The Box

Igor Shyshko

A 12-hour durational performance during Het TheaterFestival

The Box will take place on 16 September 2023 – from 11:00 to 23:00 – on the square in front of KVS BOL, the terrace of KVS BAR De Servante.
This performance is not part of the official selection of Het TheaterFestival, but will take place during the festival.

The Box is a place where everything comes to a standstill. There is no way to move, nothing to do, nothing to reach out for. The Box might be a prison. Or a retreat. A place of isolation or a place of rest. The body in the box is stripped of all its markers. And no longer seems to know what to do, where to look, or what to hope for.

Igor Shyshko, occupies the box in quest of understanding the world we live in but also the space that is left for movement and agency. Choreography is all about time and space and the restrictions that allow the body to move in a certain way and not in another. The Box by its extreme limitations produces a kind of ‘natural’ choreography: the struggle of the body to find comfort in a severely restricted space, within a long 12h time frame.

Sitting in The Box, the body has to find solutions, over and over again. It has to deal with time, with discomfort. For Shyshko, this is a work of everyday life. A work of awareness on the limitations that dictate our movements, and our agency. An awareness of the difference in the ‘moving space’ between here (Brussels, Belgium) and other regions of the world. Like in his native Belarus where ‘the box’ is becoming increasingly smaller and restrictive on many levels of freedom of expression.

Igor’s presence is not performative, but does insist on not being ignored. The Box is an obstacle in the space, disrupting the social, easy flow of meeting, watching and engaging in conversation. It is a reminder that our lives play out in boxes. Administrative, imaginative, creative, political, and existential.