Festivals like this are a ton of fun to light. Not only do you get to work with a range of amazing people, but the styles of choreography are so different that they each demand a very different approach to color, intensity, movement, and atmosphere of the light.

Below are several images from the different works shown that evening.

Et choreographed by Andrew Skeels

Me No You choreographed by Robert Dekkers

Full Moon Syndrome choreographed by Erika Tsimbrovsky

Colombia Chasing choreographed by Brittany Brown Ceres

So You See… choreographed by Lisa Townsend

All images courtesy David DeSilva

It is an amazing thing to behold really. Because when it comes right down to it, if you are not in this for the love of the art you better get out fast. The hours are terrible, the money is worse, projects are inconveniently timed, and career advancement takes a long time as you slowly watch your mentors and idols die off. And did I mention the money was bad and the hours are worse?

There’s an old joke that runs something like this:
Q: How do you make a small fortune in the theater?
A: Start out with a large fortune.

Because of these realities of time and money and love of the product, we all make sacrifices. Some of us work shitty jobs to fund our underfunded art. Others take a de facto vow of poverty. Some are blessed with independent wealth which allows them maintain some degree of creature comfort. And should you be cursed with success every relationship outside of the work is negatively impacted.

The only other group I can think of who willingly suffers in this way is the National Masochist Association. So why do we do it?

I had a mentor of mine once say “If you can think of ANYthing else to do with your life that would make you happy, do that.” Being as I couldn’t, I didn’t. And why not?

Because the magic of creation is unlike anything else I have ever done in my life. Creating a work of art, a true work of art, one that engenders more questions in me than answers, one that leaves an audience breathless, wondering, joyful, and full of tears, is an experience unlike any other. Taking a dark room, a black box, and filling it with another world that moves and changes and transforms, is the most wonderful thing I can think to do.

The only other activity I have engaged in that gave me a similar sense of satisfaction was back when I did black and white photography. Shooting the film was fun. Waiting for it to develop was nice. But watching an image, my image, appear as if by magic, through the rippling tray of chemicals, on a formerly blank white piece of paper was amazing. Tweaking the various filters and exposure times to get the image just the right balance of light and dark was awesome.

So it is with light. Watching the curtain open to reveal a new world is an astonishing thing to be a part of.

Art is not easy and it does not come cheaply. It is no wonder then that throughout human history artists have been supported by nation states, corporations, or wealthy individuals. These people, like the artist herself, do it because of their love for the work. It does not make fiscal sense to pay for a piece of canvass encrusted with pigment infused oils, or to build a theater and attempt to recreate Greek Drama through the use of sung, rather than spoken, words.

No. These people, be they the Vatican, the de Medicis, or the Guggenheims play such a significant role in the creation of art because they love it. Perhaps they love it for reasons other than the creators. Perhaps that love runs less than altruistic. But love it they do. There are far more expedient means to social and political influence than artistic patronage. Without a love of the work there is no reasonable excuse for such otherwise absurd behavior.

Even contemporary examples are, I am confident, borne out of love for the art. While the current Spider-Man musical engenders no end of schadenfreude I firmly believe its creators are there for the sole purpose of making the best work they know how to do. I know some of them personally and can not imagine them doing anything else.

It is easy to sit at some distance from a trainwreck and point fingers and claim those involved are not “true” artists. It is hard to truly accept the fact that these people have the highest artistic standards for themselves and are pushing themselves as far as they can go. I’ve been involved in some trainwrecks myself. They are very unpleasant.

Art is not easy. Art is a delicate balance. A very delicate balance. When one item is off, by even a very slight amount, it affects every other aspect of the work. Sometimes balance is regained. Sometimes not. But if you never find yourself off balance during the creation of a work of art I have a hunch you are not trying hard enough.

Minimalism forces upon us a kind of archeology of style. Idiosyncratic and stylistic flourish often fail when exposed to the archeology of minimalism. The Greeks allow for a minimalist narrative in large part because their stories are so close to the archetypal source there is little extra. Often, Greek stories provide the bare minimum of context before moving forwards with a primal and archetypal tale.

Sophocles, in many ways, deals in pure archetype. Some of this is based on the stories he chooses to tell. Focus on the parent child relationship, as in the Oedipus cycle, strikes to the core of the human experience. This essential story is amplified by the narrative structures available to him. In his day, drama was seen as consisting of two actors and a chorus. Because of this constraint, he was forced to fit the complexity of human experience into a dichotomy. It forced dialog and paired monologue instead of conversation.

This very contained world is in sharp distinction to the plays of Euripides. Not only is Euripides willing to call into question the very power dynamics underlying society, he does so through a revolution in the dramatic form. The addition of a third actor increases, logarithmically, the complexity of potential storytelling dynamics.

In The Bacchae, for example, the same actor who plays the priest also plays the god. The actor who plays the mother plays the son. The king is played by the same actor who plays the servant. In this way, Euripides is able to question social politics through the very structures of narrative. If the king and the servant are manifested through the same soul, through being played by the same actor, what does that say about power and control in society?

What implications does this have for those of us who would design these worlds? Are there lessons we may learn? What are these plays speaking that would inform us, in a useful way, as builders and designers of the worlds these plays would inhabit?

First, it would serve us well to look at the structure of these stories. As designers, we are first and foremost visual storytellers. The story we are telling comes from the text. If it is a minimal or archetypal text, then perhaps we ought to look for that archetype in our design.

But what kind of minimalism is this?

The minimalism of Sophocles is different than that of Euripides. Do the characters have a single, unchanging, soul? Do they have a shared soul which manifests different aspects? Are these writers even minimalist?

A lot of evidence indicates that these texts are little more than the equivalent of an operatic libretto. In short, we are missing the music, the songs, and the choreography which these plays originally had and which made them far more of a spectacle than common thinking often allows of them today.

It was recently discovered that Greek statuary was painted in vibrant colors. Perhaps, then, neo-classicism and classical minimalism are nothing more than aesthetic anomalies founded on a misinterpretation of historical evidence. Minimalism, as an aesthetic concern, may indicate a far more modern line of thought than we typically consider it to be.

All of this concerns us as designers of theatrical worlds. Scenery, props, lighting, costumes, and music are all implicated by our asking of these questions. Our results are determined by our answers.

I have seen more than one person, when seeing a color like L126, say something like “ooh there’s a dance color,” as though the medium itself somehow justifies making humans look like glowing neon space aliens.

These colors can be quite striking and bold. They can be beautiful and the right choice in the right moment. But to assume they are somehow “dance colors” is to unnecessarily limit one’s thinking when approaching dance.

Strong color can be a powerful tool in dance. Especially in modern dance, where there is little to no scenery, color becomes a primary element in the visual storytelling of the piece. Yet when we are lighting the human form, such colors are, more often than not, ugly.

The skin of a dancer is no different than the skin of an actor, or an opera singer, or a CEO. It looks alive and vibrant in the same range of colors and looks sick and dead in similar ways. Magenta, green, yellow, and even dark blue, all have their place, but are in no way inherent to dance.

I remember reading a letter to the arts editor of the San Francisco Chronicle years ago criticizing an SF Ballet piece. The critique said something to the effect of “with all these new lights available like LEDs I am at a loss as to why Ms. Tipton lit the entire piece in white light.” The implication being that because one could use color, one should use color. There was no thought that perhaps one of the greatest living lighting designers in the world had something else in mind.

Dance is not about color. Dance is about the emotional expression of the human experience through movement. It is movement that defines dance. Perhaps it is the, often, non-literal nature of dance which leads people to assume that wild colors are the best and only solution. But that line of thinking does a disservice to the dance itself. It takes one’s inability, or more likely unwillingness, to engage with the work on its own terms and uses that as justification for a bold lighting scheme.

A green dancer, unless they are supposed to be an alien, or perhaps the embodiment of jealousy (and even then I would be wary and probably let the costume tell that story), is not beautiful. It might look neat but it does not do the dancer justice. We must approach our use of color in dance from the point of view of making the most beautiful work possible. If we just want beautiful and colorful light we can go do installations. In a collaborative art form we are responsible for making all our collaborators work, and this includes the performers, look as beautiful as possible.

Angle, far more than color, brings a dance to light. Sculpting the form in space, engaging with the kinesthetic being on stage, is what truly makes a dance. Sidelights are typically used, not because they are “dance lighting,” but because they treat the human figure with a sculptural focus that is unparalleled by other lighting angles.

Shins and Mids, typically with bottom cuts off the floor, allow us to light a dancer without lighting any of the surrounding environment, wings, cyc, or floor. Head-His, while grazing the floor still keep most of the light on the dancer and off the rest of the space. As we move vertically we get a stronger lighting hit on the floor, and consequently bounce on legs, cyc, borders, and other elements that are not dancers.

When using color, one would do well to consider these facts of how different lighting angles light different things. One could light the dancer in flattering colors for skin tones and still make strong, bold, color choices in the backlight or cyc lighting. This way one creates a whole world of color in which the dancer floats effortlessly. The colors on the dancer can then be very flattering to their particular skin tone without negatively impacting the designer’s impulse towards a strong and bold use of color.

Powerful and vibrant colors have their place in dance lighting. They can be an amazing way of communicating strong emotions to the audience. The use of color must come from within the dance. It must not be an arbitrary imposition from the outside. Discovering, and then revealing, the inner truth of the movement, is the job of the lighting designer in dance.

I am now in the midst of just such a situation.

Next week, I am lighting a dance festival. Due to a combination of scheduling issues I will be unable to see the pieces live before tech. Ten, even five, years ago this would have been a bit of a problem. I’ve done it, so I know it’s not impossible, but it sure is not easy. Fortunately, there have been a handful of technology advances which make this current situation, while less than optimal, not even approaching a disaster.

Let’s look at the old model first to see how this would have been done just a few years ago.

The pieces average around 10 or 15 minutes each with 45 minutes of tech per dance. This gives time to run each piece twice with notes in between runs. Prior to the run, I would have written a handful of placeholder cues ahead of the rehearsal. Then, when time came for the tech of a particular piece, we would have run it while I modify the placeholder cues as the dance happens. During the notes we would discuss my lighting approach and I would make any desired changes, give cue placements to the stage manager and run the piece a second time, further refining the cues.

Cueing of this model is unfortunately common in the dance world. While it is far from perfect, it works.

These days we have all manner of technology at our disposal to bring us closer to an ideal situation. In this case, each of the six companies will video a rehearsal of their piece, upload those videos to Youtube, and send me the URL. I will see the pieces, though small and digital, before we hit the stage.

While I will not be able to see the pieces live before the show, there are some discrete advantages to this model. By having the piece on video I can pause, rewind, and restart the piece. Thus instead of trusting my notes from a single pass, I can get more detailed information about the choreography.

This in no way should be a default substitute for seeing a piece live. While a good addition, and a fantastic solution to my current conundrum, there is nothing like seeing a live body move through space. Video, certainly rehearsal video, is incapable of capturing the nuance of relationship between dancers or the connection of a performer to their audience. What video is very good at is capturing the shape of a choreography.

It would be a shame if video became the default means of lighting dance or other live performances. Video, however, is an invaluable tool when schedules collide and disallow a lighting designer from seeing the work he is soon to light.

I once heard the line “Anybody can light a dance they’ve seen. The real trick is to light one you’ve never seen.” attributed to lighting designer Sara Linnie Slocum. It is with all thanks due to modern technology that I will not be putting that line to the test next week.

Lucas Krech’s impressive lighting design, and Jeremy Zuckerman’s terrific sound-score are perfectly realized creations that are as much a part of the dance as the exchanges between Levy and Aline. Both lighting and score provide both staging and directional movement. At one point, Levy actually solos and impressive interaction with a segment of Zuckerman’s swooshing sound-piece, that is redolent of the intensely deafening and demonic sound effects in the movie the Exorcist.

To many “unlightable” would be a place to stop, turn around, and go home. For me I saw it as an opportunity to look for new ways of approaching dance lighting. Why was the piece unlightable? Let’s look at the layout a bit. The work takes place inside a 30′x30′ square space bounded by 10′ tall screens which hang 4′ above the ground. On these screens are projections. The audience sits on all four sides in two rows thus creating a 20′x20′ dance space. On the floor of this dance space is more projection.

Because there are four walls traditional low angled side lighting was out. Because of the projections there could be no light on the floor or walls (light washes out the projection). Because the audience was so close and we could not have light in their eyes there was no high side/front/back light available. The only thing left were downlight pools but that would not have worked aesthetically for the piece. What to do?

As we talked more about the piece it became obvious that A) the projections were not on all the surfaces at all times, B) there were times when the projections could be, at least partially, washed out by the lighting, and C) we could light into the audience’s eyes on occasion when used judiciously. In addition to all that the walls do not make true corners but have 4′ openings where the “corner” would be. Lastly, because of the immediate proximity of the audience very little light could go a long way towards illuminating the performers.

One of the ideas with the piece (reflected in the video) is that the dancers are, at least initially, controlled by the space or there is a direct dialog between performer and venue. It opens as a kind of video installation with audience mingling about looking at images on the four screens. At some point the video fades out while our dancers get in place. Once in place a new reactive video begins which illuminates any movement in the dance space. Since this is not your typical dance show I knew that attempting to force “dance lighting” into this space would fail. I had to approach the space on its own terms.

This freed things up a bit and led me to look formally at the space as an object in which action occurs. I saw the open corners as alleys through which light could move. I saw the screens as walls off of which I could bounce light to illuminate our performers. Taking that idea one step further I chose to add bounce cards in the air which I would light to give a soft glow to the space. That idea of bounce light caused me to think of juxtaposing hard and soft sources in addition to varying the lighting by direct and indirect sources.

The light plot is a formally organized system of lights that creates an ordered geometry in the space. By giving myself control over each of the lights I could turn on all of a given system to create that formal geometry or only part of a system to throw the formality off balance as dictated by the needs of the choreography.

The video images are low-res black and white with one notable exception. As such I chose to follow the lead of the projections and keep the lighting in that same color world of gray tones. The video, music, and choreography run the gamut of soft and tender to harsh and severe. I wanted the quality of light to follow that same range and looked for a variety of options through which to achieve that.

The systems I used were as follows:

• Daylight Fluorescents in CLR
• Head Highs in L202
• Overhead bounce in L201
• Screen bounce in L201
• Downlight pools in L202
• Downlight Specials in L201
• High Cross in L281

The Fluorescents make “corners” at the corners of the dance space. Booms are placed in each corner outside the screens with two lights each; a head high (for an alley shot across the space) and a low unit (for the overhead bounce cards). Three Source-4s and a Fresnel hang just above each screen; the Fresnels are for the screen bounce while the Source-4′s make up the high cross system (individually controlled and sharp edged to make boxes that the dancers can move in and out of). The downlights are a 3×3 grid of Fresnels. The downlight specials are for a special moment at the end and are hard edged Source-4s.

Here is a look at the light plot:

This show has a very controlled color palette ranging from 4300° K – 5700° K. Despite such a tight range of color the quality of light varies radically from sharp edged focusable lights to diffuse flood lights to indirect bounce light. Most lighting for live performance uses color and angle as the main story telling devices. In this case I was largely limited to variations on top light and had to look to the quality of light for variation. It is a sensibility common in television and film but rarely encountered in live performance.

The show tours to DC and New York before playing in San Francisco. On the road this design will be modified slightly at each venue as the equipment will vary. While some venues will not allow for the precision of hard eged vs. soft edged I should be able to maintain the direct and indirect sources with full integrity.

What did you think of this post? Let me know in comments.

Modern dance developed within a rather poor environment even for the arts. Scenery and, to a lesser extent, costumes were largely eliminated in favor of spending money on performers and, by extension, lighting. You can do any show without scenery and without costumes, but you can’t do it in the dark. As the saying goes, “If you can’t see them you can’t hear them.” One quickly begins questioning what exactly that means. Seeing the performer does not necessarily mean a spotlight on their face. If you are working on a noir piece revealing the actor in shadow and half light may be the most effective means of hearing what they are saying in a given moment. Yet the underlying logic is true. If the audience can not see the performance they will fast lose interest.

It is interesting that theater and opera companies will often sacrifice the actual performances in order to have scenery and costumes when, in the end, the audience comes for the performers. Both of the shows I am currently doing in a minimal style have made sacrifices in order to directly improve the performances and thus the audience’s experience of the piece. In one case a rather pricey scenic element was cut to hire a dialect coach. In the other case singers salaries were increased with, what would have been, the scenic budget. In both instances a choice was made in favor of the performance over the packaging. In both these cases the lighting budget is tiny (as it should be) but I will make it work overtime.

Don’t get me wrong. I am incredibly vocal about the utility of good design. I firmly believe in the value that visual storytelling brings to a work. I have seen shows whose success was largely through the design ideas alone. But no slick piece of stagecraft will make up for a poor performance. One of the great things about lighting is that it has the capacity to work scenically as well as a means of illumination. Through the use of standard American theatrical lighting instruments whole worlds can be created with variations of color, texture, shape, and angle. Interiors and exteriors can be created not to mention the more obvious qualities like time of day.

I see a lot of companies cutting back their programming or doing smaller shows in order to make up the funding gaps they are experiencing under the current economy. Sadly this is precisely the wrong direction to go. Audiences come to the theater to see shows. By reducing the programming you are reducing your audience base and risk pushing them away more permanently. Instead the most logical thing to do is revision the way in which performance is seen. Exploring minimalist approaches to design is certainly one way to do this. Cut the scenic, costume, and lighting budgets and do the five actor play you really want. Cut all the fancy drops and hire that amazing singer.

It is common in New York, and with many European companies, to forgo design altogether. No set, rehearsal clothes, and worklights. While this is often too bold a choice for most directors it is a way of producing work that focuses first on the performance.

Before these ideas get tossed to the side as the ravings of a post-modernist, keep in mind that Shakespeare operated in much the same fashion. The scenery for his plays was minimal to non-existent, the lighting was daylight (and perhaps a few effects), while the costumes were a hodge podge of items the company would carry around with it. Roman characters might be wearing Elizabethan clothes and brandishing Greek weaponry and all this in simple daylight on a more or less bare stage. The focus, once again, was on the performance.

Far from cutting back on performance, when times are tough, it is exactly the performance that needs to be focused on. Additional rehearsal times, dialect coaching, higher performer salaries (to both allow them to relax and focus on the work as well as garnering a higher quality performer) are what the money should be spent on. An audience should leave the theater thinking fondly on the performance. If they leave remembering the scenery or lighting, with no resonance to the story, we have done something wrong.

At the rate of economic “recovery” we are experiencing these are issues companies will be dealing with for the foreseeable future. If live performance is not to be totally overwhelmed by mass consumer culture something must be done to keep performance alive and growing.

How will you respond?

Wilson was rather exacting with her reconstructions and this was given to me as a means of most accurately addressing the lighting for this piece. In deference to the rigor with which we reconstructed the ballet, I am including Tudor’s words, unedited, with the inclusion of grammatical and spelling errors, as per the original.

I hope you enjoy.

“Jardin aux Lilas” is more often requested by companies for inclusion in their repertory than any of my other ballets, and is often asked for by groups with little experience and small resources in matters of technique, personal, or training. It must be supposed that, to a director, it must seem very practical in every way, but this is a misconception and a delusion. And the delusions seem to include that of regarding this piece as “romantic”, because there is a romanticism about the scenery with its overwhelming masses of lilacs, and of the predominantly blue lighting, for the dim light filtering through from the right off-stage area where we suppose the house to be is the only other color used.

Although the short story based on the idea of the “Droit du Seigneur” was abandoned, the situation remains a dramatic one, without the former melodrama, and the “dramatis personae” of the four principals are thrown into relief by the background of the young friends of Caroline with their easy sort of romanticism of the adolescents and teenagers.

The ballet is steeped in the conventions of the beginning of the twentieth century, when young girls of good families were trained in the good manners of young ladies of refinement, with the right social graces and an understanding that a girl remains a virgin until she is Married. Caroline’s young friend who makes his appearance unexpectedly, having unexpectedly, having played “french leave” from his Academy, has grown up with her as children together and they probably always assumed in their innocence that they would eventually be married with each other.

Unfortunately the diminishing fortunes of her parents, having no longer the wealth that was formerly theirs have arranged a betrothal, with her consent, to Caroline with a very rich young man of considerable financial means. He has great ambition, is very successful and is accustomed to knowing what he wants and always getting it, and his marriage to Caroline will open doors to many of the old families who still wielded enormous influence. The fourth of the group of principals is the fashionable about-town woman with whom he has conducted a love relationship of long standing, and she also appears unexpectedly upon the scene through the side entrance. It is understandable that characters of this complexity cannot expect to be performed by young talented technicians whose sole education seems to have been acquired in the limited conversations of the ballet studios and dressing rooms. And they can be very limiting.

In this ballet I had the inestimable advantage of working is out with dancers with whom I had worked very much before, and we were able to understand each other and to be truly “simpatico” but all of whom were bringing adult minds with them.

They understood my approach and worried with it, but Rambert herself did not and after a few incidences when she tried to get my dancers to put more motion into it, to “feel with the emotions” or in other words to ham it up and turned it toward the melodrama that I was so studiously avoiding, then it became necessary to forbid her to attend any further rehearsals of this piece, and if she as much as poked her nose in the door than all action came to an immediate halt.

This ballet concerns itself with the hiding of emotions from public display, but still conveying through the performance the emotions that were being concealed. As is the case with the majority of my ballets the performers must recognize the existence of the audience’s presence and the fourth side of the stage in “Jardin aux Lilas” is as much overgrown with lilacs in the old part of a manor house garden as are painted scenery on stage, and the proscenium arch is not there in essence. And the audience are witnessing the action clandestinely.

The ballet continues a regular course of narrative choreography until the moment of Caroline’s swooning into her betrothed’s arms. The succeeding sleepwalking episode, which should be handled as though water divination was happening, and the succeeding sequence for the four principals should be looked upon as if the ballet until this moment were being regarded nostalgically from a period still forty years ahead. This is ended by the White girl beckoning that the carriage has arrived to take Caroline and her future husband into their new life far away, and the ballet ends with her young friend left alone and solitary in the deserted garden, and regretting that he will likely never see Caroline again and that this last time together was made impossible of any joys of being together by the constant interruptions by other people in the ballet. Now all of this of the past and the future is now present.

Musically it is necessary that Chanson’s guiding remarks shall be followed and also that the main theme whenever it returns shall also return to the “l’istesso tempo”, especially with the entrance of the orchestra after the original exposition by the solo violin.

The lighting should be as though moonlight was filtering through overhead branches and should be of various shades from blue spotlights to cover the whole dancing area of the stage.

He was particularly angered, he said, by parts of the debate over whether to include $50 million for the agency in the federal stimulus bill, citing the comment by Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in February, that arts money did not belong in the bill. That kind of thinking suggests that “artists don’t have kids to send to college,” Mr. Landesman said, “or food to put on the table, or medical bills to pay.”

In American politics generally, he added: “The arts are a little bit of a target. The subtext is that it is elitist, left wing, maybe even a little gay.”

And while he praised the way recent endowment chairmen have carefully rebuilt the agency’s political standing, Mr. Landesman — who is known more as an independent entrepreneur than as a diplomatic company man — said he was not planning to follow too closely in their footsteps. While Dana Gioia, his immediate predecessor, made a point of spreading endowment funds to every Congressional district, for example, Mr. Landesman said he expected to focus on financing the best art, regardless of location.

“I don’t know if there’s a theater in Peoria, but I would bet that it’s not as good as Steppenwolf or the Goodman,” he said, referring to two of Chicago’s most prominent theater companies. “There is going to be some push-back from me about democratizing arts grants to the point where you really have to answer some questions about artistic merit.”

“And frankly,” he added, “there are some institutions on the precipice that should go over it. We might be overbuilt in some cases.”

Yes it’s true, we in the arts work for a living. And work hard.

The new chairman said he already has a new slogan for his agency: “Art Works.” It’s “something muscular that says, ‘We matter.’ ” The words are meant to highlight both art’s role as an economic driver and the fact that people who work in the arts are themselves a critical part of the economy.

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“Someone who works in the arts is every bit as gainfully employed as someone who works in an auto plant or a steel mill,” Mr. Landesman said. “We’re going to make the point till people are tired of hearing it.”

As for the former agency slogan, “A Great Nation Deserves Great Art,” he said, “We might as well just apologize right off the bat.”

I am excited to see what this man is capable of. Perhaps we can get some measure of real arts funding back. Spreading the money out everywhere is nice in theory but ultimately leaves everyone with not enough to do anything. Art is about the best, not about the most.

Let’s get to work!