Some 800 global artists from over 79 countries gathered in celebration and empowerment of their outstanding works at the 14th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ) at the VýstavištÄ› Praha (Prague Exhibition Grounds) and Industrial Place in Prague, Czech Republic.
Established in 1967 and now one of the leading international festivals of theater and stage design, the eleven-day event brings forward wonders of performance, scenography and theater architecture as cultural experiences.
Featured works were meticulously selected from more than 17,000 applications submitted through open calls by a worldwide team of curators.
This year’s edition once again honors the creative geniuses of professionals and budding artists behind the scenes through an extensive convention comprised of over 600 live performances, masterclasses, discussions, presentations, and workshops, which all explored the concept of imagination, transformation, and memory.
Some of the highlights of PQ 2019 were the series of competitive sections classified as Exhibition of Countries and Regions, Student Exhibition and Performance Space Exhibition.
The team of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), the Philippines’ first-ever representative to the PQ 2019 Student Exhibition, was recognized with the Award for Imagination in Students’ Exhibition, with their interactive installation named Passing Through: Lines and Borders. It speaks of the politics of migration and mobility as it explores space and its effects by recreating the visa application process through an interrogation booth. It projects the impact of ambiance in the bodily context, emotions, and metal state of an individual.
The immersive booth was conceptualized and designed by the College’s Production Design professor Ellawyn Cruz together with young Benildean student-artists from the Production Design and Theater Arts Programs.
They worked on the creation of the installation—from mock set-ups to the actual filming of the featured clips. It was a collaborative effort with other faculty members of the two programs with co-curation and overall production management by the chairperson Magdalena De Leon, co-curation and scenographic set-up by Gabriel Fernandez and Tuxqs Rutaquio, and technical direction by Jay Aranda.
The in-depth story behind the interactive installation was further explored in the PQ talks headlined by Cruz herself.
A speaker in PQ educational sessions during the festival was the College’s Theater Arts faculty member Eric Villanueva Dela Cruz, who tackled the expansion of scenography with his presentation on “Extending Audience Engagement Through Taste.” Dela Cruz, who is the Founder and Creative Navigator of TAXI Theater in the Philippines, explained the importance of the inclusion of sensorial simulations to break the wall between the stage and the audience, which allows the guests to participate in the creation and reception of the narrative.
Dela Cruz likewise led an interdisciplinary site-specific workshop together with international artists Visnja Zugic and Miljana Zekovic from Serbia, Attila Antal from Hungary, and Jorge Palinhos from Portugal as part of the PQ’s Result Driven program.
Dela Cruz shared that the output was “an exhibition of this phenomenal experience with space seen through various lenses, explored psychophysically, and expressed through sound, text, images, and videos.”
Graced by industry giants including illustrator Olivia Lomenech Gill, Italian opera director, and scenographer Stefano Poda, and audiovisual artist Romain Tardy, the PQ 2019 served as the platform for innovation, collaboration, and networking among the participants from around the globe.