Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
University of Chichester
The Incredible Book Eating Boy
The Incredible Book Eating Boy
This practice as research project explores the theatrical adaptation of an illustrated Children’s book by Oliver Jeffers (2009). This includes a performance, an associated installation and workshop for children. This project continues the refinement and evolution of Bootworks and Daniels interest in synthesising filmic vocabularies and compositional methodologies and asks how can we, in practice, remediate or adapt 2D graphic illustration into 3D live performance.
The story and illustrated (2D graphic) medium is adapted into a unique theatrical medium (the blackbox theatre for one person). The creation of an integrative live action, mask, puppetry, objects and analogue back-projected performance make a contribution to the field of children’s theatre, outdoor theatre and practice as research in performance in its unique exploration of this particular set of theatrical devices. The performance is an intimate and immersive experience which explores the relationship between graphic animation and film influenced by Paper Cinema, 1927 Theatre and Estaban Sapir films.
In addition to the performance research, the project questioned ways in which children (and carer) can become completely immersed in the book’s diagesis. All elements of this production serve a singular ethos and purpose which was to use the medium of the black box as an imaginative space where the book comes to life. (An attendant outcome is the focus on the reading, literacy and story making/telling of young people aged 4-7). The performance provided parents with opportunities to read and describe the visual images to their child alongside the recorded narrative. Henry's Room, the associated installation provided another, interactive, environment for quiet contemplation, reading, and drawing before and after the performance. The accompanying workshops (also considered impact events) offered another environment for the book to come to life in the imagination through shared reading, writing and story making of parents/carers with their children.
