Co-presented with FIAF‘s Crossing The Line Festival, September 13-22, 2012. Re-presented as part of PS122‘s COIL Festival, January 12-15, 2013; and at The EMPAC Center, Troy NY, February 15-16, 2013.

Conceived, Directed and Performed by Chocolate Factory Artistic Director Brian Rogers in collaboration with Madeline Best, Hot Box is a companion piece to his 2010 Bessie-nominated performance Selective Memory. Where Selective Memory was extremely clean and minimalist in its approach, Hot Box is loud and messy. Hot Box draws inspiration from a cinematic vocabulary – pans, zooms, cuts etc – while attempting to find a sustained kind of stillness within a totally chaotic and uncomfortable environment. Inspired by films like Apocalypse Now and Fitzcarraldo, Hot Box creates a live performance situation that is violent and chaotic; and from that chaos, attempts to compose a sequence of video images that are quiet, sustained, focused, and organized – but somehow coated with an intense emotional residue.

Concept, Direction, “Choreography”, Sound: Brian Rogers. Director of Photography: Madeline Best. Performance: Madeline Best, Brian Rogers. Set: Brad Kisicki. Lights: Jon Harper. Costumes: Maggie Dick. Technology Design: Mike Rugnetta.

“despite the beauty of some of the images, it is less interesting” – Brian Seibert, New York Times

Director Brian Rogers and Dancer Madeline Best talk about Hot Box  – Gia Kourlas, Time Out New York

“It was hard to tell…if Rogers was smashed” – Elizabeth Vincentelli, New York Post

Hot Box and Einstein On The Beach Put The Audience In Charge  – Elizabeth Vincentelli, New York Post