Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

The Szenografie-Bund and the future Pina Bausch Centre are collaborating with the Wuppertal Institut for Climate, Environment and Energy to offer four workshops in 2023 and 2024. We want to encourage the people who are imagining, inventing and building spaces for dance, theatre, film, exhibitions and performance to take a new look at sustainability and our global responsibility for ecological, economic and social working practices. We are creating a space for experimentation with materials, production methods and aesthetics. The first workshop will be an introduction into the topic. What initiatives and strategies already exist? How can we learn from each other, develop a swarm intelligence and become proactive?

First Workshop “Something Old”: Status Quo

18–25 June 2023

The aim of this workshop is to introduce sustainability initiatives in the field of arts and culture, in order to initiate pioneering research into the composition and construction of theatrical spaces. What kinds of materials enable us to work in sustainable ways? Are there existing modular systems that offer the necessary flexibility? What are the materials of the future? Many stages currently use very large amounts of material, and the tight schedules of most artistic processes rarely allow space for exploring sustainable construction methods. Molleton, glue and particle board are usually shredded once a production is over. At the same time, stored sets and costume funds are a kind of historical sustainability initiative. Theatre has always been a place of technical innovation and research. We therefore want to galvanise the sector: What are new ideas in the fields of design, architecture and engineering that can be used for the stage?

Over the course of six days, the workshop offers a series of talks and lectures by experts such as Urs Dierker, costumedesigner and inventor of Circular Costume Design, Ralph Zeger, initiator of „Green Stage“, Nadia Fisterol, professor for stage design at ZHDK Zürich, of the plattform STUFF, Thierry Leonardi, Consultant for sustainability in culture and pilote projects at Opera Lyon and Mitchell Joachim, co-founder of Terreform ONE, a nonprofit art, architecture and urban design research group. In addition to these theoretical inputs, we will collaboratively build things, upcycle and think about the circular economy. There will also be movement workshops with the great dancer Frank Willems around the theme of “collective intelligence”. On the last day, the participants will come together for a “climate dinner” at a long uncycled table, which they will create together out of old stage sets during the week.

Three more workshops in 2023 and 2024 will continue the laboratory on sustainable set design & space.
To book a space, email: http://eepurl.com/ipKhWg