Setting and Unsettling the Stage

Within the last decade in visual, performance and performing art circles, French philosopher Jacques Rancière’s lecture on the Emancipated Spectator has changed the debate about the dilemma of spectacle and spectating versus engagement and participation.How does architecture participate in not only staging scenarios but also participate in scenarios? To perform must architecture actively become a dynamic, mobile actor in an event? Or can it do so by empowering humans to participate as dynamic actors or physically active interpreters? Or can it construct more engaging relationships for ‘distant spectators’ to also be ‘active interpreters,’ as per Rancière’s terms? Can these three modes of performance be a way to question the performance of architecture in performance events?Within a context of architectures for contemporary dance performances this paper addresses architecture’s staging and participating in the scenario, and its engaging and empowering the performer, the public or participant. The works discussed in this essay resulted from collaborations between architects and choreographers, including Frank Gehry, TWBTA, John Pawson, Jaafar Chalabi, Thom Mayne, Nikolaus Hirsch with Michel Müller, and Francois Roche.

Volume Editors
David Ruy & Lola Sheppard

ISBN
978-0-935502-95-4