ISPD presents
The Irish Society of Performance Designers is delighted to present its very first festival on scenography. Join us this Easter for a stimulating and thought-provoking celebration of the art of collaborative stage design. The festival line-up includes panels, workshops, PechaKucha presentations, networking events, a student forum, and a final performance with sound, lighting and AV designers, also showcasing costume. Scenofest is conceived to celebrate and bring together the community of designers and of the performing arts at large, to foster and deepen dialogues, and to showcase the broad and diverse range of voices and disciplines in stage design. Highlights of the programme include a panel on collaborative design with Aedín Cosgrove, Esosa Ighodaro and Tom Lane, workshops with Wayne Jordan and Niall Laverty, PechaKucha presentations with Peter Daly, Noelle Brown, Esosa Ighodaro, Dee Roycroft and Catherine Fay, and a final performance with Peter Power, Mel Mercier, Denis Clohessy and more to be announced!
Friday 29 Mar – Cube
2pm – 5pm: Workshop with Wayne Jordan on Collaborative Writing | €8/€5 | 20 people max
- Writing Together: Collaborative Writing for Theatre Designers and Theatre Makers: his workshop facilitated by Wayne Jordan aims to explore techniques and strategies for collaborative writing among theatre designers and makers to articulate problems, ideas, and vision collectively.
6pm – 8pm: Opening Panel with John Comiskey, Aedín Cosgrove, Esosa Ighodaro and Tom Lane – €8/5
8.30pm – 9.30pm: Speed Dating Networking | Free but ticketed | Capacity TBC
Saturday 30 Mar – Cube
11am – 12.30pm: Workshop with Niall Laverty on Gesture Drawing | €8/€5 | 20 people max.
- Gesture Drawing by Niall Laverty: This workshop is designed to show the importance of gesture drawing. It will look at ways to capture the essence of the pose using graphic principles – lines of action, rhythm, and exaggeration to create dynamic drawings. Niall Laverty has been teaching gesture drawing to animation and illustration students and professionals for over 15 years. He is a part-time lecturer at IADT and guest lecturer at Gobelins in Paris and The Animation Workshop, Denmark. He has also delivered classes at the award-winning animation studios, Boulder Media, Brown Bag Films, and Kavaleer Productions.
Please, note that a nude model is part of this workshop.
All materials for this workshops, such as sketchpads, charcoals and graphic sticks, will be provided.
1pm – 2pm: Student Forum | Free but ticketed | 45 people max.
3.15pm – 4.30pm: Album Launch “Lonesome Sway” by Rob Moloney | Free but ticketed
- Rob Moloney’s adaptation of his score for Luke Murphy’s live contemporary dance show, Volcano. Produced by Attic Projects, the “psychological sci-fi thriller” was nominated for Best Soundscape, and won Best Production, at the 2021 Irish Theatre Awards.
This emotive, dynamic and beautifully recorded album combines lush string trio arrangements with elements of post-rock, noise and poetry to explore themes of isolation, fleeting moments of intimacy, and failing to make sense of the world. Throughout the album, Moloney endeavours to perforate the melancholic haze with delicate moments of beauty alongside eruptions of a long-restrained explosive energy.
5.15pm – 6.30pm: PechaKucha Presentations including The Pit Collective – Catherine Fay, Dee Roycroft, Peter Daly, Esosa Ighodaro and Noelle Brown | €5
Saturday 30 Mar – Space Upstairs
7.30pm – 9.30pm: Final event with Peter Power & others | Free, but ticketed
- Sketches: Performing Design | Join a collective of performance designers doing something quite rare: actually performing design live. Hosted in the Space Upstairs at Project Arts Centre, a group of designers working across a series of practices will create sound, video, movement and light performance in an improvised atmosphere. Using new and existing design the performers will remould and recreate design contributions from some of Ireland’s top designers, all threaded together with new material being improvised live in the space. The performance will be installation based, and the audience is encouraged to wander in and around the performance space, and even interact. A unique opportunity to see design happening in real time in a performance context. Curated by Peter Power, with live performances by Robyn Byrne (dancer), Choy-Ping Ní Chléirigh-Ng (Video), Aisling Ennis (Harpist), Lara Gallagher (Comp/Sound Design), Peter Power and Sarah Jane Shiels with contributions from Mel Mercier, Sinéad Diskin and many more!
Curated by Peter Power, with live performances by Robyn Byrne (dancer), Choy-Ping Ní Chléirigh-Ng (Video), Aisling Ennis (Harpist), Lara Gallagher (Comp/Sound Design), Aisling Phelan (Video), Peter Power (Comp/Sound Design) and Sarah Jane Shiels (Lighting Design) with contributions from Mel Mercier, Sinéad Diskin and many more!
Biographies
The Irish Society of Performance Designers is the representative body of scenographers in Ireland, a professional organisation run by designers for designers. The society celebrates, advocates, promotes, and supports scenographers at all stages of their careers by acting as an advocating entity, a national and international networking hub, and a showcasing and resource hub.
ISPD fosters designers’ visibility as vital key players in the theatre and arts ecosystem, while championing diversity, inclusivity, accessibility, and sustainability.
ISPD represented Ireland at the Prague Quadrennial 2019 and 2023.
Funding
This event is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Dublin City Council.
Presented in partnership with Project Arts Centre and Irish Theatre Institute.
Disclaimer
The workshop with Niall Laverty on Gesture Drawing includes a nude model.