2016 Performance Design Commission Meeting Minutes

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17 March, 2016
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Kevin Rigdon, Meeting Chair
Marketa Fantova, Commission Chair (Absent due to PQ Symp)

Questions from Marketa
 

1. What are the most memorable projects of the last year?

a. Meeting in Brazil: there was large diversity, good programs, and great experiences in Rio. Very interested to have all of the working groups of the commission together to see presentations, panels, and flash talks. There were a large number of professional theatre artists from Brazilian Theatre.

b. Digital Theatre Words: needs attention from everyone to expand the database, seems activities halted 2 years ago (Jerome). Needs participation from countries that are still incomplete. Also undergoing revision of content to reflect new technology and culture specific words.
 

c. International Lighting Symposium: hosted by lighting group in Hong Kong and was well attended by 50 participants, including people from all over the world.

2. How important is affiliation with the whole group in relation to the working groups.

a. Some feel that the costume group is much more active then the other groups. So a difference is felt between members of that group and others.
 

b. There also seems to be diverse opinions considering semantics and labels/what each group calls itself. Kevin took a quick poll of what different members consider themselves.
 

c. What does space decide include? - Projections, Set Design, Multimedia, Site Specific Work, Performance Art.
 

d. Costume, Set, Space, Sound, and Lighting Working Groups are all under the Performance Design Commission. These groups were formed to created from members who wanted to meet within groups of like interest. This included the change from Scenography to Performance Design, and the splintering of a very active commission to now a fairly inactive commission with multiple active working groups.
 

e. Many set designers are feeling ignored or unappreciated as their work is not perforer-centric, as
 

f. The costume group was created from like minded individuals who then became more active than the PD commission, so many members began choosing to go to the Costume Working Group when only able to attend one meeting.
 

g. The Working Groups also have developed from enlarging its membership from its traditional centers be more inclusive of non- traditional members.
 

h. The working group meetings are self-funded as opposed to the commission meetings, which are country sponsored.
 

i. Performance Design is for committee meetings vs. programming
 

j. The by-laws of PD do specify that overall programming is part of the meeting. The programming also relates to the countries hosting the commission meetings and what is most interesting there.
 

k. The PDC is also reaching out across the commissions vs. working mostly within.
 

l. The purpose of the PDC is to keep everyone together and the center for the different working groups to share their work, so that the tie continues between what each part contributes to the whole
 

m. Scenery vs. Space Design : designers of traditional scenery are feeling forgotten in the naming of things~ Group Fred meets tomorrow at 2:45.

3. What do you see from the PDC in the short-term/long-term goals.

a. Programming for WSD2017 (Sound and Costume)
 

b. World Costume in Philippines
 

c. We need to have programming that represents all of the groups, but that needs active members to produce that programming.
 

d. PDC use to commit to involve students at every event, but that has not been as much as recently.
 

e. Costume group selects a theme that drives their work each year. Performance the PDC should select a theme. – Response, the country that organizes the meeting often selects the themes/presenters. – Perhaps the commission should be more active in communicating with the countries to plan.

 

4. How should we conduct international meetings? Big group vs. smaller groups

a. Meetings of both types are necessary.

b. Small groups specific issues, PDC meeting a business meeting.
 

5. Yaron – Judging of the PQ15

a. Not to award any lighting designer and costume designer. That presenting the creative ideas was not done vs presenting the beautiful photos. How should lighting designers and costumers then exhibit? Video? Written Ideas? Research? More collaborative conversation.

• Question shall last forever, as exhibition is not performance.
• The Jury should have been professional enough to find those individual qualities and judge then appropriately. The jury was the one who failed, not the designers (Jerome)
• Presenting concept rather than just the image. Concept is more important than the final image, as it conveys the idea of the artist, perhaps the jury was asking to understand more the creative process as opposed to just a finished image. (Nic)
• Each person has to find the way to exhibit for themselves. The jury was at fault in this instance, not the designers. (Sean)
• The awards are necessary for PQ, but Sonja did not want them. There was more focus from costume on tribes. (Simona)
• See all sides, Tribes was hard to judge, and the themes also did not lend themselves to costume. But what constitutes a physical exhibition? It is a hard question to answer. (Sophia)
• How to exhibit? You can see people’s work, but you need the explanation. He found today listening to Yaron actually speak today that is the most powerful way is having the designer actually speak about the way they work. Perhaps videos of the designer speaking is the way forward. (Michael)
• But some people can not express those ideas, but their work is still brilliant without the explanation.
• Maybe a small group of people should be looking at this question over the next year (Karl) - Michael responds that leadership is more needed than a committee making decisions. But Marketa is trying to move things forward in a positive way.

6. Will Marketa be present for future meetings? It is odd that she is not here. Should there be a vice chair to chair the meeting if she cannot be there. (Jerome). Michael offered that it will not be a regular thing and that future meetings will be scheduled when she can be present.
 

7. Future PDC meetings will always be scheduled after the working group meetings so sharing can happen.