Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
University of Chichester
The Black Box
The Black Box is a practice led research project (2008-09, touring to 2013) resulting in two performance outcomes:
• Une Boite Andalouse (2008)
• Little Box of Horrors (2009), performance for one in the BlackBox,
The Black Box is a static theatre installation for one person created by Joff Chafer (Founder, Trestle Theatre) and gifted to Daniels (Artistic Director, Bootworks Theatre). It comprises of two objects: A non-planar hexagonal audience ‘booth’ for one person and a wheeled storage box for a ‘stringpuller’ to stand on and operate the opening and closing of 3 window apertures (through which the audience views the show).
The tryptich of apertures in the Black Box present an environment in which to research in practice the ‘polyscenicness’ of Meyerhold or Piscator, as the viewing apertures present multiple, layered or split points of view and perspectives for the viewer, successively or concurrently. The audience (of one) experience the action through these three apertures. Outside the structure up to 8 performers employ diegetic and nondiegetic sound, live action (symbolic, actual), puppetry, mask, video and analogue image projection to bring the show to life.
This form lends itself to modes of viewing like that of Eisenstein’s ‘Collision Montage” (Andrew,1976: 51-53), or “mise-encadre” (Ebrahimian, 2004: 64-66) where gestalt, associative or compound imagery can evoke new meaning and signification. This framed the research which aimed to explore, employ and synthesize filmic vocabularies in the composition of a unique small-scale theatre (for one person) performance (the Black Box). This involved the remediation of cinematography, film texts and genre theory. The Black Box’s research methodology is transdisciplinary (Kershaw et al, 2011: 63-66): specifically borrowing and transposing film and theatre compositional forms and methods to frame and structure live theatrical imagery and narrative. The medium and form is a viewing medium primarily (like film) ocular-centric.
