Beer and Art: The Prague Quadrennial

In June 2007, through the VCA Production School, I had the opportunity to go to the Prague Quadrennial. The Quadrennial is an international exhibition of scenography and theatre architecture accompanied by a bounty of puppetry (and other) workshops and performances – all washed down with a healthy stein of good Czech beer.

The VCA students were involved in the development and realisation of three performances pieces created in conjunction with Petr Matasek and his design students at the DAMU school in Prague.  The three pieces were each presented as part of the Quadrennial Performance Programme. In the first work, ‘garbage fairies’, wheeled around recycle bins in a magical choreography directed by VCA Puppetry Head, Peter Wilson. The second work was presented in the forecourt of the exhibition building and experimented with a 10-kilogram cast-iron baby puppet, suspended on a metal rope, designed by one of the DAMU students. Each day the artists created an installation/performance piece using the baby. Two highlights were the “frozen iron baby”: the baby was put into an egg of ice, and left to swing and thaw in the hot Czech sun, and “Barbeque Baby”: the baby was covered in meat and cooked as it swung over a fire. The third work, “Windows”, utilized a small wooden angel puppet operated by myself, and a Czech student puppeteer. The team experimented with interactive digital projection and the elements of glass and sand. It was a highly evocative and beautiful work presented on the main stage theatre inside.

As part of the Quadrennial programme, I had the opportunity to take Master Classes with some of the ‘big lights’ in puppetry: Peter Schumann, of Bread and Puppet Theatre (US), Nori Sawa (Japan & Czech Republic), and Kazunori Watanabe/Miyako Kurotani (Japan). Additionally, The Forman Brothers were running the Czech display at the Quadrennial, which was one of the most playful.

There was an incredible amount to experience and discover over the 10 days of the Quadrennial: and an enormous amount of fun in the process. Rubbing shoulders with the 23,000 people in attendance was at times overwhelming, but always inspirational  – and beer, the standard Czech bevy – was the omni-present social and artistic lubricant. The city itself was a magical escape from the Quadrennial, filled with blue cobblestones, gold-domes and angels.

The Quadrennial experience has left all who went with a wonderful larder of ideas and some great international friendships forged.