A Scenography Workshop on Campus in Hyderabad: Romeo, Juliet and the Security Guard

The article discusses a workshop conducted with postgraduate students at the University of Hyderabad in the central state of Andhra Pradesh, India that developed into a production; Romeo, Juliet and the Security Guard. The workshop was a practice-based investigation of the spatial theories of social geographer Doreen Massey, playing on and with Massey’s notion of the relational and unstable properties of place, as a starting point for new work. The article isolates three moments from the whole project to illuminate Massey’s ideas in relation to live performance and to demonstrate how the workshop evolved into a socially engaged site-based production. It considers the value of Massey’s ideas on space, place and displacement in the broader context of scenography and performance composition.

This research is part of Collins’ ongoing investigations into scenography and performance composition. The article was developed from a conference paper ‘Peacocks and Buffaloes on campus in Hyderabad’ delivered as part of the panel ‘The Bottom Line: social relations and market determinations’ convened by Collins at ‘Performance Studies International’ in Leeds, July 2012.