ENTR’ACTES

What does it mean to rediscover “the corporeality of theatre and the theatre of corporeality”?

This chiastic question and insight concerning dramatically embodied world-making goes to the core of Marco Frascari’s life-long exploration of architectural imagination. Provoked by Frascari’s protean puzzle – and by the challenge to social embodiment posed by the pandemic and other global crises – this symposium seeks to nurture a renewal of architectural imagination via a trio of theatrical sub-plots: Memory, World and Action.

ENTR’ACTES

As part of the Theatres of Architectural Imagination symposium, eleven short Entr’Actes have been selected for exhibition.

Meaning literally ‘between the acts,’ Entr’actes were popular short performances in early modern theatre. They were devised to entertain audiences while stage curtains closed to allow for costume and scene changes between acts of a play.

Providing a practical pause, these live interludes also served a variety of artistic and interpretive purposes: offering comic relief and aesthetic delight; providing contemporary and historical allusions or context for the featured performance; and prompting alternative readings of the primary play’s meaning and plot.

As complements to a symposium of academic presentations, these two-minute Entr’Acte videos illuminate the same theatrical themes of Memory, World and Action in multi-media format, while animating pauses between paper sessions with provocatively pleasing diversions.

Curator: Lisa Landrum, University of Manitoba