BLOCK THEATRE

In block theatre, imagination, with the help of wooden blocks, guides the spectator to arange of different worlds. The  non-verbal performance captures the audience, and the puppeteer, together with the music and the rest of the soundscape, breaths life to the blocks. Block theatre is a visual art form that stirs the viewer’s imagination. The performance opens new points of view for creativity, with the work of art gaining a new layer from each spectator’s unique interpretation.

The block theatre first saw the light of day in the café of a local art museum in Pori, Finland, in July 2011. Kai Ruohonen, then employee of the art museum, had a question to his colleague Roosa Halme: he’d been developing his own block art, but could it maybe work with puppetry as well? Halme was taken by the idea, and brought a pile of blocks back home with her. The show started to find its form, and by the end of the year the block theatre was already performed at a local puppetry festival.

The block theatre is suitable for all ages, and as a non-verbal form of art knows no language barriers either. The performance can also be followed by a workshop, where the blocks are used to create new characters and worlds. The block theatre has traveled the world and been seen by children, students, and seniors alike. The therapeutic aspects of block theatre have also been studied, when a US professor of art therapy, puppeteer therapist Matthew Berner took the block theatre on tour to special needs day cares, residential childcare institutions, and retirement homes.

The show’s duration is about 30 minutes, and is suitable for about 60 spectators at a time. The show can be performed in an auditorium, a recreation room, or a similar space, where there is room for a 2m x 2m free space near to a power socket. It’s great if you can dim the room, but it’s not an absolute necessity.

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