Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
University of Chichester
La Boîte Noir (The Red Boxes)
La Boîte Noir (The Red Boxes)
This PaR project explored the genre and narrative conventions of Film Noir (Naremore, 2008). The research outcomes include four professional projects. Each project developed and deepened a similar research aim and method. In particular it addressed the following research question:
How can Film Noir’s narrative and aesthetic genre conventions, and concomitant filmic vocabularies be used as performance strategies for the making of performance for alternative (outdoor) theatre spaces?
The methodology for this research was previously established in the BlackBox research (see item 1). This project aimed to develop that working methodology to explore new issues in form and structure while remaining close to the established methods of adapting and remediating filmic texts and genres. The outcomes include:
1) A new ‘medium’ and installation that develops the signature style of Bootworks Theatre. (Information on the research underpinning the development of this structure can be found in the portfolio).
2) Performance: La Boîte Noir (2011-2013)
La Boîte Noir is primarily text and character driven: a ‘crime-thriller’ narrative told from multiple perspectives. The research into Film Noir develops Bootworks’ ongoing explorations into ways to embody, pastiche and remediate filmic genres. As such it follows a progression from earlier work and results in a deepening of influences; notably a recurring interest in a canon of film-work stemming from the early cinematic Art of the Expressionists and its antecedents. Film Noir presented a stimulating subject for research due to its rich genre and stylistic conventions. Key features of Film Noir include a distinctive use of shot/angle, audience perspective (‘who’ they see the story through), and a distinct use of chiaroscuro and key lighting amongst the range of common axioms (Park, 2011: 55-56). In this project, these tropes and conventions were developed and adapted particularly in the performance’s aesthetic, narrative structure, characterisations and writing style.
