Off the Wall

This site-specific performance event was designed by Pavelka and subsequently exhibited in digital video format at the Society of British Theatre Designers' UK exhibition of Theatre Design at the RCMD Cardiff and was then selected to represent the United Kingdom at the quadrennial world exposition of Theatre Design in Prague in 2011 (PQ11). The production opened the refurbished Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank. Pavelka collaborated with Liam Steel and Robert Tannion (otherwise known as dance and physical company Stan Won't Dance) to develop a visual narrative for a one-hour spectacle using the brutalist architecture of the RFH, Hayward Gallery and surrounding spaces and buildings as a scenographic playground. Having collaborated before, the creative team extended their preoccupations with choreography on vertical surfaces and in spatial volume and to seemingly defy the forces of gravity by engineering and illusion. The design pooled the resources of a number of London-based colleges including Laban, Circus Space, London College of Fashion and Wimbledon College of Art. Original text, music and circus skills were also used to tell a futuristic story that responded to the weight and solidity of the concrete structures - there were over 120 student and professional performing in front of an audience of 3000. Pavelka's PQ exhibit was 'the designer's cut' recording of the event, interwoven with process drawings in order to graphically connect the speculative design to the realised event. The exhibit toured the UK as part of the Victoria and Albert Museum's continued promotion of theatre culture and education through to 2013