Following the threads of scenographic costume at PQ19

ABSTRACT

Scenographic costume is wearable scenography that has the ability to instigate performance and tell a story in its own right. The tradition of performance defining scenographic costume can be traced back to the theatrical experimentations of the artistic movements of the early twentieth century. At several points in history, scenographic costume has been used as a means to explore diverse social, cultural and political questions, and the different examples of scenographic costume at PQ19, as well as recent research by scholars such as Donatella Barbieri and Sofia Pantouvaki, prove that costume can still be a powerful and meaningful tool with which to explore and research a wide range of pertinent themes. Following the threads through the Prague Exhibition Grounds and the Industrial Palace, this article reflects on the subtle but omnipresent nature of scenographic costume at PQ19, where mushrooms popped up on heads, fish rushed in from the rain, and a plumber's skirt was inflated by singing housewives.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Susan Marshall is a costume designer and design historian based in Italy. She is adjunct professor of Twentieth Century Fashion at the Fashion Institute of Technology (New York), Politecnico di Milano and has worked with the prison theatre company San Vittore Globe Theatre since 2015. Her PhD thesis is on ‘Insubordinate Costume’, which explores the pivotal role of scenographic costume in performance.

Notes

1 In The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: An Introduction, Michel Foucault refers to the ‘disciplines: anatomo-politics of the human body’ and the ‘regulatory controls: a biopolitics of the population’ as mechanisms with which ruling powers seek to dominate and control the human body and the population (Foucault 1978, 139).

2 Simona Rybáková, Rosane Muniz and Sofia Pantouvaki form OISTAT’s Costume Design Sub-Commission/Performance Design Commission.

3 Video link to the trailer of Taboo Collection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEX4b7vwtDc&feature=youtu.be.

4 http://taboo-collection.com/.

5 Author’s conversation with Fruzsina Nagy at PQ, June 2019.

6 From the photocopied information sheet about Taboo Collection, PQ 2019.

7 https://betwixtduo.com/projects/traces-of-tissues/.

8 Links to the Living Picture website and a performance video of Morphomen: http://livingpicture.org/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGnfQABakKY.

9 Video link to Deform Amoibe: https://vimeo.com/382802835.

10 https://www.iriswoutera.com/deform.

11 https://www.samtrubridge.com/performance-art.

12 Video link to Inhabiting Noise and Silence: https://vimeo.com/382815438.

13 https://www.paravan.org/.

14 Trailer for The Mushroom Head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4bHe0EmB_4&feature=youtu.be.

15 Peces Caminando! videos in Prague: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2QZx1On_cg; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRADnvfmmkA.

16 Donatella Barbieri’s words during the introduction to the Material Interactions workshop, PQ 2019.

17 https://www.criticalcostume.com/events.html.

18 Publications including Donatella Barbieri, Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture, and the Body; Rachel Hann, Beyond Scenography; and Francesca Granata, Experimental Fashion.

19 Journals such as Studies of Costume in Performance, Intellect Journals, edited by Donatella Barbieri, Sofia Pantouvaki and Suzanne Osmond.

20 Exhibitions such as Extreme Costume at PQ11, the New Costume Practices and Performances exhibition at Aalto University in Helsinki as part of the Critical Costume conference in 2015, and the Innovative Costume of the 21st Century: The Next Generation exhibition in Moscow in 2019.