Every four years, the International Organisation of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians (OISTAT) collaborates with the Prague Quadrennial, the world’s largest festival of Scenography, to present Scenofest, an educational project of performances, workshops and special projects for students from across the world.
Part of this year’s festival – held in June – was Six Acts, a collection of educational and artistic projects created by international groups of artists that were staged at cultural sites throughout the city. ETC lent a variety of lighting equipment to Scenofest that was used during several of the Six Acts and in student workshops.
ETC donated two lighting control desks – SmartFade and SmartFade ML – along with SmartPack dimmers, Source Four luminaires and Selador Lustr and Paletta LED fixtures. The equipment lit the First Act in Prague’s picturesque Franciscan Garden. A puppet theatre and circus art programme, the First Act featured 30 student performers led by Pavel Štourač, the director and artistic coordinator of the Continuo Theatre.
The same ETC kit was used for the Fifth Act, held at the Náprstkovo Anthropological Museum. Tomáš Žižka, artistic director of the Mamapapa Theatre and his multinational group of performers used the lighting equipment to transform the museum’s courtyard into an interactive forest clearing for two nights of scenographic storytelling.
More than 1,000 students attended the workshop portion of Scenofest, where they learned about contemporary theories and skills for a variety of disciplines, including lighting, sound, puppetry, costuming, and more. The ETC technology was available for hands on training throughout the workshop, so the students had the opportunity to become familiar with the latest innovations to prepare for future careers in lighting.
