There is an assumption that a lot of people make with dance lighting that somehow, because it is dance, we can ignore standards of beauty for lighting people. The range of colors which look good on human skin are actually quite narrow. Pale lavender, pale amber, clear incandescent light, and daylight. Anything much more saturated than this and skin tones start to look, well, inhuman.
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.
