This document discusses how scenography, or stage design, represents ideas and concepts through objects and human bodies on stage. It explains that stage objects and actors can simultaneously represent themselves and symbolize other ideas, depending on the surrounding performance. A scenographer indicates through their design what audience members should think about. However, individuals also bring their own identities and perspectives. Historical eras and new technologies have also shaped styles of stage representation over time. The document examines various artistic movements like realism and surrealism that have influenced scenography. It questions how representation on stage may evolve in the future with new digital technologies.
This document discusses how scenography, or stage design, represents ideas and concepts through objects and human bodies on stage. It explains that stage objects and actors can simultaneously represent themselves and symbolize other ideas, depending on the surrounding performance. A scenographer indicates through their design what audience members should think about. However, individuals also bring their own identities and perspectives. Historical eras and new technologies have also shaped styles of stage representation over time. The document examines various artistic movements like realism and surrealism that have influenced scenography. It questions how representation on stage may evolve in the future with new digital technologies.
This document discusses how scenography, or stage design, represents ideas and concepts through objects and human bodies on stage. It explains that stage objects and actors can simultaneously represent themselves and symbolize other ideas, depending on the surrounding performance. A scenographer indicates through their design what audience members should think about. However, individuals also bring their own identities and perspectives. Historical eras and new technologies have also shaped styles of stage representation over time. The document examines various artistic movements like realism and surrealism that have influenced scenography. It questions how representation on stage may evolve in the future with new digital technologies.
This document discusses how scenography, or stage design, represents ideas and concepts through objects and human bodies on stage. It explains that stage objects and actors can simultaneously represent themselves and symbolize other ideas, depending on the surrounding performance. A scenographer indicates through their design what audience members should think about. However, individuals also bring their own identities and perspectives. Historical eras and new technologies have also shaped styles of stage representation over time. The document examines various artistic movements like realism and surrealism that have influenced scenography. It questions how representation on stage may evolve in the future with new digital technologies.
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1/ 5
Modes of [Re]presentation
on Stage Essay with exercises for high school, college, or university students by Kathleen Irwin When we watch a presentation on stage, how do we understand what we are watching? This is an important question it is the question that is at the centre of the action of representation: someone or something being depicted on stage. In answering this question, here are terms that will be used in the discussion.
Presentation:
the proffering or giving of something to someone, esp. in a formal
ceremony.
the manner or style in which something is given, offered or displayed.
a formal introduction of someone.
a demonstration or display of a product or an idea.
an exhibition or theatrical performance.
Representation:
the action of speaking or acting of behalf of someone or the state of being
represented.
the depiction or portrayal of someone or something in a picture, on stage
or in a work of art.
the thing esp. a picture or a model that depicts a likeness of someone or
something.
Emblem:
a thing serving as a symbolic representation of a particular quality or
concept.
Zeitgeist:
The prevailing spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by
the ideas and beliefs of the time.
Frame:
the border or boundary of the stage opening delineated by the proscenium
arch a basic structure that underlies or supports a system, concept or text.
Scenography:
Scenography is the art of creating performance environments. (see What
is Scenography? by Pamela Howard, London and New York, Routledge, 2002.)
How the Scenographer makes Meaning on Stage
Theatre Stages of the 20th Century are said to be emblematic. This means that objects, including human bodies that are placed within the frame of the stage, are understood to represent both the object itself and something(s) else at the same time. For example, a wooden chair may be merely a chair or it may stand in for or represent something much grander for, example, a throne (and the power behind the throne). Depending on the action that surrounds it, it might represent:
a pilots seat in an airplane (and the 9/11 terrorist plot),
or an electric chair (and the overcrowding of the penal system).
By the same token, within the frame of the stage, a person of a certain sex, age, or shape may represent, at any given time:
him or herself, and at another,
a young woman burying her brother against the terms of battle (Antigone),
a young man unable to revenge the death of his father (Hamlet) or
an old man deciding how to divide up his wealth between his three daughters (King Lear).
Of course, over the period of a performance, a single person or object may
represent or signify any number of things. Furthermore, depending on the circumstances surrounding the performance or the experience of the person watching from the auditorium, what the object on stage represents may vary from minute to minute and situation to situation. In other words, the spectator plays a determining role in what things mean on stage. Who you are determines what things mean. One answer to the question How do we understand what we are watching? can be found in looking at the work of a stage designer or scenographer. We understand what we are watching on stage because a scenographer has indicated, through his or her creative or aesthetic choices, what we should be thinking as we look at the stage. In a sense, we are looking at the world of the play from the perspective of the scenographer. Of course, this is rather simplistic remember that this simple act of looking at the stage is complicated by what each one of us brings to that activity. Individually, we give meaning to what we see.
Observing the various dictionary meanings of the
words presentation andrepresentation given above, we can see that within these explanations is conveyed the work of the stage artist the scenographer. A scenographer presents something on stage, i.e. a spectacle, and that spectacle represents, or is emblematic of a number of other meanings, ideas or concepts. These meanings are also impacted by the unique circumstances of each performance and the unique qualities of every spectator. These include such things as age, gender, education, political leaning, religious belief, cultural background in other words, our identity. Over the last hundred years, styles of stage representation have varied significantly and for a myriad of reasons. Some of these reasons have to do with the prevailing zeitgeist of the period. For example, the 1950s were defined by such iconic figures as James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and rock and roll. The 1990s were defined by Marilyn Manson and industrial metal rock. Such artistic styles have a profound effect on how things are represented on stage (and off). We are affected by trends but we also determine our own unique styles as music, film, literature, fashion and cuisine mix and mingle around the world. We represent who we are to the world, through the aesthetic choices we make.
How Scenography Relates to other Genres of Art
In the theatre, some of the styles of presentation that we are most familiar with reflect the styles and modes of expression that were evident in other arts forms:
realism
naturalism
expressionism
impressionism
surrealism
cubism
abstract realism
abstraction
minimalism
collaged or fragmented realism
post modernism, and so forth.
There are some stage styles that are determined by physical movement this may be defined as physical theatre. There are many variations of this kind of
theatre over the twentieth century but all forms are of it emphasize not only the way the stage looks but how the stage performs. There are some designers who are so unique that they become trendsetters they dramatically change scenographic representation for an entire generation of stage artists.Josef Szoboda, whose work is seen in the NAC collection, is one such theatre artist. Look at his designs for The Queen of Spades, Adriadne auf Naxos and Idomeneo. Maquettes in the NAC Archive are good examples of many of the trends mentioned above:
Realism Jitters, Journeys End, Les Belles Soeurs, Les Bonnes, Private Lives, Skylight, Terminal Blues, Whos Afraid of Virgina Woolf, 7 Stories
Physical Staging John and the Missus, Les Contes de Ionesco, Les Fantastiques, Sainte Marie Among the Hurons, The Oresteia
Abstract Realism La Mouette, Les Femmes Savantes, Man and
Superman, Riel
Minimalism Le Moine Noir, Andromaque, Agnes of God
Impressionism Marys Wedding
Expressionism Soudain lete dernier, The Beauty Queen of Leenane,
The Caretaker Surrealism The Glass Menagerie
The Impact of Technology on Scenography
New modes of technology also have a huge impact on the way we use our stages. Although, in the centuries prior to our own era, stages have always been modified and elaborated by simple technology used to marvelous effect (painted backdrops, flying scenery and candle light), at the end of the nineteenth century exciting new ways of illuminating the stage were introduced. Designers and technicians experimented with limelight, gaslight and eventually arc (or electric) light. With the advent of electricity, stage innovations became extremely sophisticated and stage devices were invented to facilitate instantaneous and miraculous set changes in a blink of an eye. Literally, any environment a race track with horses, an ice flow on a raging river, the peak of K2 (the worlds second highest mountain) could be portrayed in minute detail and lit to stunning effect. Indeed, it is said, that the various artistic movements evident on the stages in the twentieth century have been as a result of the acceptance or rejection of elaborate stage technology.
More on this topic:
Scenic Design: A History of Change and Innovation (by Janet Irwin)
Theatre, Performance and Technology: the Development of Scenography in the Twentieth Century by Christopher Baugh, Palgrave, MacMillan, 2005.
How will we represent ourselves on stage in the future? Will the stages of the future be real or virtual? Some of the answers to these questions are already playing out through the digital devices that we carry in our pocket the cell phones, Blackberries, iPhones, etc.; through the digital games that we use to entertain ourselves in our spare time; and through You Tube, My Space, Twitter, etc. These are the stages of the future and YOU will determine how they will be used to represent you and your place in the world.
Exercises: 1.
Bring in some small object that is of significance to you. It may be of little
or no value to someone else. Tell us what it represents to you.
2.
Use your cell phone to make and upload a short video of you in your favourite location. Tell us what that location represents to you.
3.
Place a small object on the surface of a table and put a chalk frame around it or place a masking tape frame around something that you tack onto a cork board or pin to the wall. Does framing the object make it special? Let others make up a story about the object you have framed.
4.
Consider a colourful advertisement in a magazine. What does it present to
you? What does it represent?
5.
What happens when, for example, Johnny Depp acts the role of Hamlet on stage or in a movie? How does the representation of the role change?
URDPFI Guidelines State That A Neighbourhood Should Range From An Area of 115-130ha Based On The Fact of Population Density For Large Cities Being 125-175 PPH
URDPFI Guidelines State That A Neighbourhood Should Range From An Area of 115-130ha Based On The Fact of Population Density For Large Cities Being 125-175 PPH
