Scenographic Void: Aerial Street Performances and the Urban Space: An Experiential Study on EcoPoetry and VocalAesthesis in Natural Environments

Abstract

Street performance scenography engages the material and spatial conditions of urban life, often through built structures and site-based installations. This research expands that field by investigating how aerial scenography activates the negative space above the city. Referring to Pedaleando al Cielo (Cycling to Heaven) by Theater Tol (Antwerp, Belgium), performed at Festival Internacional Santiago a Mil (FITAM), this paper explores how the vertical void of the sky becomes a scenographic commons — a space of aesthetic rupture, political contestation, and collective imagination.

The central research question is as follows: how can aerial scenography create meaning in public space by reconfiguring the sky as a performative site? Drawing on the concepts of expanded scenography, ecoscenography, and spatial theory, this paper examines how suspended, kinetic objects can transform audience perspectives and generate ephemeral architectures that challenge the dominance of surveillance, militarisation, and environmental precarity in aerial space.

Findings suggest that the upward gaze, mobilised through scenographic design, activates a counter-gesture of poetic resistance. By suspending bodies and imagery above eye level, the performance interrupts spatial hierarchies and reveals the sky as a charged, geopolitical terrain for temporary world-making.