Josef Svoboda - The Scenographer

"Poleykran"

"Laterna Magika"

Josef Svoboda is one of the most brilliant scenographers. He was born on May the 10th 1920 in Caslav, Czechoslovakia. He was first attracted to the world of theatre while studying at the Central School of Housing in Prague, however it was not until the end of WWII that he began to study scenograohy at the Prague Conservatory and architecture at the Academy of Applied Arts...

For those of you who do not know what scenography is... It is the art of creating performance environments; it can be composed of sound, light, clothing, performance, structure and space.

When Svoboda died on April the 8th 2002, it was estimated that he designed and directed over 700 hundred theatrical and operatic performances. Some of his most influential and creative works are his multimedia installations "Laterna Magika" and "Poleykran" with director Alfred Radok at the 1958 World Fair in Brussels. The shows featured a montage of performers and projections thrown onto live action and scenic elements. In Polyekran a wall of cubes shifted position, moving forwards and backwards, inside each cube a projector threw images onto the surface of the cube facing the audience. Light, photographic image, and object manipulation combined to create a living, moving work of performance art.... Josep Svoboda was not only brilliant but he was also immensely  creative with his productions!!!!