REACCLIMATING THE STAGE (SKENOMORPHOSES)

vincent roumagnac

REACCLIMATING THE STAGE (SKENOMORPHOSES) An Ecotonal Doctoral Piece in 40 Scènes, 15 Parergonal Writings and 5 Double-Postcards. From the perspective of mise-en-scène (staging), and correlatively that of the place and the practice of the metteur-en-scène (theatre director), this artistic research project addresses, examines and experiments on the question of the scenic/scenographic representation of a postnatural world, in climate transition, affected by global warming and moved by abstract data-flows, in a tangled web of storms, information, and algorithms. While lived and conceptual "time", no longer telically given as linear and chronological, is being anthropodecentered and, therefore, diffracted into an open plurality, the Reacclimating the Stage (Skenomorphoses) artistic research project takes the earlier notion of time as a raw material to reexamine, from an eco-scenic and research perspective, in order to transform the theatrical practice of its author and to trigger the latter’s specific contribution to artistic research milieu. By obliquely playing on one hand with memories of theatrical history of scenic internal modi operandi, architecture, and literature, and on the other hand with institutional requirements for doctoral research appearance, the project aims at repositioning the director's practice in a movement of transition of scenic thinking and imaginary through a series of artistic and research experiments, whose enactments and resonant redistribution are poetically at interpretative play in this exposition.

The Cancellation

Serendipitous installation
Costumes, props, set mixed components, racks
Duration of the piece: 4 hours (turned on the spot into 3.5 due to a sudden snowstorm)

The initial project, entitled Kesäteatteri* (The Tempest) consists of the winter storage in the Studio Kuusi // Kuusi gallery space, located on the island of Vartiosaari (Helsinki), of costumes, props, and sets assembled together from an expired, or for a forthcoming, semi-professional, summertime postcolonialist adaptation of The Tempest (Shakespeare) on an outdoor stage in the island forest. The audience is invited to visit the gallery on two February weekends. The gallery space is accessible only if the sea is on ice (there is no bridge to access the island). But Kesäteatteri (The Tempest) did not happen. One week before the scheduled transportation of the material on the island and the installation in the gallery space, the Helsinki region was hit by sudden local warming, and the sea started to melt in a significant and unexpected (for the season) way. It turned, therefore, impossible to host the piece on the island. The initial project transformed thus into another one: The Cancellation (Kesäteatteri [The Tempest]). Here is the text on the re-sent invitation: “We, unfortunately, had to make the heartbreaking decision to cancel Kesäteatteri (The Tempest) that we should have performed at Studio KUUSI // KUUSI on Vartiosaari. We canceled because of the sudden local warming. This unexpected mild spell has indeed prompted the melting of the ice of the winter path across the sea, and the art space is temporarily inaccessible for the audience. Therefore, the collected material for the piece is blocked on the pontoon on the city shore on the other side of the island. We nevertheless (warmly) invite you to join us this Saturday to mourn this piece-interruptus on the dock and to collectively whinge about the seasonal disturbances meanwhile sharing a drink and a vegan tortilla.”

*Finnish for summer theatre

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