Space and Performance - Researching place and gesture in real settings

• Autor(a) principal: Palinhos, Jorge
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/12132
• topic: Espaço; Arquitetura; Teatro; Site-specific; Visões Úteis

Although architecture and cinema or architecture and photography are two well developed fields of study, the connection between theatre and architecture has raised less awareness from academia. The purpose of the Dramatic Architectures project was to gather these two fields, find new ways of understanding their connections, namely the issues of gesture and space, researching the common areas of the two fields, and establish a methodology of research. For its subject, several possibilities were considered: the architecture of theatres, the connection between creative processes of both areas, site-specific theatre, the questions of light and sound in space, etc. For the time being, the project decided to focus on the research of site-specific theatre. Site-specific art is a common artform since the 60s that attempts to create works around specific places, attempting to raise the awareness about the place or attempting to change the aforementioned place. Originally, site-specific art, according to Mion Kwon, attempted to draw attention to the specific conditions of production and presentation of works of art, but later it was used to draw attention to broader cultural and social issues connected with each place. In my presentation, I aim to propose a methodology of research for site-specific theatre that highlights both the dramatic, performative and architectonic elements of site-specific theatre. Based on the analysis of The Rest of the World, a site-specific performance by Visões Úteis that took place in a taxi across Porto, I will try to define boundaries of research and methods to investigate the connections between space and performance, for the audience, in site-specific theatre, that can enlighten the hidden meanings and affects of space and gesture against a real setting.