Rasaboxes was devised in the 1980s and 90s by Professor Richard Schechner with East Coast Artists and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts’. Rasaboxes is a physical theatre practice used to access and manage feelings/emotions within the context of performance. It trains participants to physically express eight key emotions first identified in classic Indian theatre:
Wonder (“Adbutah”) – Pride (“Vira”) – Fear (Bhyanaka”) – Sorrow (“Karuna”) – Rage (“Rudra”) – Disgust (Bibhatsa”) – Love (“Sringara”) – and Joy (“Hasya”).
Rasaboxes are practiced and used for performance all over the country and world for many purposes. Quoted below from the rasaboxes website:
“Useful as performer training, rasaboxes also has many other applications in various fields including (but not limited to) therapy, business, and education. Rasaboxes integrates this ancient theory with contemporary emotion research about the “brain in the belly” (the enteric nervous system), studies in facial expression of emotion, neuroscience, and performance theory — including Antonin Artaud’s provocative assertion that the actor is “an athlete of the emotions.” Rasaboxes is a fully embodied and individual means to express these eight key emotions separately and in combination through direct physical practice. Rasaboxes trains participants to work holistically: the body/mind/emotions are treated as a single system. In practice, rasaboxes produces performances that are visceral and useful across a wide range of contexts: from subtle film acting to bold commedia dell’ arte, from naturalistic theatre to pure dance, music, and movement. Rasaboxes integrates rather than separates acting, movement, and voice. Rasaboxes engages the whole performer in a single, powerful, and learnable approach.“
ARTICLES ON RASABOXES
Below are some links for artists and educators using rasaboxes in many different ways for artistic and personal development.
Actor Dan Lawrence – an actor’s approach to training with and using the rasaboxes method
University Teacher and Professional Playwright Elise Forier Eddie –
Hip to be Square – rasaboxes in education
Director Fernando Calzadilla – Summer of Rasaboxes: Teach, Play, Cast – using rasaboxes to cast and develop a film
For more information contact Shelley at [email protected] or phone: (702) 518 -5733
