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As a performing art, stage design can mobilize all forms of expression to create dramatic tension between space and narrative.



Overall objectives:

Stage direction is an art of performance and an art of the transient. It mobilizes every potential, every form of expression to create dramatic tension between space and narrative.

The way it is taught is remarkable in its openness and specific in its method, because it favors no performance or modelization technique over any another. From shoestring budgets to the latest in 3-D, everything is possible, everything is feasible for poetic expression! Consequently, questions of concept and meaning always win out over those of materialization.

Initiation starts with theater: a stage and a text. Students learn how to look, how to read, how to listen—i.e., how to cultivate the specific outlook of the stage designer and understand the chronological history of the performance.

Instruction then moves on to the fields in which contemporary stage design is practiced: museums, exhibitions, film, events, etc. This outward-looking approach is done full scale, with work in a team and then individual creation. The goal is to move from an initial idea to final execution by asking and solving the questions related to the concept; the questions of aesthetics, form, and purpose; and, finally, the problems of materials, methodology, and cost.

Before accomplishing the final Grand Projet (diploma project), students work in various fields of creation, doing "life-size" productions, outside collaborations, and varied internships.