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Dear OISTAT members and friends,

Scenofest 2011 will take place in the Prague Academy of the Performing Arts near the Charles Bridge as well as specific sites in the center of Prague. It will include workshops for over 1500 students.  (Click here to download PDF file)

Scenofest 2011 will create:

• Intersection of disciplines within theatre and the visual arts
• Intersection of interactive live and virtual experiences
• Intersection with cutting edge technologies
• Intersection with the local Prague community
• Intersection across cultural boundaries

Six Acts

The central project of Scenofest 2011 is Six Acts – a series of site specific spectacles that will take place in the very heart of Prague, and will be created by students from all over the world lead by prominent international artists.

Each of the ‘Acts’ will respond to the rich history of these sites in the heart of city – the ordinary and the extra-ordinary daily life, to uncover the stories that have become ‘lost’ even to the local inhabitants of Prague.  Five international student teams, each led by an artist of international repute from the performing and visual arts, will create a series of performances and installations over consecutive days during the Prague Quadrennial in June 2011. The Sixth Act will consist of a “way-finding” workshop, that will help audiences find the Acts and the Acts find their audiences.

This project is aimed at students/young artists with some experience of working with space or performance.  The groups will be comprised of a diverse mix of participants from around the world.  The different cultural and artistic backgrounds will enhance the experience of collaboration.

Working with a rich package of dramaturgical material, participants will have 9 months to research and develop a performance/installation proposal, exchanging ideas through an online network.  These proposals will inform the final work in Prague when there will be the opportunity to work as part of an ensemble.

Artists and groups invited to lead the Acts are: Theatre Titanick (Germany), Mapa Teatro (Columbia); Roma Patel (UK); Tomáš Žižka and Petr Matásek (Czech Republic) and Fiona Watt (UK).

Street Stories

Invisible Cities

Scenofest will further include the project Street Stories – a series of performances created for the streets of Prague.

Scenofest will invite students to submit performances especially made for an outdoor space in Prague: performances that uncover the invisible city; costumes inspired by the invisible city; lighting that makes the invisible, visible; and sounds that reveal the hidden thoughts of the city.

A public square in Prague will be designated as the space for Street Stories. Submissions will be based only on portable technologies, no electricity or technical support will be provided. Maximum length of performance will be

30 minutes (not including 10 minutes set up and 10 minutes strike).

The Gift

The final centerpiece is The Gift – a juried design exhibit that will use the internet to share storytelling across cultural boundaries.

The notion of The Gift is about human solidarity and cosmopolitanism. Freely giving something we value, a part of ourselves, to someone we care about is central to human interaction both on the interpersonal level and from the global perspective. The questions this project asks are:

Can we give a gift that is separable from our own self-interest?

Can we give a gift that represents who we are and where we are and that contributes to the social, global and creative enterprise?

As artists, do we see ourselves as gifted or gift-givers?

The Gift invites students to develop a performance / a gesture/ an act, based on the idea of the gift, between groups of young artists from the four corners of the world using the internet as a platform of exchange. During this project, exchange teams will be chosen (based on this call for proposals), ideas formulated over a period of time and “gifts” exchanged via a designated website. Every gift exchange that is deemed sufficiently conceptualized will be digitally exhibited at Scenofest / PQ11 and will be available on the web. This project is designed to include those who would like to participate in Scenofest but are unable to travel to Prague. Approximately 20 projects will be critiqued by a professional jury and publicly discussed over the ten days of Scenofest.  This discussion will be broadcast in real time via the website.

 Workshops

Scenofest is a unique opportunity for students to meet top professionals in different performance and design fields, to learn about the latest trends and innovations of design and technology, and to present their own works. Scenofest 2011 will be offering workshops across the following areas:   lighting, digital media, projections, sound design, costumes, puppetry, scenography, installation arts, technical theatre, crafts, dramaturgy, directing, theatre architecture, and virtual theatre. Scenofest 2011 workshops will take place in the building of the Prague Performing Arts Academy and other specific sites in the center of Prague, to create a living and lively space for students from all around the world.

 More information about Scenofest will be posted on the Scenofest/PQ website.

A call for Workshop Leaders and Proposals will be announced October 15, 2009.

More information for Six Acts, Street Stories and The Gift will be announced December 15, 2009.

 Sincerely,

 Cindy Limauro

Artistic Leader of Scenofest 2011

(last updated 10/02/2009)