Turtle Portable Theater

1995

The motif of body and shell is carried on by the Turtle Theater, which riffs a creature that succinctly expresses this dualism. Here, though, the body in question is multiple, the bodies of the people who shelter within for performances. And the shell is itself no turtle’s rigid box but a thin fabric membrane kept up by air pressure. The commission came from a troupe of traveling puppeteers and the theater was designed to be demounted and shipped from place to place. Somewhat more complicated than a simple inflatable and combining hard elements with soft, its movement from one venue to another was not – in emulation of its eponymous muse – intended to be altogether swift.

Credits: Andrei Vovk