The History And Theory Of Environmental Scenography

For most audiences, particularly in the Western tradition, theatre means going to a building in which seats face a stage on which actors perform a play. But there has always been a vital alternative that came to be known as environmental theatre. Whether in folk performances, street theatre, avant-garde performance, utopian architecture, Happenings, mass spectacles, or contemporary immersive theatre, the relationship of the spectator to the performance has been one in which the audience is surrounded or immersed in a shared space, in which the multiple events may be happening simultaneously, and in which the experience of theatrical space is visceral and often kinetic. This book examines the history of this phenomenon and looks at a range of contemporary practice.

A classic work of theatre history and criticism when first published, Arnold Aronson's formative study surveyed the phenomenon known as environmental theatre. Now updated in this richly illustrated second edition to reflect developments and practice since the 1980s, it offers readers a comprehensive study of the theatre practice which has evolved to become the dominant mode of much contemporary innovative performance. For most audiences, particularly in the Western tradition, theatre means going to a building in which seats face a stage on which actors perform a play. But there has always been a vital alternative that came to be known as environmental theatre. Whether in folk performances, street theatre, avant-garde performance, utopian architecture, Happenings, mass spectacles, or contemporary immersive theatre, the relationship of the spectator to the performance has been one in which the audience is surrounded or immersed in a shared space, in which the multiple events may be happening simultaneously, and in which the experience of theatrical space is visceral and often kinetic. This book examines the history of this phenomenon and looks at a range of contemporary practice. New chapters examine how the 'transformed spaces' of earlier work have become the interactive and immersive productions that characterize the work of companies such as Punchdrunk, dreamthinkspeak, Teatro da Vertigem, En Garde Arts, and The Industry, among others. Updated to take account of the burgeoning scholarship on the subject, The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography remains the authoritative account that illuminates present day theatre practice and its antecedents.

A classic work of theatre history and criticism when first published, Arnold Aronson's formative study surveyed the phenomenon known as environmental theatre. Now updated in this richly illustrated second edition to reflect developments and practice since the 1980s, it offers readers a comprehensive study of the theatre practice which has evolved to become the dominant mode of much contemporary innovative performance. For most audiences, particularly in the Western tradition, theatre means going to a building in which seats face a stage on which actors perform a play. But there has always been a vital alternative that came to be known as environmental theatre. Whether in folk performances, street theatre, avant-garde performance, utopian architecture, Happenings, mass spectacles, or contemporary immersive theatre, the relationship of the spectator to the performance has been one in which the audience is surrounded or immersed in a shared space, in which the multiple events may be happening simultaneously, and in which the experience of theatrical space is visceral and often kinetic. This book examines the history of this phenomenon and looks at a range of contemporary practice. New chapters examine how the 'transformed spaces' of earlier work have become the interactive and immersive productions that characterize the work of companies such as Punchdrunk, dreamthinkspeak, Teatro da Vertigem, En Garde Arts, and The Industry, among others. Updated to take account of the burgeoning scholarship on the subject, The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography remains the authoritative account that illuminates present day theatre practice and its antecedents.

Previous editions published by UMI research Press, c1981.

Engaging essays by an internationally prominent historian and theorist of theater set design

The Routledge Companion to Scenography is the largest and most comprehensive collection of original essays to survey the historical, conceptual, critical and theoretical aspects of this increasingly important aspect of theatre and performance studies. Editor and leading scholar Arnold Aronson brings together a uniquely valuable anthology of texts especially commissioned from across the discipline of theatre and performance studies. Establishing a stable terminology for a deeply contested term for the first time, this volume looks at scenography as the totality of all the visual, spatial and sensory aspects of performance. Tracing a line from Aristotle’s Poetics down to Brecht and Artaud and into contemporary immersive theatre and digital media, The Routledge Companion to Scenography is a vital addition to every theatre library.

The book addresses the challenge of living in a multilingual world from three perspectives: socio-linguistics and the study of multilingualism in contrast, philosophy of technology with its emphasis on the world as a technosphere—how it is made, how it is experienced, and how it can be managed, and then pedagogy and the question of teaching and learning to competently negotiate multilingual environments. In today‘s multicultural and multilingual world, technologies provide a common ground. The story of the technosphere as a multilingual environment offers new perspective, namely that of learning to cooperate and coordinate.