Landscape and human memory are in a reciprocal relationship – landscape sustains a certain kind of remembering while memories keep it from changing too much. Living in and looking at a landscape can be regarded as acts of remembrance, where the landscape is not scenery, but a stage of action. Theatrical performances given in landscape present a special case, since they use the existing landscape for a fictional one. Regardless of the scope of scenographic intervention, landscape is experienced as an immediately present multisensory totality that the audience and actors share. This transdisciplinary study shows that theatre employs landscape memory on multiple levels (actual site of events, connotations of the landscape, the relationship between fictional history and visible markers). Scenography has the capability to reflect, express and change the relationship between landscape and memory. Productions staged in Estonian landscapes in 2000-2006 exemplify the extent that theatrical representation rests on (and benefits from) landscape memory.
Aronson, Arnold (1981) The history and theory of environmental scenography. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press.
Berleant, Arnold (1991) Art and engagement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Casey, Edward S. (1987) Remembering: a phenomenological study. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Carlson, Allen (2005 (1979)) “Appreciation and the natural environment”. In Aesthetics: critical concepts and philosophy, 362–374. James O. Young, ed. London and New York: Routledge.
Daniels, Stephen and Cosgrove Denis E. (1988) “Iconography and landscape”. The iconography of landscapes: essays on the symbolic representation: design and use of past environments,
1–10. Stephen Daniels and Denis E. Cosgrove, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ingold, Tim (2000) Perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge
Kaye, Nick (2001) Site-specific art: performance, place and documentation. London: Routledge.
Lowenthal, David (1975) “Past time, present place: landscape and memory”. Geographical Review 65, 1–36.
doi:10.2307/213831
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964) L’œeil et l’esprit. Paris: Editions Gallimard
Palang, Hannes, Helen Sooväli, Anu Printsmann, Tiina Peil, Valter Lang, Marge Konsa, Mart Külvik, Helen Alumäe, and Kalev Sepp (2004) “Estonian cultural landscapes: persistence and change.” Estonia. Geographical Studies (Tallinn) 9, 155–170.
Sooväli, Helen (2004) Saaremaa waltz: landscape imagery of Saaremaa Island in the 20th century. Tartu: Tartu University Press.
