A wealth of world theatre

From 1 to 9 July, the international community of creative, theatre-related professions met in Taipei for the OISTAT Congress. Embedded within Scenofest, it included numerous practical and theoretical workshops as well as the contests and exhibitions “World Stage Design”, “Theatre Invention Prize” and “Theatre Architecture Competition”. It was the largest international event our correspondent had ever attended, and he returned inspired.

Immediately on arrival, I was struck by the Taiwanese openness and hospitality.

A visually impressive country, it offers highly sophisticated cityscapes set in tropical surroundings. From day one, my first trip to Asia promised to be a success. Taipei is a bustling and friendly metropolis; the ideal location for an international meeting like the World Stage Design competition and the OISTAT (Organisation Internationale des Scènographes, Techniciens et Architectes de Théâtre) World Congress 2017. The international World Stage Design (WDS) exhibition was hosted by Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) in the Kuandu district. The university campus is located on a hilltop and offers panoramic views of the entire city and the tropical vegetation covering the grand mountains of northern Taiwan. The university’s sprawling grounds are dotted with large buildings erected in a neoclassical Chinese style in the late 1980s.
The World Stage Design exhibition took up twelve of these buildings. Within this enchanting frame, more guests from all corners of the earth came together than I had ever seen before at a congress. The large international group consisting of OISTAT members, exhibitors and other organizations joined an inquisitive audience of predominantly students to make up an attendance of roughly 15,000.

The world of theatre: Exhibitions and performances
After the welcoming event, the doors opened on the eagerly anticipated exhibitions, spread across the university campus. Any one of the three main exhibitions, for which three prizes each stood to be awarded, would have been worth the trip alone: the “Theatre Architecture Competition Exhibition 2017” (TAC), “Technical Invention Prize Exhibition 2017” (TIP) and “World Stage Design 2017 – One Theatre World in Taipei” in the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts at the centre of the university grounds. This year’s TAC invited designs for a temporary theatre. The TIP awarded prizes to the smartest technical inventions for simplifying everyday working life.
The central exhibition, the WSD, is held every four years by OISTAT and aimed at both young people and professionals. The best 100 entries are selected by an international jury and put on display. This year, the WSD showed entries by students on two floors of the art museum and works by stage and costume designers, which could not have been more different, on two other floors. Every aesthetic tendency in the world of theatre came together here in one room.

International Exchange: Scenofest
The second pillar of the WSD is the “Scenofest” festival, organized by OISTAT to celebrate scenography. This year’s edition consisted of performances, workshops, keynote speeches, lectures, talks and a costume programme presented by the OISTAT Performance Design Commission’s Costume Design Group, whose panels of experts formed the backbone of Scenofest. 5000 visitors attended 35 performances from all over the world, which cleverly underlined the diverse aesthetics that we had previously seen in the exhibition in a performative context, and each in its own way highlighted the turmoil characterizing our times. At the end of the day, the World Stage Design 2017 managed to show a thousand brilliant facets of international theatre, rising to the challenge of presenting a full spectrum of innovation and diversity within a momentary snapshot of performing art from all over the world.
A new board was also voted in at the OISTAT Congress. For more information on this and other activities of the organization, go to:
www.oistat.org