COMPANY
Founded as an artist-run collective in Berlin in 2014 and transformed into a professional company in Paris in 2018, Gray Box's work is interested in crossing the boundaries between the 'white cube' (visual arts), the 'black box' (performing arts) and the catwalk (fashion).
Based on multidisciplinary research and experimentation, our company creates, curates and produces a body of work with a strong political, ecological and social dimension. We consider the moving body together with its immaterial aspects - such as perception, empathy, emotions, intuitions - as a political tool to empower and build emancipated communities.
By exploring the ideological, cultural, political and historical parameters that shape our tastes, what is meant by 'popular culture' and 'canonised culture', 'good taste' and 'bad taste', 'high culture' and 'low culture', Gray Box is interested in how non-canonical aesthetics and techniques can be used as a means of opposition to class hierarchies, and how they can become a tool in the struggle against normative behaviours and dominant ideologies.
Faced with an overproduction of artistic proposals, Gray Box believes in a new economy of the performing arts: less fast, more local, more sustainable and more ethical, in the hope of overcoming geographical divisions and responding to the evolution of social and environmental issues of our time. By choosing to perform mainly in alternative, remote, small, lesser-known and out-of-the-way places, the company aims to reach a large and diverse audience, while at the same time freeing itself from the obsession with career, fame and glory that this race for novelty and visibility generates. Gray Box tries to create and co-create its projects with and for the residents, users and the local associative fabric in order to build bridges between those who have access to art and those who do not. We believe that art can be used as a tool for social justice, that art can make a difference.
Based on multidisciplinary research and experimentation, our company creates, curates and produces a body of work with a strong political, ecological and social dimension. We consider the moving body together with its immaterial aspects - such as perception, empathy, emotions, intuitions - as a political tool to empower and build emancipated communities.
By exploring the ideological, cultural, political and historical parameters that shape our tastes, what is meant by 'popular culture' and 'canonised culture', 'good taste' and 'bad taste', 'high culture' and 'low culture', Gray Box is interested in how non-canonical aesthetics and techniques can be used as a means of opposition to class hierarchies, and how they can become a tool in the struggle against normative behaviours and dominant ideologies.
Faced with an overproduction of artistic proposals, Gray Box believes in a new economy of the performing arts: less fast, more local, more sustainable and more ethical, in the hope of overcoming geographical divisions and responding to the evolution of social and environmental issues of our time. By choosing to perform mainly in alternative, remote, small, lesser-known and out-of-the-way places, the company aims to reach a large and diverse audience, while at the same time freeing itself from the obsession with career, fame and glory that this race for novelty and visibility generates. Gray Box tries to create and co-create its projects with and for the residents, users and the local associative fabric in order to build bridges between those who have access to art and those who do not. We believe that art can be used as a tool for social justice, that art can make a difference.
PERFORMING ARTS
Gray Box creates large and medium format pieces, site-specific choreographies and immersive experiences, builds sustainable communities, and also curates an annual festival in Budapest, Hungary (Wildflowers Festival).
Its repertoire includes full length pieces such as “Right for Fight” (2021), “UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA” (2020), “sorry not sorry” (2018), and many shorter performances, such as “Möbius” (2022), “CRISIS BEFORE CRISIS” (2021), “Who is the boss?” (2020) among others.
In recent years, Gray Box has performed throughout Europe, in large cities and small towns, in formal and informal spaces, indoors and outdoors, at national and international festivals. It has been in residence at many theatres, museums, universities and cultural institutes around the world, such as Abbaye de Maubuisson Contemporary Art Museum (France), Lafayette Anticipations (France), Art Cologne (Germany), Institut Français (Senegal), Dance City Theatre (England), Le BAMP (Belgium), Autumn Festival (Hungary), A4 Theatre (Slovakia), Art Farm (India), Arena Festival (Germany), Art Space Festival (Germany), Klara i Rosa Community Art Space (Serbia), to name but a few.
Its repertoire includes full length pieces such as “Right for Fight” (2021), “UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA” (2020), “sorry not sorry” (2018), and many shorter performances, such as “Möbius” (2022), “CRISIS BEFORE CRISIS” (2021), “Who is the boss?” (2020) among others.
In recent years, Gray Box has performed throughout Europe, in large cities and small towns, in formal and informal spaces, indoors and outdoors, at national and international festivals. It has been in residence at many theatres, museums, universities and cultural institutes around the world, such as Abbaye de Maubuisson Contemporary Art Museum (France), Lafayette Anticipations (France), Art Cologne (Germany), Institut Français (Senegal), Dance City Theatre (England), Le BAMP (Belgium), Autumn Festival (Hungary), A4 Theatre (Slovakia), Art Farm (India), Arena Festival (Germany), Art Space Festival (Germany), Klara i Rosa Community Art Space (Serbia), to name but a few.
FASHION
Gray Box fuses design for the performing arts with fashion, defines the catwalk as a theatre stage, and presents thematic, socially and politically engaged collections as conceptual art. At the intersection of clothing as performance costume and conceptual fashion, our theoretical and practice-based research focuses on the performative, choreographic and dramatic potential of fashion shows, as well as the performative aspect of wearing clothes. By questioning the original functions of objects and the established codes of the fashionable body, Gray Box's fashion collections and fashion performances transgress normative discourses, challenging gender boundaries, systems of representation and standards of beauty. Our collections experiment with silhouettes, constructions, materials, objects and technologies, and our fashion performances eschew linearity and narrative strategies.
PERFORMANCE EDUCATION
The company regularly runs workshops, teacher training, masterclasses and repertoire courses for external venues and diverse audiences, as well as its own full-time professional Masterclass programme.
Structured with immersive indoor and outdoor classes, themed workshops, individual creations, studio time, lectures, community activities, ceremonies, celebrations, performances, conversations, presentations, wellness time, research labs, dance jams, public space interventions and more, our original method helps students step out of their comfort zones, transform their imaginations and open themselves to new forms, aesthetics and inspirations. Students also receive one-to-one mentoring (including critical feedback on analysis, application of the method and clarity of detail) during the development of their own original artwork.
Structured with immersive indoor and outdoor classes, themed workshops, individual creations, studio time, lectures, community activities, ceremonies, celebrations, performances, conversations, presentations, wellness time, research labs, dance jams, public space interventions and more, our original method helps students step out of their comfort zones, transform their imaginations and open themselves to new forms, aesthetics and inspirations. Students also receive one-to-one mentoring (including critical feedback on analysis, application of the method and clarity of detail) during the development of their own original artwork.