2015 » Latvia » Student Section

The Beginning

At the Art Academy of Latvia, we call our first-year scenography studies “small tasks” even though they are a long-term investment in the students’ creative thinking. The tasks are similar to the instructions directors give to acting students, asking to enact specific situations and circumstances on stage – cold, hot, slippery. The difference here is that scenography students begin with tasks that encourage them to think within the theatre space. I expect ideas that don’t require big resources because I believe that, in poverty, the path of the imagination is wider and longer. How to visually represent the presence of the sea, how to create the sense of flying, how to build a stairway to heaven, what does the Juliet’s balcony or Hamlet’s chair look like? These exercises help students to understand the language of theatre; they make it necessary to “reinvent the wheel”. They confirm the idea that, in theatre, everything is possible. Eventually, these small tasks give students a sense of freedom because they are like letters, words and sentences you don’t have to think about once you have mastered them. Now you can focus all your attention on the “big story” called scenography.