It happened again...

These past few days I have had several discussions and tutorials with several different people in and out of college. In all these occasions, I wanted (or was asked) to explain what it is that I am doing this year. In all occasions, I answered (or started to) by saying the same thing in - more or less - the same words:
'I am exploring the specificities of creating a piece of theatre through the scenographic approach, exploring how a piece of work can emerge through a procedure which places the scenographic elements at the departure point of the creation and relies mainly on them to communicate meaning, thoughts, ideas, etc.’
This is the crucial point where, a lot of times, problems may begin. Some people, mainly performance-related people, start very interesting conversations that result brilliantly in giving me references and interesting questions to go home with. Some other people (naturally) are not familiar with the term scenography (a more holistic approach of ‘theatre design’) but that is not the problem since I would be more than happy to speak about it and then start explaining what I want to do with it– if I was given the opportunity of course. Since I am usually not given that opportunity (rather I am ‘arrested’ in the first words of my sentences and end up elaborating on the smallest points of my thoughts as if they were the whole) I thought I could get it off my chest and on the blog to get it over with.
Scenography is usually associated with the creation of the appropriate environment for a dramatic text to fit in, the spatial transformation that aims to 'house' the text and the performer. Having this description in mind, a lot of people believe that practicing scenography is about decorating the stage appropriately or creating beautiful still images. 'Beauty' and 'pictorial' and 'still' exist in it but only if they are called for by the 3-c (concept, context, content). It is about images, yes, but 4-dimensional moving ones. Scenic images that cannot stand on their own as sculptures because they are transformed by time and movement as they are parts of a unity completed by the performer existing in them. The performer's body is a scenographic element, too (a very important one according to my experience) since its movement defines and transforms space.
Joseph Svoboda thought of scenography as a conversation among space, time, movement and light. Elements enorchestrated in a temporal, constantly moving live entity. 4D images.
I can understand that it is the 4th D that causes the problems, it is that ‘t’ landing on the head of x, y, z that messes with people’s preconceptions about what is what. But that ‘t’ is what makes a live performance a live performance. I thought everybody understood that. Take that ‘t’ out and you’re only left with some kind of memento. Nice perhaps, but dead.
There, it is said and done with.