The Black Book

The Black Book is a performance based on a book of illustrations called “IL LIBRO NERO” (The Black Book). The book is a collection of illustrations and poems based on the common image of the existence of a black book, in which are transcribed all the unmoral actions committed and the tragic events of ones life, like a sort of personal black register. The Black Book describes the journey of a fictional female character that retraces a series of crucial events through the three main stages of her life: as Child, as a young Woman and as old Woman. The characters and objects of The Black Book are part of a inward- looking world, which manifests itself through constant flashbacks triggered by the memory, that is re-tracing specific events of life and its consequential metamorphosis. As a devised performance from illustrations, the narrative of the Performance doesn’t use any text or dialogues, but a series of “Tableaux Vivant”, derived from a visual interpretation of the illustrations. The process of constructing the sequence of the scenes for the performance is influenced the most by the Film editing technique (decoupage/collage). Each Tableau has the value of a cinematic frame, whose union and overlays can express an emotional and aesthetic design. The narrative structure of the piece, made out of sequences of Frames/Tableaux, together with the variety of illustrations present in the Black Book, allows to experiment and to adapt the performance each time in different shape and duration.