The Society of British Theatre Designers

Showcasing Fashion: The Near Future:

Emotive Set Design / Cognitive Environments / Multisensory Spaces
a one-day conference on Wednesday, 22 September 2010 to be held in the Lecture Theatre 
at the Victoria and Albert Museum – London.
Casting a spotlight on the art of exhibition, a conference on set design for fashion runway shows. How to produce spectacular 
results that engage the audience in a multi-sensorial experience. A series of talks by high-profile visionaries in set design, architecture, 
costume design, art, lighting design and event production.
6 September 2010. On 22 September the world’s largest design museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, plays host to an inspiring conference dedicated to set design and installations for the fashion industry. It is the first time that an entire day has been devoted to this topic and with such a wide-ranging and versatile approach. Organised by the International Festival of Scenic Arts (IFSArts), a cross-border festival that has for a number of years presented conferences and workshops while documenting the technical achievements and the creative potential of scenic arts in every field of application: from theatre to film and television, from live performance in its myriad forms to set designs and installations placed within an urban setting and destined for entertainment use.

In recent years technical achievements in scenography have advanced at such a rapid pace, leading to creative heights that were inconceivable a decade ago; coupled with an equally astounding revitalisation of figurative arts, these were clearly premonitory signs of the opening up of new and broader horizons. The IFSArts team are dedicated to exploring this fresh terrain and are proud to present a second edition of the festival at the V&A following the success of last year’s event. This year we focus on a sweeping analysis of the structural and architectural aspects of a runway show, when scenic elements are employed to such a degree as to merit recognition of their creative impact on the catwalk.

Throughout the day we will be looking at ways in which leading practitioners of scenic design work their particular brand of magic on a given project. Architects, artists, lighting designers, researchers and educators gather in the debate while aiming to explore the theme through an exchange of transversal and converging experiences. A rich and varied picture will emerge, in which scenography, art, architecture, lighting and virtual reality intersect, thus providing a measure of insight into how set design for interdisciplinary projects becomes engaging and spectacular, enlivening public interest through a multisensory experience.
We are proud to announce our speakers, designers of international renown: Patrick Kinmonth, stage and costume designer, artist and stylist and Michael Howells, set designer for film, theatre and catwalk shows. They are joined by the American lighting designer AJ Weissbard, noted for working with directors the calibre of Robert Wilson, Peter Stein, Bernard Sobel and Peter Greenaway, and the Italian artist Mario Canali, a pioneer in electronic art and immersive virtual reality systems. We also welcome to the podium a prominent architect from Milan, Fiammetta De Menti of Studio Keyart – Architecture and Urban Design, who centres her research on advanced technologies, strategies and communications geared towards the design and development of sustainable structures and multisensory environments. Artist and inventor Di Mainstone creates body-centric sculptures for performance. Kinetic couture, musical prosthetics and sensory skins are just some of the interactive devices Mainstone has fashioned. A live performance of the Serendiptichord – a wearable musical instrument that invites the user to compose a soundscape through touch and expressive movement – follows Mainstone’s talk.
Research and vocational training are vital components of the design industry so representing this field are highly skilled researchers, educators and practioners who specialise in fashion design, curation and performance: Judith Clark, co-director of MA Fashion Curation, London College of Fashion (LCF); Greer Crawley, senior lecturer in Spatial Design and pathway leader of Design for Film, Television and Theatre and Exhibition Design at Buckinghamshire New University in the UK; Donatella Barbieri, joint LCF/V&A research fellow – MA in Costume Design for Performance.
Last but by no means least, firms represented by APIAS, the Italian umbrella trade association of leading producers of equipment for the entertainment industry, also play an important role. One such key player is Spotlight Professional Lighting for the Performing Arts represented by its CEO, Nicolò Oliva, whose talk is themed on the evolution of professional lighting from opera house to fashion and design.

The Marriage Design Talk with Pamela Howard:

Sunday 19 September 2010, 14.00-16.00
V&A, Lecture Theatre

The Marriage is a comic Chamber Opera by Bohuslav Martinu, based on the play by Nikolai Gogol. Director/designer Pamela Howard’s beautiful and lively site-specific production received its first professional staging in English in 2009 as part of the Martinu Revisited Festival, at the National Theatre Janacek Opera Brno, Czech Republic. It was performed in the historic Mozartsal.

Pamela Howard will talk about her design inspirations and process for the production, in which performers rehearsed in the whole installation from day one. Outstanding Czech soprano Tereza Merklová (Agafya in The Marriage), will join Professor Howard to discuss
the production, and treat the audience to sung highlights from the opera. Costume paintings and a scale maquette of the set installation will be on display, demonstrating how vintage objects were used to create the mad Gogolian world of the
production.

This talk will be followed by a film-screening of the 2009 production, in English with
English surtitles.

Tickets £12; to book call 020 7942 2211
www.vam.ac.uk/tickets

Edward Gordon Craig – Exhibition & Lectures:

Edward Gordon Craig was a pioneer of Modern stage craft, whose experimental theatre techniques have shaped live performance today. Space and Light will be an interactive installation that uses sound, light, projection and drama to engage the audience with Edward Gordon Craig, his life, works and visions. The exhibition will also feature a number of Craig’s beautiful woodcuts and engravings. This exhibition will be on show in the V&A Theatre and Performance Galleries from 11th September, 2010.
<strong><em>Future Venues: V&A Theatre and Performance Galleries; Gallery of Jan Fragner, Prague (as part of the Prague Quadrennial 2011).</em></strong>
<strong>Sir Michael Holroyd:</strong> The Forgotten Modernist a biographical and historical perspective, suggesting some early influences on his visionary ideas from within his extraordinary theatrical pedigree and tracing his development as a European modernist during a long, wayward life-in-exile which led to his achievements becoming largely forgotten by the end of his career. <strong>Liam Doona:</strong>  Second thoughts are best – Edward Gordon Craig and an education through theatre design. Craig’s legacy on the teaching and practice of 20thCentury theatre design.  Tessa Sidey:  Edward Gordon Craig-Creative Image Maker. The achievements of Edward Gordon Craig in the visual arts. In his own lifetime and beyond Craig’s immediately recognisable wood-engravings, woodcuts and etchings were widely exhibited, both in Britain and internationally. The speaker will argue that these images also had an important place in the wider creative revolution with medium and content being explored by modern artists in the twentieth century.   <strong>Dorita Hannah:</strong>  CRAIG’S SPACE-IN-’MOTION’ Craig’s influence on performance space and the paradox in his discourse between the void (an ‘absolute space’) and his scene (an ‘archetypal architecture’) presented in relation to its potential in creating contemporary sites for performance.

Arts Council suspends unpaid job adverts:

The following notice has been given on artsjobs.org.uk, the Arts Council England’s Job Site:

Please note that due to the high volume of adverts for unpaid opportunities that contravene Minimum Wage Regulations we are temporarily suspending adverts for unpaid work, work experience, voluntary roles or internships. This is so we can make developments to the website that will help users to post genuine volunteering opportunities only and stay within Minimum Wage Regulations.

Arts Council England is committed to ensuring that artists and those who work in the creative industries are properly remunerated for any work that they do. We recognise that there is great value in people having access to proper work experience, where it is offered and arranged properly and is a mutually beneficial arrangement, but that this should never be used as a way of attempting to circumvent the Minimum Wage Regulations.

http://www.artsjobs.org.uk/

Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry:

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has launched a new inquiry and call for evidence into The Funding of the Arts and Heritage.

The Committee is inviting written submissions and requesting views on the following issues:

What impact recent, and future, spending cuts from central and local Government will have on the arts and heritage at a national and local level;
What arts organisations can do to work more closely together in order to reduce duplication of effort and to make economies of scale;
What level of public subsidy for the arts and heritage is necessary and sustainable;
Whether the current system, and structure, of funding distribution is the right one;
What impact recent changes to the distribution of National Lottery funds will have on arts and heritage organisations;
Whether the policy guidelines for National Lottery funding need to be reviewed;
The impact of recent changes to DCMS arm’s-length bodies – in particular the abolition of the UK Film Council and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council;
Whether businesses and philanthropists can play a long-term role in funding arts at a national and local level;
Whether there need to be more Government incentives to encourage private donations.

The Committee will also examine other areas of interest that are raised during the course of its inquiry.

A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to cmsev@parliament.uk and have ‘Funding of the Arts and Heritage’ in the subject line. Submissions should be received by Thursday 2nd September 2010.

For further details see their website

For up-to-date information on progress of the inquiry visit: http://www.parliament.uk/cmscom

Ralph Koltai – Stage 2 Metal Collage 2002 – 2010:

27 September – 14 November
Royal National Theatre, London

Ralph Koltai is Britain’s senior and celebrated Theatre Designer. He has embarked on a new challenge, returning to his roots as a 3-dimensional artist, creating a series of metal collages, mostly made from found objects on farms near his studio in France. Koltai selects panels or pieces, predominantly metal, and dissects them in a compositional form. Not in themselves narrative, many spring from his former theatre designs, and have evolved from his life-time approach to his theatre work. A sheet of rusty metal became a wall in Simon Boccanegra, a dish and sphere the entrance to Caliban’s cave in The Tempest.

Exhibition opening times:

Monday – Saturday from 9.30am – 11pm
and Sunday 12pm – 6pm (when there is a performance in the building)

SE1 9PX: Hidden Corners, National Theatre exhibition:

19 August – 19 September
Royal National Theatre, London

The public areas of the National Theatre occupy no more than a third of the total site, and some of the more obscure areas of the building are known to very few people. With the aid of the technicians, actors and craftspeople who inhabit them, Miriam Nabarro has sought out these secret spaces and presents them in an exhibition of photographs that will surprise and intrigue. Miriam Nabarro has worked as a designer on projects at the NT since 2007.

Exhibition opening times:
Monday – Saturday from 9.30am – 11pm
and Sunday 12pm – 6pm (when there is a performance in the building)

OISTAT ‘Sixty Second Theatre’:

An online exhibition ’Sixty Second Theatre’ organized by OISTAT Sound Design Working Group has just been launched to celebrate the World Listening Day, July 18th  2010.  The project aims to celebrate the practice of listening as it relates to the environmental awareness, to the acoustic ecology, and to the world around us.
 
Please link to http://www.oistat.org/content.asp?path=dpyvppgw or http://www.theatresound.org/world_listening_day.htm
to listen to this sound exhibition by the international theatre sound design community for a series of 60-second recordings of moments in their lives of the week leading up to July 18th 2010.

8th OISTAT Theatre Architecture Competition 2011:

OISTAT (International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians) announces the next student competition for Theatre Architecture 2011.

You will find information on this competition in the attached file as well as on the OISTAT website http://www.oistat.org/content.asp?path=c1qgp8ps as of July 01, 2010.

SBTD Summer Short Courses 2010:

Click here for information about proposed Short Courses offered over the Summer, with a reduced rate for SBTD members. These will be located at Rose Bruford College in SE London.

Courses include; 3DS Max, SketchUp, Photography & Photoshop, Painted Illusion, Introduction to Hat Making, Drawing for Design, Auto CAD and a Website Day.

We need to hear from you as soon as possible if you would be interested in enrolling on any of the Short Courses proposed. If we get enough interest then the course will run!