Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2001 - 13

Figures 3a and 3b. The carousel revolved to reveal the interior and exterior of Serafina's house.

one of several European centers. Among these were Prague's
Academy of Performing Arts, Helsinki's University of Art and
Design and Seville's Centro Analuz de Teatro. The students'
culminating Independent Research Project had to demonstrate the potential to add to the body of knowledge in the field
of theatre, and students completing the course earned a master of arts degree.
The year's course of study was structured in two parts
and lasted forty-eight weeks. It commenced in late August with
SCENOFEST at which all the students and staff from London
and Utrecht gathered for an introduction to the course's faculty, philosophy and methodology, and at which the IRPs of the
previous year's students were exhibited and performed (Figure 4). Each SCENOFEST was built around a theme. Utrecht
hosted "La Scenographie se Bouge" in 1995. "Visualizing
Shakespeare" was held in London in 1996, and it included experimental performances in the public areas at the Barbican
Centre. In 1997 the theme in Utrecht was "Body and Space."
The very first SCENOFEST, in 1994, exhibited the work of the
seminal Czech scenographer Frantisek Zelenka and explored the
theme, "Creativity in Defiance of Tyranny." (See "Scenofest: A
Journal" by Linda Sarver, TD&T 31 no. 2 (Spring 1995): 34.)
The SCENOFEST was followed by the first part of the course,
lasting through December. This work included scenographic studio projects as well as formal lectures and tutorial instruction:
one-on-one sessions that are a standard mode of instruction in
English tertiary education and that require each student to
shoulder the responsibility for his or her own progress. Phase
One of the first part of the course was taught at the Home Centre. Students in Utrecht focused on the way space influences
the theatrical event; students in London examined the way text
did the same. These texts could be traditional dramas, adaptations of other written works or original scripts.
Phase Two began after Christmas and was taught at a second center selected on the basis of the student's demonstrated
area of interest and the center's unique approach to training.
At the second center, students explored very different approaches to many of the same concerns they had undertaken
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previously, and during the two phases of this first part of the
course, they did research and early conceptual work for their
culminating Independent Research Project.
The second part of the course saw the students returning
to their home centers for the creation of the Independent Research Project. This IRP could take many forms-a series of
short performances using live actors and/or puppets, an exhibition of models and drawings, a video installation-but it
was always supported by a modelbook, a lengthy written
document which was evaluated by an external examiner to
assess its intellectual quality and the value of its contribution to the field of study.
Under Professor Howard's supervision, the first generation of ESC students achieved some significant successes. The
1997 SCENOFEST exhibited the final projects from the London
Centre, including those of students Yannis Thavoris and Edwin
Erminy. Thavoris was shortly thereafter selected as a winner of
the coveted Linbury Prize and was commissioned to design the
English Touring Opera's production of Donizetti's The Daughter of the Regiment (Figure 5). With this first professional engagement, he entered the ranks of rising young English
scenographers. (See sidebar The Linbury Prize.)
Edwin Erminy's IRP was a thirty-minute performance
titled Concierto Barroco. The printed program described it
thus: "...a recipe for Moros y Cristianos based on a novel by
Alejo Carpentier. In 1709 a Mexican aristocrat and his black
servant travel from Veracruz in Mexico to Venice. Time and
space merge in a mythical journey narrated through music
and food. A post colonial reflexion on identities that encounter, cross, mix, overlap in ways that respond to their own
logic." Following his ESC course, Erminy returned to his native
Venezuela and developed his work further. Concierto Barroco
was produced at the National Opera House in Caracas where it
was a huge success, and it was brought to London where it was
a highlight of the 1999 London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT). Concierto Barroco is a validation of ESC's belief
that the empowerment of scenographers can result in an expanding and enriching definition of the art of theatre.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2001