Scene - Current Issue

While change is to be expected, current trends such as the climate crisis, rising resource scarcity and increasingly volatile international economic systems have the potential to move our global society into new system states. Additionally, the scale of impact is expected to become more pronounced as urban and regional areas continue to grow. Because of this, there are growing movements which aim to increase resilience in our cities. This article builds on current explorations in using creativity within sustainable city planning and growing connections between the arts and well-being, to act as an exploratory pilot study probing the relationship between theatre and city resilience within regional Australia. To explore the proposed relationship between theatre and resilience, three lenses were used to understand features of city resilience. This investigation was then applied in the context of Geelong, a regional Australian city in the state of Victoria. Geelong was chosen as the case study site as it was the first regional Australian city to be part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, a global network of cities recognizing creativity as a strategic factor of sustainable development. Through this exploration, a preliminary relationship between theatre and the three lenses for understanding city resilience was established. The lenses being: theatre as a tool for sensemaking, theatre as a tool for placemaking and theatre as a tool for social connection. This relationship suggests the potential of theatre to enhance city resilience in regional Australian cities in times of transition. This has implications for how theatre can be positioned to contribute to cultural policy, resilient urban planning and improving community health and well-being.

The research aims include reclaiming my culture and identity using traditional folk art crafts to create contemporary art. My experiences of displacement here in the United Kingdom are communicated by looking at cultural elements of myself through Sicilian folkloristic avenues such as cooking, food, rituals/practices and behaviours in spaces/places in the home. I am a mother of three who is constantly challenged by my many roles, e.g. mother/daughter/artist/lover…

The artist and technology researcher Tove Noorjahaan Dalenius shares the journey of discovery, creative practice, technological research and academic dissemination, as well as face-to-face exhibition of the direct-write digital hologram Emergence, which visualizes the full extent of the clitoris in its anatomical setting. The intent is to invite readers to consider the entire endeavour through an organic and integrated approach. The project was built through a multidisciplinary process, using a practice-based research method. Through active collaboration and using collage visual methods, Dalenius created a well-researched transplane work of art which engaged audiences. The description of the exploration includes both facts and figures and some personal reflections to situate the journey. This article covers the inception of the project through to the exhibition of the artwork, a time span of fifteen years. The research concerning the anatomy of the clitoris by urologist Helen O’Connell and a visualization model by researcher and anti-sexism activist Odile Fillod are introduced. The reader is familiarized with the creative and technical medium of direct-write digital holography (DWDH). The work of art Emergence is revealed and details of the work are discussed. Finally, Dalenius describes displaying the work at the SPIE Photonics West conference, and The Women’s Building community centre in San Francisco, United States. Dalenius also brings the reader along to the Women in Tech 2023 conference in Stockholm and shares how Emergence became cover news for the feminist magazine Feministiskt Perspektiv (FemPers). The article is illustrated by ample images. By mixing innovative research in both the fields of anatomy and imaging technology, the artist/researcher/technologist has been able to create both beautiful and informative piece of art which engages the viewer. Through interaction with global audiences in different communities and settings, the work and the artist have informed, entertained and raised further questions and curiosity about anatomy, holography and societal issues.

In 2020, when the novel coronavirus, a respiratory disease, is ravaging the world, considering the breath for its health and well-being properties has never been more important. In addition, our breath has qualities that enhance presence and resilience, which are elusive to harness. Thus, breath becomes a powerful tool for the performer, potentially helping her devise works as well as enhancing a connection to her whole self, physical, mental and spiritual. To breathe is to be alive. Respiration is a key system in the human body’s function, a particularly privileged one, for it is both automatic and can be influenced consciously, enabling access to other systems, notably the nervous system. In this writing, I explore, very briefly and from a practitioner’s point of view, how the breath works, outlining the benefits of deep breathing and drawing on experience and available literature. I outline how the breath has been considered theoretically and practically in eastern and western cultures and examine works of art that place breath at their centre. Art helps us to see the potential of breath. This is a broad study, aimed at showing the importance held by the breath across time, geographical locations and art forms. I consider the specific practice of pranayama breathing as a way of harnessing life force, enhancing the physical, mental and spiritual health and well-being of performers exposed to precarious work (made even more precarious by the current health crisis). I present the three requirements of a pranayama practice and make recommendations for those who want to use the techniques by themselves. I conclude by expanding this therapeutic application of pranayama into a fundamental tool to cultivate presence and resilience in the live art performer, offering personal reflections from my own experience of creating one-to-one durational work.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Istanbul’s theatre landscape has been a site of resilience and reclamation, with artists devising theatre and performance to navigate the resultant societal stasis. This study probes the efficacy of autobiographical material in devised performances, investigating its dual role as a mirror to societal crises and a vehicle for artists to articulate individual and collective disorientation. Through an auto-ethnographic examination of three Istanbul-based artists – Melek Ceylan, Onur Karaoğlu and Didem Kris – this research captures the nuanced interplay between personal narrative and communal resonance. The methodology integrates performance analysis with artist interviews, utilizing a new materialist lens to emphasize the ethics of care within the creative process. The findings reveal how these solo performances, grounded in the personal, transcend individual experiences, connect with broader societal challenges and foster a sense of communal identity. In doing so, this study illuminates the transformative potential of devising post-pandemic theatre, suggesting its power to chronicle the era’s challenges and offer alternative narratives that confront Turkey’s mainstream performing arts paradigms.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, while many professional production organizations were forced to temporarily, or in some cases permanently, close, most academic institutions in higher education remained open in varying modalities in order to continue providing educational opportunities for their students. The following article details the process by which theatre and dance faculty members at Central Michigan University experimented with layering video and choreographic technologies that not only provided meaningful learning experiences for their students during a global pandemic but also, in turn, altered their production practices and inspired creative projects to be continued after the removal of COVID-19-related restrictions.

In an age of extremes, hot and cold, war and peace, wealth and austerity, to have electricity and to not … what do we focus on? The innovations that have changed our perceptions are almost imperceptible to the naked eye. The arts are the last to be funded and the first to be cut, and yet, we can prove their value and worth very substantially through the prevailing economics. All around the world we are encouraging entrepreneurs to be entrepreneurial, to have CEOs who are brilliant at being CEOs, we acclaim leaders who will lead … but where? Where are the leaders for the future, for the sustainable, for the new materials that do not punish people or the planet? Where are the leaders who have the courage to make a jump, take a leap of faith and do things differently with the only mission in mind to create fairness, a just world, a people- and animal-saving planet with an eye on – well, just about everything that is harmful.

How do you reduce plastic in events and performance production? Why is this commodity, which comes from fossil fuels, not precious? How has this become throw away and why have so-called ‘natural products’ – no less natural than fossil fuels – become dispensable – burning pyres of sheep’s wool, landfills of animal skins? Is it we are just not troubled enough … this article discusses how to be concerned? The Sustainability ROX event was a crossover of sustainability conference and business networking specifically for design. ROX return on extinction; ROX return on experience. It had a broad impact to address carbon literacy issues, greenhouse gas emissions and the developing needs of the design industries to review the processes of design, use of materials and design sustainability central to all activities. The event deliberately addressed circular economies for the fashion, textiles, design products and materials used in human society and the industries and their consumption of materials and energy. The occasion enabled the review of processes of design and discussed sustainable supply chains, conceptions and misconceptions of materials, scientific developments for product developments and energy systems. The impact has been to create networks of businesses, makers and producers, academics and researchers for the development of future projects.

Review of: Dancing Dutch, Het Nationale Ballet, Nationale Opera & Ballet, Amsterdam, 11 April 2024