Jean Rosenthal (1912-1969), frequently referred to as the mother of dance lighting technique, she transformed the traditional theater lighting technique and positions into a workable dance light plot. She dramatically enhanced dance productions with her creative concepts. She wrote in 1969 about traditional ballet lighting at that time period, post WWII:
Ballet was expected to be pink and pretty. The systems for lighting it were inflexible. Equipment, standard in European opera houses, consisted of first-pipe positions, a boom or tormentor, one left and one right. Supplemental lights were borderlights and strips of light above or on the sides, simply hauled in, one to twenty of them, at four feet to six or seven feet. There were a couple of what we privately called "belly-button crosslights." (Actually, they hit the crotch.) So the first ten feet of the stage was lit for visibility and available for change of color -- blue for Swan Lake, pink for Les Biches. After that there was just scenery light, flat and without depth or mood.
My system required fixed booms along the side at every entrance as a basis for flexibility and for lighting the whole stage. That made the ballets look different, which roused the ire of the European choreographers. (The Magic of Light. 1972. pg. 117-118)
Ballet was expected to be pink and pretty. The systems for lighting it were inflexible. Equipment, standard in European opera houses, consisted of first-pipe positions, a boom or tormentor, one left and one right. Supplemental lights were borderlights and strips of light above or on the sides, simply hauled in, one to twenty of them, at four feet to six or seven feet. There were a couple of what we privately called "belly-button crosslights." (Actually, they hit the crotch.) So the first ten feet of the stage was lit for visibility and available for change of color -- blue for Swan Lake, pink for Les Biches. After that there was just scenery light, flat and without depth or mood.
My system required fixed booms along the side at every entrance as a basis for flexibility and for lighting the whole stage. That made the ballets look different, which roused the ire of the European choreographers. (The Magic of Light. 1972. pg. 117-118)
See more about DANCE LIGHTING and why it's different at:
http://www.northern.edu/wild/LiteDes/dance.htm
Also check out this choreographer's work - it has some really amazing lighting captured in the photos (which is difficult to do with accuracy):
or http://www.terosaarinen.com/ see under WORKS
No comments:
Post a Comment