Theatre Island and Urban Scenographies of Learning: A Performative Paradigm for Transversal Pedagogy

Abstract

In this article I foreground the potential that “urban scenography” has to shape both pedagogical and interdisciplinary learning experiences. In May 2019, I devised an international field school and travelled to Copenhagen, Denmark, with twelve students from Concordia University’s departments of theatre, studio, design, geography and urban planning. We took up residency at Teaterøen (Theatre Island), located on Refshaleøen, a deindustrialized manmade island located across the harbour from Copenhagen’s city centre. On Teaterøen scenography is everywhere. Embedded in this rapidly gentrifying, yet unfinished and at times vagrant islandscape, in this field school we approached scenography as a perspective on, or way of thinking about its potential and possibilities for researching wider performance-making, spatial and urban practices; questioning the when and where of scenography. One of the pedagogical goals of the urban scenographies themed field school was to engage students with the potential that scenographics opens up for other kinds of interdisciplinary, collaborative, creative practices, and performance dramaturgies.