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CHAMPAIGN -- The next Olympic games
won't take place until 2008, but a team at the University of
Illinois has been going the distance to ensure that the U.S. is well
represented in another major international event and competition
held every four years. Under
the direction of Thomas V. Korder, technical director at the U of
I's Krannert Center for the
Performing Arts, several students and faculty and staff members
from the center and the department of
theater's Division of
Design, Technology and Management have been working long hours for
the past year and a half coordinating, designing and building the
USA exhibits that will be entered in the 2007 Prague Quadrennial,
June 14-24.
Korder described the event as "the
only exhibition of its kind and magnitude in the world that
showcases the best examples of current practices in performing arts
production design, technology and theater architecture."
"It is widely viewed as 'the
Olympics of performing arts design,'" he said.
And while Olympic competitors have
their sights set on one goal -- bringing home the gold -- Korder and
crew are similarly focused on a shiny, gilded object. The U.S. team
is hoping to win the coveted "Golden Triga," a horsedrawn
sleigh-shaped award, and the Quadrennial's highest honor.
Exhibitors' entries are presented
in three distinct categories: the national section highlights the
work of professional theater companies from throughout each country;
the architecture and technology section focuses on innovations in
architectural design; and "Scenofest" features the best work created
by students.
This year, the multifaceted event,
which has been held in the Czech capital every four years since
1967, will feature work created by theater professionals and
students in 60 nations, including first-time exhibitors Belorussia,
Bosnia, Cameroon, Georgia, Herzegovina, Ireland, Malaysia and
Singapore. In addition to displays by participating nations, the
event provides a networking opportunity for theater professionals
from every continent, and includes lectures, panel discussions,
installations and performances.
While much of the activity is
focused on the exhibits displayed in Prague's Industrial Palace, a
historic exhibition hall built in 1891, Korder said performing arts
activities are planned at venues throughout the city during the
10-day event.
The USA exhibit is sponsored by the
United States Institute of Theater Technology, a nonprofit
membership association of design, production and technology
professionals in the performing arts and entertainment industry.
In his role as vice commissioner
and exhibits project manager for the U.S. entries, Korder has been
responsible for coordinating and facilitating the entire project.
That has included carrying out the wishes of a curatorial committee,
comprising representatives of performing-arts professionals from
throughout the United States. Korder participated in the committee
discussions, but he said the curators were largely responsible for
selecting which productions would be represented in the USA
exhibits.
"I'm the person to make sure the
physical exhibits were realized and put together," he said.
"It's the same with my job here, or
what we did with 'End of Cinematics,'" he said, referring to Mikel
Rouse's multimedia production that premiered at Krannert Center,
then traveled to other venues and is among the productions featured
in the USA national exhibition. "The set designers have their dream.
... They tell me what their dream is, and I try to figure out how to
make it happen. In a good relationship you have input and they
welcome your input."
At the beginning of the process, he
said, "I get sketches, and a lot of what I do is cost estimating,
engineering ... figuring out how it's going to be built, how I can
support spans, that kind of thing. Then I do construction drafting
and manage the construction process."
The latter, Korder said, includes a
great deal of coordination -- for example, making sure people
charged with designing the lighting and painting sets do their part
to meet the production deadline.
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 |
 In the case of the Quadrennial
exhibits, there have been more than a few extra coordination
challenges. For starters, more than 140 entries -- which included
production photos, video displays, renderings, scenic models,
costumes, puppets, designer statements and bios -- were contributed
by professional theater designers from dozens of producing
organizations nationwide. Designers represented include Ming Cho
Lee, John Conklin, Carrie Robins, Julie Taymor and Nic Ularu;
producers range from the Metropolitan Opera and Juilliard School to
the Builders Association, Steppenwolf Theater Company and the Utah
Shakespearean Festival.
Besides the sheer volume of
materials needing to be presented, all three USA entries had to be
built in off-campus rental space over several months, torn down,
packed up and loaded into a shipping container. Then it needs to be
unpacked and rebuilt in Prague in four days.
"It's really very much like touring
a show," said Korder, who will travel to Prague with the rest of the
production team in June to reassemble the exhibits and staff them
during the event.
And like good scouts, they have to
be prepared for anything on the other end.
"For instance, when we took 'Cinematics'
to California, we knew there would be stores there, but you don't
have time to go out to the hardware store necessarily, so you plan
to take anything you will need with you. You take a full set of
tools. And anything you use in the exhibit, you make sure you have
extras ... light bulbs, plugs, bolts, paint. You have to think, 'If
that breaks or gets torn, or whatever, do I have a way to fix it?'"
If anything does go wrong, most of
Korder's supporting cast -- which included U of I theater professors
R. Eric Stone and F. Randy deCelle -- will be there to pitch in.
Stone is the associate designer for
the national exhibition, and he also assisted with the architecture and
student exhibits. His many contributions to the project included
"taking the co-designers' ideas and making them a reality in terms
of drafting and models, serving as the liaison between the
exhibition designers, the curators and sometimes directly with the
designers whose work is being displayed." He also served as on-site
curator, examining all the original artwork as it was received, and
making repairs, when needed. He also designed most of the graphics
for the exhibit.
As the digital media and technology
coordinator for the project, deCelle -- who is chair of scenic
technology in the theater department -- said he was responsible for
determining the best, most efficient methodologies used in the
multimedia presentations in the national and student exhibits.
"The types of systems involved are
video and audio playback, and interactive kiosks used to present the
wealth of information cataloged for the exhibit," deCelle said. "The
design and editing of the video, audio and software was done by one
of our students, Jason Lindahl."
"We have a whole separate digital
portion of the exhibit," Korder said, "because America is so big ...
there are so many designers, so many shows that could be in it. One
of the ways we've expanded the number of people included is by
having computer stations so people can come up, sit down and look
through this bigger catalog of work."
Other U of I students who
contributed to the overall project and will be traveling to Prague
are Daniel Jacobs, Reuben Lucas, Cathi Romero-Molay, Tiffany
Scribner, Matthew Stratton, Jennifer Zimmerman, Nicole Bromley and
Christopher Woller. Their travel is being supported by USITT,
Krannert Center and Bernhard Works, the center's original technical
director.
Additional assistance with the
project was provided by Verda Beth Martell, professor of theater and
Krannert Center's assistant technical director; and U of I
undergraduates Allyson Schroeder, Justin Parks and Scott Wolfson.
After the USA exhibit is displayed
in Prague, Korder said plans call for displaying it at a couple of
theater conferences in the United States as well as at the Mesa Arts
Center, in Arizona. Work exhibited in the Quadrennial also will be
documented for the first time this year in a catalog and DVD.
[Text copied from
University
of Illinois news release] |
