Black Light Theatre

One of my students recently offered me some free tickets to a black light theatre production which he is involved in. Jon, Josiah and I all went along to see the show which was by a company called "Image", one of the bigger (and better) black light theatres in Prague. Black light theater is basically a performance done under UV, or black light. Although Black Theater originated in Asia, it has become a speciality of Prague and a tourist must-do. The costumes are designed so that only the parts which are fluorescent show up on stage. This creates a magnificent optical illusion which can make it seem as though the dancer has only one leg or even extra arms!

We went to see a show called Africania, which was about two tourists who travel to Africa, an old and washed up husband and his flirtatious wife. The show was a bit of pantomime acting combined with the actual black light dancing. The dancing numbers were all African themed, with our particular favourites being the Zebras and the Grasses. The dancers are also connected to wires, which you can't see, which enable them to be lifted into the air giving the illusion of them flying! It took me a good half of the show to work out how they did this without tripping on the wires. I needed an explanation from my student involved in the production in the following class.

The pantomime was quite funny, but with a multinational audience it was hard to please everyone. Just to be a good sport, Josiah decided to laugh extra loud in the parts which he thought were supposed to be funny. In his defense, this was supposed to help the actors along and give them some confidence. However all this lead to was one really loud fake laugh from one member of the audience and a snickering laugh from the two people sitting next to him, Jon and I.
Jon found the whole production rather tiresome and I think if it had gone on any longer he would of had to consider leaving. All in all it was a good night, and the coffee and cake which followed were well deserved, especially on Jon's part.

I have attached some photos of the Africania production, which I sourced from the Image Black Light Theatre companies website.

The Zebras

Monkeys

Grasses