This Visiting School programme will offer the opportunity to design and build a Full Moon Theatre at Hooke Park, a theatre that is illuminated only by the light of the moon. As a recreation of the ‘Wonderful Laboratory’, originally initiated by Humbert Camerlo and Peter Rice in a remote valley in the south of France in the 1990s, this new version will lay down the foundations to create more structures of this kind.

The programme will include the design and construction of a site-specific open-air Full Moon Theatre, equipped with digitally fabricated moonlight reflectors to stage a test performance fully illuminated by the light of the moon without electricity.

The learning materials and tools created during the workshop will be included to the online Full Moon Theatre library with the aim that anyone can use them to stage a Full Moon Theatre performance anywhere in the world in the future.

Find out more here.

PROMINENT FEATURES OF THE WORKSHOP AND SKILLS DEVELOPED

• Research and Design. In this phase, the class will research and study the local context, the moon path, the simulation tools, with tutor led sessions and exercises. Some of the designers involved in creating the original Full Moon Theatre will be invited to talk and contribute to the development of the design. The design will consider the mechanisms to orient the reflectors using only human energy
• Fabrication and Construction. In this phase, the class will use the Hooke Park digital fabrication and manual fabrication tools to create the moonlight reflectors and other physical elements and props required by the performance
• Construction and Performance. This phase will be the culmination of the Visiting School in the form of a test performance