- Performer:
- Misako YABUUCHI, Yuko HIRAI, Olivier BALZARINI, Hiromasa TOMARI, Hidekazu MAEDA
- Stage manager:
- So OZAKI
- Lighting design:
- Seiko OUCHI
- Sound design:
- Takuya MINAMI
- Computer program:
- Ken FURUDATE
- Video technician:
- Ichiro AWAZU
- Company manager:
- Yoko TAKATANI
- Production:
- dumb type office Ltd.
- Coproduction:
- THEATER DER WELT 2008 HALLE
La chambre claire or camera lucida (light chamber) refers to those devices with prisms and mirrors used as aids to life drawing prior to the advent of the camera obscura (dark chamber). The photographic process as we know it today requires the darkness of a “black box” —camera body, darkroom— whereas this performance is staged entirely in light.
The year before he died, Roland Barthes wrote a treatise on photography entitled «La chambre claire». We can say this book is also as a requiem for his late mother.
Already quite interested in optics and photography, I chose the title to my own performance for its bright connotations. What inspired me in creating my work, however, is the notion of photographs as proof positive of “THAT-HAS-BEEN,” their power to evoke memories both societal and personal.
- Shiro Takatani
La Chambre Claire (or Camera Lucida) is a show built up from precise, symmetrical movements, inviting spectators to embark on a thought-provoking journey into their most intimate and personal territory. In this, his first solo work as creative artist and director, Shiro Takatani pays homage to the French writer Roland Barthes and his essay on photography, La chambre claire (1980). The result is a performance that blends theatre, the art of movement and installation to compose a great fresco full of subtle, elegant minimalist images that advance towards an aesthetic climax. Reflecting on photography and memory, the production invites us to embark upon an intimate, solitary journey to look inside ourselves and formulate a personal interpretation of what we see.
- from the brochure of Festival GREC (Barcelona, Spain)