BLACKBOX MANIFESTO
by Connor Coyne
Second Revision
begun 4/18/2001 11:54 PM . finished 4/20/2001 12:17 PM
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A diatribe:
- In a culture glutted by media overdose, instant news, instant communication across the world, genetics, eugenics, buried diseases and god machines, the slow offensive of science against religion and vice versa, atomic bombs and electoral colleges, graphic pornography, graphic violence, corporeal mergers and corporate cuteness, American cars made in Japan and Japanese cars made in Kentucky, the dissolution of the two party system and its inception, the ascendence of the bourgeois, the ascendence of the proletariat, the obsolescence of all these terms, the elimination of inequality, its perpetuation, its proliferation, the collision between classic forms of art and new forms, the mainstreaming of new forms, the novelty of the simple and new earnestness, the death of class, the death of kitsch, the tragic death of rock and roll, the inane and long-predicted demise of all musical styles, the marginalization of the middle, and the buttering up of what-once-was-radical, the simple reduction of all sensual pleasures, and the exponential increase in sensuality, if we are to wage a war on behalf of the masses, we need new tools. If we are to build revolution, we must coopt the chaotic and frenzied energy of our times and feed it into the open nerve cells of a culture that has been anesthetized to oblivion.
- We exist in a frenzy of burning activity. As time passes, entropy increases, and human activity, like all activity, becomes more complex. As our frontiers expand, our history lengthens, our population booms, and our resources strain, so much more of our actions take the form of destructive interference - a direct cancellation of other action, without tangible result, and often without a confirmed abstract value. The proliferation of statistics devalues statistics as a measure. The number of religions, political affilliations, and “identities," each with their own claim to “legitimacy," disallow objective orientation. The multiplicity of disciplines, schools, and philosophies mandate a sacrifice of breadth or depth. Our world has long been too large for us to understand. Now we are confronted with a world which expands above the speed of light, and the horizon of our vision races towards us so quickly, we must soon be shut in darkness.
- It is assumed that we communicate to share. We share that others may comprehend something they did not comprehend before. Through sharing we influence the course of action, and the perception of space, and so exert power. Thus we also communicate to exert power.
- If art, then, in its struggle to communicate through any of the mediums we call art, is to share and exert any power on its audience, the calamitous noise of an expanding world must be silenced. Or occluded. Stopped. Overcome. Transcended.
- Theater, which we may conservatively describe as observed action in four-dimensions, defined by Peter Brook as “a man walks through an empty space whilst another man watches," is the most versatile of arts. As a human in a void, with a human watching, theater need be supplied with nothing other than these raw materials. All that is required for theater is an actor and an audience. It is the most movable of arts, requiring neither an etchable surface or even sound, and the most adaptable of arts, the actor having the possibility of changing the execution of performance as often as he pleases, within a single performance or from one performance to the next.
- This manifesto is not a “superiority of theater" assertion; any medium that can attain longevity has clearly found an environment in which it is potent. However, the versatility described here is at the heart of why theater in particular is suitable for this style of performance.
- The Blackbox Theater. There is a name for a theater that shirks the red curtains and boxes of the grand auditoriums for a black back room in the storefronts, barns, union halls. He is named the Blackbox for the space in which he is performed, union halls, barns, and storefronts, all painted black so that the light won’t spread too far, and because a black wall is nowhere in particular: it can be anywhere.
- This theater demands that actors train themselves rigorously, mastering their bodies as the most immediate tool to use in performance, and mastering their environments as the field of study. When this is achieved, the performers become magicians, conjuring out of the void performances that will startle audiences with a greater diversity of substance than rabbits and doves.
- Effective change and power over one’s environment. To participate in sensory, social war, and stand a chance of winning. To empower the individual out in the masses, and to make that empowerment truly universal. To initiate the Blackbox is to initiate war. To participate in the Blackbox is to participate in war. To acknowledge the Blackbox is to acknowledge war. The battleground is the field of spiritual, political, and social thought and action. The Blackbox exists only to act and comment on the hungers and needs that drive our daily lives.
- The Blackbox is a guerilla war. Its goal is a revolution of thought. Its goal is to overturn all of our assumptions. If it does not work on some moral premise, it evades its true purpose. If it is neither sought nor hunted, it is either not communicating powerfully enough, or does not communicate the right things.
- Form a theater group of dedicated individuals.
By theater group, I mean a body of actors and technicians who will perform for audiences.
By audience, I mean a body of people that observe a performance.
By performance, I mean a series of actions executed by the actors in space and time that consciously communicates with the audience ideas or thoughts. It is implicit in this definition that both the actor and the audience are conscious that a performance is taking place.
By dedicated individuals, I mean that these actors and technicians must be willing to commit their lives and careers to the success of the Blackbox theater.
- The group must be diverse.
Obvious categories of diversity include class, age, race, sex, relgious orientation, sexual orientation, political orientation, homeland/state/town, languages spoken, age, ability/disability, amount of prior theater experience. - The group must also strive for diversity outside of obvious categories.
- If the group is not diverse, you are not trying hard enough.
- Diversity is not the point; members must enjoy each-others’ company first and foremost.
- Staff must double as Actors.
By Staff I mean those people who maintain the physical and administrative needs of the theater, and coordinate technical elements of the show.
By Actors, I mean the actual individuals performing for the audience.
- The following is the ideal template for the distribution of responsibilities in a Blackbox performance.
- Director / Stage Manager / Custodian
- Set Designer / Technical Director
- Light Designer / Sound Designer / Board Operator / Electrician
- Dramaturg / Promotion Designer / Historian / Master of Revels
- Musical Director / Choreographer
- Costume Designer / Prop Designer / Makeup Designer
- The following is an outline of responsibilities by person, according to the template provided above.
- By this template, person a suggests, leads, and coordinates the action in both rehearsal and performance, and ensures that the space is consistently clean.
- By this template, person b makes any adjustment to the configuration of space that affects performances, and oversees any technical needs.
- By this template, person c plans and coordinates the use of light and sound, all electrical work, and performs these tasks during performance.
- By this template, person d researches the performance and all relevant material, promotes it to the prospective audience, records the achievements of the group, and coordinates rectreation the group participates in as a whole.
- By this template, person e coordinates any work involving music and dance.
- By this template, person f coordinates the costume, prop, and makeup aspects of performance.
- Positions in this template are not fixed, but shift from project to project, or even from performance to performance. That way each member hones her skills in many different areas and the group as a whole becomes more versatile.
By project I mean a body of work which is rehearsed to be performed.
By performance I mean the exhibition of work for an audience by the Blackbox. - The Blackbox is born through a moment of consensus and covenant among its members. The actual induction is the process of procuring a space and designing the Blackbox and Vault performance areas, which are described at point 39. This ritual must happen near the end of August or the beginning of September in the northern hemisphere, the end of February or the beginning of March in the southern hemisphere, as the season is still summer, but days shorten rapidly towards the autumnal equinox.
- The group is further inducted through a rigorous training program which takes a year. This is called the Year of Induction.
- During the Year of Induction, training takes place for four hours a day, five days a week.
This does not include travel or preparation time.
The time of rehearsal is established at the group’s convenience.
Two days off a week is important to prevent burnout, and to ensure that individual religious needs are respected. - During the Year of Induction it is important that the group does not change its performing space, nor does it gain or lose members. Central to the entire process is a growing trust and intimacy between members.
- The first phase of the Year of Induction is the Communicating phase, and it lasts approximately three months.
The Communicating phase begins on the night of the Autumnal Equinox, and runs until two weeks before the Winter Solstice.
This phase emphasizes reexamining and relearning basic motor and communication skills.
The first week consists only of general stretches and exercises, and making actors more comfortable with their bodies. If you need suggestions for these activities, consult basic stretching and exercise manuals, and perhaps rehearse at the local YMCA/YWCA. An excellent choice is the Marine Corps physical training regiment, which is designed for men and women of many different physiques.
Throughout the Year of Induction, and on into performances, actors must spend 45 minutes to an hour warming up using the techniques learned here, and adding in new. The second week, the actors begin working more directly to communicate. Initial conditions are very demanding, operating through sound and gesture. Peter Brook outlines some excellent exercises in The Holy Theatre chapter of The Empty Space. Other suggestions are found in Improvisation for the Theater, by Viola Spolin. Up to four weeks may be spent on these exercises, none of which will allow the actors to speak or gesture explicitly. Similarly, goals must be immediate and tangible, not abstract.
The exploration of visual language begins with the pictoral and ends with the symbolic. Exercises initially involve drawing, then writing, and Spolin has more exercises suited to this course.
The exploration of aural language begins with the onomatopoetic and ends with the expression of abstract concept. Exercises initially involve the development of simple words from sounds, the evolution of sentences, and complex thoughts.
This is a good point at which to introduce generic improvisation exercises.
After these modes of communication have been developed separately, they are tied together. A default mechanism for this is Aristotles’ Poetics, which unites speech and symbol through combined expression.
During the Communicating Phase, actors read a history of drama, a study on contemporary theater (The Empty Space is suggested, even though it was published thirty years ago...), and books and articles on the development of language and humanity.
The Communicating Phase is followed by four weeks of rest. - The second phase of the Year of Induction is the Stylistic phase, and it lasts approximately three months.
The Stylistic phase begins two weeks after the Winter Solstice and continues until the Vernal Equinox.
This phase emphasizes understanding and emulating preconceived means and theories of performance. The goal is not for the group to find a style of performance that is appropriate for the Blackbox, though it is possible to start thinking in this direction, but to, with rudimentary tools, come to understand the importance and context of each style explored.
Theories and styles should include, but not be limited to, ancient Indian, Chinese, and Japanese theater, American and African tribal ritual, the Greek playwrights (names: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, theory explained by Aristotle), the oral tradition of heathen cultures, early Christian theater, wall performances of Ferdowsi’s Shakespeare, Marlousi’s Shahnamah, Moliere, Jonson, Shaw, Stanislavsky, Goethe, Gogol, Ibsen and Chekhov, Pirandello, Proust, Pinter, Woolf and Wilde, O’Neill and Simon, the work of the historical avantgarde, mime, clowns, the evolution of vaudeville into the American musical,, Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty, Brecht’s Epic Theater, minimalist work by Beckett, the development of opera from the Renaissance to contemporary times, and so on.
This selection must necessarily be culturally diverse. With a global economy and the Internet, consideration of the Western tradition alone is no longer sufficient. Your exploration must touch on every continent (including Antarctica) and span five thousand years.
Needless to say, this phase involves a great deal of reading.
The Stylistic phase is followed by two weeks of rest. - The third phase of the Year of Induction is the Compounding phase, and it lasts approximately three months.
The Compounding phase begins on the night of the Vernal Equinox, and runs until two weeks before the Summer Solstice.
During this phase, performers concentrate on developing skills useful to performance. Dancing, singing, languages, fighting, juggling and basic mime, puppetry, maskmaking, stilt work, basic lighting, set, sound, costume, prop, and makeup design, and innumerable other skills may be developed. Just as earlier phases emphasize that skills mastered earlier in life should not be taken for granted, neither should skills without a conventional application in theater. For example, feeding an audience during performance forms an immediate connection between actor and audience that involves an investment on the part of each; cooking could be a useful skill to learn. Similar arguments could be made for skills such as acrobatics, fortune telling, religious chanting, and pickpocketing.
Throughout the Compounding phase, it is important to review and continue the work of the first two phases. The Compounding phase is followed by two weeks of rest. - The fourth phase of the Year of Induction is the Traveling phase, and it lasts approximately three months.
The Traveling phase begins on the night of the Summer Solstice, and runs until two weeks before the Autumnal Equinox.
During this phase, performers concentrate on the coherence and unification of work achieved during the first three phases, however, within the context of a continuing road trip. This ensures a dynamic, changing environment in which to work, especially after the work to this point has been monastic and stationary. The Traveling phase must be well coordinated for practical reason (ie. expenses) and to make the best use of time. In general, a Blackbox based in Flint, Michigan will concentrate on traveling disparate and diverse settings such as: Michigan, lower and upper peninsulas, Saskatchewan, North and South Dakota, Salt Lake City, New Orleans, New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, Florida, the Carolinas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Denver, Albuquerque, eastern Ohio, and at least a brief stint in Mexico. Enough time must be allowed, however, to explore and appreciate each of these settings in their own right. The Traveling phase is followed by two weeks of rest. - Once the Year of Induction is completed, the group is adequately prepared in rudimentary skills to begin performance in the Blackbox space. In time they may progress to the Vault space.
- Performances begin soon after the Autumnal Equinox following the completion of the Year of Induction.
- Performances require the same rigor of diversity as the Stylistic phase.
This means frequent use of work by both sexes, many races and ethnic groups, sexual orientation, past and present. This will enrich performances, and if you cannot achieve this diversity, you are not trying hard enough. - Diversity is not the point.
Perform each work for its own unique content. - Performances can be rehearsed by any method agreed upon by the group in advance. After the year long training program, the group is likely to have already developed a style of working together, which is necessarily successful, or they would have killed each-other much sooner.
By rehearsal, I mean the process of preparing a performance for presentation to an audience. - Any rehearsal nevertheless begins with a satisfactory answer to the question: How would this project be performed in the Blackbox space with one actor, one audience member, no props, set, costumes, etc.?
- All members of the Blackbox also work what is equivalent to a part-time job (approximately 20 hours of work per week).
This provides in the area of $500 a month for each member to support herself on, and will also keep the theater from becoming isolated from the larger community. - The means that, certainly during the Year of Induction, members of the Blackbox are living below the poverty line.
It is suggested they read Towards a Poor Theater, by Jerzy Grotowski, and deal with it, like billions of humans do on a daily basis. If you cannot enjoy a life of imposed poverty, you lack the stamina necessary for this type of theater anyway. - The group must acquire a space ion which to perform.
The space should have at least one entrance to the east, and one to the west. This will allow the sunrise and sunset to shine through the space, simply by opening a door. - Any space the group deems suitable is a possibility. The following are suggestions, each with advantages and disadvantages, usually in terms of intimacy verses versatility of space.
- The back room of a store, or a storefront.
- An apartment.
- A warehouse.
- An factory / industrial space.
- A really big treehouse.
- An old, abandoned theater.
- A barn or storage shed.
- A hanger.
- An abandoned fire station.
- A tunnel.
- A classroom.
- A cafeteria.
- A funeral home.
- If the space consists of more than one room, one room is set aside as a performance space. This room can be of any dimensions, but all of the windows must be covered with black shades, or painted black, and all of the walls, floor, and ceiling must be painted black. This is the Blackbox space.
- If another room is available, it is painted white. A single light fixture is placed at the center of the room, with an ornamental cover. This symbolizes the sun. A circle on the ceiling, whose radii extends from the light is painted bright yellow. A ring surrounding this is orange. Further rings are red, violet, and dark purple. These rings symbolize the night sky surrounding the sun. The purple covers all of the ceiling not included in the other rings, and drips down the white painted walls. Finally, glow in the the dark glue is applied to the ceiling in the shape of constellations, which shine when the light its turned off. This is the Vault space.
- It is ideal for both of these spaces to be small.
This limits the size of the audience.
This allows each actor to develop more of a connection with each audience member. This brings each member of the audience closer to the actor in proximity, facilitating subtle gestures and inflections which might be imperceptible at a distance.
This makes the performance more confrontational and direct, affecting each audience member’s entire field of vision. - It is ideal for all performance spaces to be flexible spaces.
By flexible, I mean open to multiple configurations. - The conventional configurations are acknowledged in Western theater.
- A proscenium configuration, in which the action is framed and set apart from the audience on one side.
- A thrust configuration, in which the actors perform in a peninsula of space which the audience surrounds.
- An arena configuration, in which the actors are surrounded by the audience on four or more sides.
- A flexible space can take advantage of any of the above configurations, and more, giving the actors the opportunity to define their spatial relationship to their audience.
- The word ‘space’ replaces ‘stage.’
A stage suggests a permanent structure with a set configuration.
Space implies a void in which any type of action is possible. - The audience relates to space through senses other than sight.
The space has a noticeable air pressure (eg. a disturbance of air, the presence of a distinct breeze, or none at all), a noticeable temperature, a noticeable scent (eg. cinnamon, facial moisturizer, honeysuckle, cigar smoke, etc.), and an aural texture (eg. traffic from the street nearby, background music, people at the restaurant next door, absolute enforced silence). - At least one group member lives in the theater.
For at least one member of the group, and perhaps many more, the performance space is literally home. - The theater is not only the location of performance.
It functions first and foremost as the home of the group; a place to work together. - The theater is not the only location of performance.
Once the Blackbox and Vault spaces are mastered, the Blackbox may be performed elsewhere. Performances can take place anywhere, including:- Weddings.
- Funerals.
- Churches and especially church camp.
- Supermarkets.
- Parks.
- Parking lots.
- Coffee Shops.
- Toffee stops.
- Restaurants.
- Strip malls.
- The Mall.
- Roller Skating Rinks.
- Pool Halls.
- Video Game Arcades.
- Bowling Alleys.
- Back alleys.
- Starbucks and Borders Books.
- The group is established in Flint, Michigan. If it is not established in Flint, Michigan, it is established in Saginaw, Michigan. If it is not established in Saginaw, Michigan, it is established in one of the following cities: Wheeling, West Virginia, Biloxi, Mississippi, Ponca City, Oklahoma, Savannah, Georgia, or Colorado Springs, Colorado.
- These communities share several tangible and intangible qualities which suggest them as centers for the Blackbox.
- Each of these cities is a medium-sized metropolitan community, with a distinct self-identity, that is somewhat isolated from larger metropolitan centers. Their autonomy means that they each develop their own arts communities. While these arts communities may be considerable, the size of each city limits the expansion of the art community to a point at which an intimate relationship between all art groups is still possible. The communities are also small enough to allow each group to have an impact on urban development.
- Each city has room for its arts community to expand, given the number and variety of art projects against population and public interest.
- Each city is also the locus of regional economic and cultural questions. Whether the tension is attributed to the automotive industry, sugar production, military presence, oil or coal mining, or the Christian coalition, these communities have a history of internal discourse. Hence, pieces that bridge religious/social/ethical and aesthetic dialogue, whether didactic or open-ended, are both timely and relevant to the prospective audiences.
- Each city is home to an audience educated to accept both conventional and experimental art. Artistic experimentation is a part of the abovementioned discourse, and has a historical precedent. The audience, then, is savvy enough to appreciate experimentation and not take it for granted.
- Each city, is finally, in the midst of transition. Again, the size allows Blackbox to provoke affecting discourse... arts and community enterprise can drive effective change and exert power over the local environment. The Blackbox has an active stake in the audience, the audience has a stake in performance, and both exist in tension with the local community. Art that entertains can do much more than entertain.
- These are the wellsprings from which the Blackbox develops her languages and vocabularies; where she initiates the first offences in her war of communication.
- The Blackbox established in Flint, Michigan, or one of the other cities listed, may be based in any of the inner-city or outlying neighborhoods, whether rich or poor, racially segregated or integrated, historically interesting or sterile, and so on. The entire city is open as a possibility.
- The Blackbox studies the needs, history, and demography of the neighborhood in which she is based, and incorporates this information in the development of her identity.
Three main alliances of different theaters form: Set North, Set West, and Set East. The greatest rivalry is between Set East and Set West. Set is not strictly defined by location within the city, but more primarily with the goals of performance: the highest goal of Set North is social reform; the improvement of the quality of life in the broader world. The highest goal of Set West is catharsis; ritual cleansing of actors and audience through the revelation of truth. The highest goal of Set East is euphoria; performance that is enjoyable and engaging on a visceral, Epicurean level. - There will ultimately be at least 68 theater groups within the city limits.
- As soon as possible.
- Each member should try to have as much sex as possible, under many different circumstances.
- Performances should be free.
- Admission charge should be items such as photographs or underwear, or services, such as a kiss on the cheek, or reciting the words: “Open, sesame seed bagel."
- Provide the audience with food.
- Provide the audience with drink.
- Provide the audience with music and dancing.
- Provide the audience with baloons and flashy, pretty things they can take home with them.
- Give the audience money as they leave the theater.
- Open a coffee shop or diner in one of the rooms of the theater. Don’t try to make a profit off this but break even, offering the lowest prices to encourage larger crowds.
- Crosscast, not only gender, but race, political affiliation, religion, and class.
- Develop alter-egos to the extent that each member has a superhero double.
- Form a band. Release singles and albums, on a label if possible. Incorporate this into your other performances. Offer concerts.
- Develop a Scavanger Hunt, that audience members participate in for special prizes.
- Perform Harold Pinter with a laughtrack as the only sound design.
- Perform Samuel Beckett contrary to his own wishes, and then let the arrival of his estate and lawyers, and subsequent uproar be the actual performance. Invite the audience to the shutting down of the show. In the end, sing Bridge over the River Kwai whilst handing out bowls of cornmeal.
- Launch fireworks after performances.
- Invite the audience to a slumber party with Scooby Doo or Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind after performances.
- Pull pranks.
- Impersonate celebrities both known and unknown. Portray them in conversation.
- Perform Christie Golden’s Ravenloft Novels Dance of the Dead and Vampire of the Mists. Concentrate in particular on making the zombies appear vital and sexy.
- Turn the Blackbox space into a ‘Museum of Me.’ Sell tickets and lead the tour.
- Perform North Side, a contemporaization of Macbeth or Hamlet, which initially allows the original text to stand in stark contrast to its interpretation, but ultimately conflates them so that it seems the show could not be set anywhere else.
- Perform a piece on racism, sexism, classism, etc., in which you segregate the audience.
- Perform musicals at least once in a while.
- Perform a movement piece on a musician or musical group, set to their music, and forming intersecting lines between the evolution of the music itself and the lives of the musician. This cannot be easily dissected, like Behind the Music.
- Perform a love story with a tragic or treacherous ending on Valentines days. Equip all couples in attendance with fake blood capsules which can be sprung at the end of the show.
- Perform a show which is interrupted in the middle by a forty-five minute dance party.
- Perform a show in absolute darkness.
- Perform a show without sound, that involve loud, calamatous events.
- Perform at strange times, like 2:17 AM.
- Perform your confessions, elegantly.
- Perform to eat and drink.
- Perform to appear sexy, mysterious, and profound, to hook up, have one-night stands you will describe for your grandchildren, infuse the relationships in your life with passion.
- Perform so the girls in the audience will coo with admiration, while the boy’s tongues are stuck in place. Perform to be famous.
- If members aren’t having fun, enjoying training and performing, then the process is already defeated and the Blackbox has no point.
- Absolutely nothing in this manifesto is sacrosanct. Some of it isn’t even important.
- Every once in a while, look at the stars and drink Merlot.
A reflection on the diatribe:
Assumptions:
What style of performance?
How is this done?
And what is the point?
WHO will be involved in this theater?
HOW is the Blackbox brought about, and HOW does it function?
WHERE does the Blackbox Theater take place?
WHEN should the Blackbox Theater establish itself?
Additional Suggestions
