Beam Camp Project 2025: Theater of Giants
About the Big Project
Theater of Giants
Building on Beam Camp’s previous successes in performative production, the Shadow Theatre is a specialized piece of play performance infrastructure that enables the small to become giant, bodies to merge and objects to come alive.
Shadow theatre has a long history and often incorporates intricate puppetry and performed in intimate glowing settings. Utilising Beam Camp’s dramatic landscape and extra large team, this shadow theatre aims to bring the art form to a new scale and dimension, culminating in a dramatically atmospheric light and shadow performance on the world’s largest shadow theatre stage.
The project will invite camper to work with a variety of tools and materials to create the stage deck, siding, frames screen, and two-dimensional puppets which will be used to create a theatrical shadow performance. The disciplines campers will use include:
Structural Wood and Metal Fabrication
Storyboarding
Puppet and Prop Making
Costume Making
Video
Sound Design
3D Printing
Laser Cutting
and more
The Designer: Jon Shmulevitch
Jon is a London-based architectural practitioner and educator specializing in youth-led design and build. He leads long-term engagement programs that involve young people in brief development, research, and design, culminating in collaborative build projects using experimental participation methods, including on-site performance based testing. He has special experience in designing play and performance spaces within urban infrastructure and collaborating with ecologists to connect people with nature. Jon lectures in architecture at the University of the Arts London and the University for the Creative Arts Canterbury, teaching BA core design modules. Additionally, his background in carpentry and historic timber restoration informs his material-focused approach to design and making.