistic practices but in fact a widespread landscape of many local contexts and discourses, a pluralistic coexistence of artistic platforms and forms of expression, extending from the dramaturgy based practice of the repertory theatres, to the innovative practices of the experimental theatre laboratories. A view on the current situation in design education would offer similarly diverse and colorful picture of forms placed between academic and vocational, local and international structures: • University programs in Drama and Theatre Departments. • Conservatory schools. Theatre Academies. Visual Arts Academies. Design programs are found even in Music Academies and Architecture and Interior Design departments. • Post graduate research programs in Design for Performance. • Studio – schools, affiliated with famous theatre companies, such as the Moscow Art Theatre School, Milano La Scala School, Picolo Teatro School in Milano. • Vocational schools and programs. • Life Long learning non academic programs, offered by European projects, theatre festivals and professional organizations • Internship and practical research opportunities, offered by big repertory companies, festivals and experimental theatre laboratories. • International academic exchange programs. European Commission sponsored programs. • International non academic educational programs and events, organized by professional organizations in conjunction with conferences and festivals. This diversity of forms of training, combined with the growing international mobility and intercultural collaboration fosters bigger responsiveness of education to the processes in today’s theatre and opens paths for innovation and experiment towards the future. Some of the prevailing trends in contemporary design education, that reflect up-to-date movements in design practice and theatre focus on: Scenography. Interdisciplinarity. 1
Design research Designers created performances. Visual theatre. Crossing the borderlines of theatre creation. Design in the Information era. New digital technologies in theatre performance. Unusual performance spaces. Investigating the relationship between performance and audience. Vocational training. Building stronger ties between the academic world and the theatre practice. International cooperation and exchanges Scenography In the last decade, the term Scenography has become increasingly popular in contemporary performance design theory and practice, reflecting the importance of the visual composition of the performance and the creative role of the visual artist in the era of post dramatic theatre. The theater traditions of most of the European countries place the designer or the scenographer very strongly as one of the central figures of the creative process. The scenographer is considered as the visual artist in the process of creating theatre and the main artistic partner of the director, who creates the spatial – temporal environment and the visual composition of the performance, inspired directly by the dramaturgical text. In many schools, especially across Eastern and Central European countries, design education is shaped by this understanding of the role of the scenographer. For instance, in my country, Set, Lighting , Costume and even puppet design are taught together as a 4 years course of Scenography . The future scenographer is expected to acquire substantial and versatile skills as visual artists, as well as a broad cultural background. To support these requirements the curriculums include a big section of fine arts disciplines, such as extensive courses in drawing, painting, anatomy for artists, perspective, technology of painting, graphic techniques, as well as wide range of theoretical subjects, such as History of Stage Design and Technology, History of Architecture and Interior Design, History of Material Culture and Customs, History of Western Drama, History of Theatre, Directing, History of Costume, History of Styles, History and Technology of Fabric Decoration, History and Technology of Lace and Embroidery, History of Art, History of Music, History of Film Arts, Aesthetics, Philosophy, History of Religion, Fundamentals of Electronics, Fundamentals of Economics, Basics of Automatics, etc. Interdisciplinarity Although the concept of interdisciplinarity has been around since decades, the recent years have witnessed a fast growing interest in integrating curriculums across the design disciplines. Even 2
educational systems with traditionally strong division of the design disciplines search for more effective teaching tools to build closer collaboration across the different design areas . At the Theatre Department of the University of Tennessee, set, costume and lighting design are taught jointly in Design seminar course. Beginning with the first conceptual project in the first year students form teams of three (set, lighting and costume designer) and work in close collaboration to produce design concept, that brings together all visual aspects into artistic synthesis. The benefits of the learning outcomes include better critical thinking, enhanced creativity, integrative thought processes, sensitivity to ethical issues, tolerance... Students acquire broader artistic view and are able to communicate more effectively with other theatre artists. Designer created performances. This is one of the strong areas of interdisciplinary approach, that brings together fine arts and theatre and tests the borders of theatre creation in installations, designer led and visual dramaturgy based performance projects. This area of study emphasize on the role of the visual artist as an author of the performance and often gets particular attention in the curriculums of design programs, placed in Visual Arts Academies . Digital Media in Theatre Use of video and animation, interactive projection, internet, have become a commonplace practice in theatres and a favorite playground for young theatre artists and students. Many design programs include an extensive Digital Arts study section in their curriculums. Such is the case with the Scenography Department at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia, where I serve as faculty. In the 4 years BA curriculum, students follow a three years of Digital Media Design courses and acquire skills in 2D and 3D digital design and animation software. In the fourth year of the BA program as well as in the MA program they are given the options to work on short video or digital animation movie or on a piece of visual theatre, that searches for new ways of expression through digital technology. In some projects technology itself becomes the central theme of the artistic exploration. Unusual spaces Since the beginning of XX c. theatre has been searching for new practices regarding the relationship between the live performance and its space, turning urban settings into stages and exploring new modes of relationship between performance and audience. Design for site specific and found performance spaces constitutes an important module in the curriculums of most European schools. Assignments vary from staging a classical text in alternative space to creating a scenario for a performance in found space. Projects, related to the cutting edge developments in the Theatre of The Senses use sensory language to explore the relationship between performance, audience and public 3
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