Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1979 - 20

The proposals and suggestions in this article are not for
large professional groups or those having well-qualified lighting designers; we assume their lighting is well under control.
The information included in this report should be useful to
small companies who may be relatively new and unfamiliar
with dance touring, such as high school, college, and some
community groups. These small companies strive for excellence in the vital area of lighting design, but are also
deeply concerned with cost considerations. Our hope is that
this report will provide some helpful guidelines for them.
WARNING: This article does not present a formula nor a
set of commandments for what must be provided to light a
small touring dance company! The report represents results
from a variety of suggestions by different lighting designers
and includes various options. Each ballet and each dance is
different and has a special set of demands for its own "look."
So, each suggested list of lighting equipment must be studied
and used when appropriate to solve the individual demands
of each dance for each group's particular situation.
There is no formula for instant dance iighting.
Today the development of ever more sophisticated lighting
equipment, improvements in light sources from PAR lamps to
tungsten-halogen, the amazing variety of ellipsoidal reflector
spotlights available, and control boards that remember setups and do everything except work out the cues and timing,
have made theatrical lighting design a challenge for a professional lighting designer with a training as an illuminating
engineer. Faced by detailed equipment catalogs, complicated equipment data sheets, and ever-changing color
media hues, textures, and numbers, the developing art of the
lighting designer (combination artist's eye with scientific and
organizational aptitude) is in danger of becoming overwhelmed by technological developments instead of being
freed by them. The young dance group, wanting illumination
for performances, can become confused by the plethora of
equipment available and frustrated by the fundamentals of
what lighting design is all about, so must rediscover how a
few instruments, carefully selected and judiciously placed
can achieve more effective lighting than a whole shop's inventory used without a basic concept, discipline, or understanding.
Every production should have a lighting designer: someone with an artist's eye and technical training who can take
the equipment available and arrange it to form patterns, colors, and compositions, and cue it to move and follow the
requirements of the dance. The basic "collective" advice of
the Phoenix Conference Panel was that a dance company
should start out not by buying lighting equipment, but by
buying a lighting designer as the first necessity is for a concept, or underlying idea, for the company's repertoire and for
each individual dance, and for knowledge of where to put
what equipment and how to use it.
The first thing to remember in lighting dance is that you are
lighting the whole figure in movement as opposed to lighting
for spoken drama where light to faces is a necessity and
demands front lighting and area control. Ideally, the dancer
should be lighted as a moving jewel in a jewelbox; from every
available position (front, below, above, behind, and sides),
but the most important position is SIDE lighting. Dancers'
"words" are full body movements, their facial expressions
less important than the line and flow of their movements.
Front lights are less important than making them look threedimensional through side lighting. The significant difference
between lighting dance and spoken drama is that dance
organizes the stage space differently from the area organization used in drama.
18

Theatre Design & Technology

There are predictable patterns in dance and the lighting
should be planned to illuminate them; diagonals, planes, circles, and usually some important moment in the center of the
stage. Side light defines the form of the dancer, back-light
brings him/her forward into space and away from the background. Front light illuminates, but should be used sparingly
so as not to flatten the look of the dancers. The rest is
surround-environment, atmosphere, or mood-setting the
space for the dancer, whether against blacks or sky or
painted backdrop which must be given distance by the lighting.
These considerations are basic to every dance or combination of dances, and the lighting designer must plan the equipment to provide controlled lighting for each moment. How the
light is colored and cued must depend on the special content,
mood, and movements of each individual dance and the
visual contributions of the scenic and costume designers. The
dance company (and lighting designer) must also consider
each dance in combination with the other dances on the same
program and in the repertoire, necessitating minimal lighting
for a flexible repertory. Each dance has its own demands, but
there are several ways of lighting any particular one. The
limitations imposed by each situation may be productive.
The size of the company will greatly influence selection,
quantity, and placement of the equipment. In these proposals
we are considering the lighting for a small company. As more
dancers are added and the repertory grows, more equipment
must be added (on side booms, overhead-both front and
back-a greater variety of color washes and specials and,
fi nally, more control boards).
The quantity of equipment to be specified for each company should be conditioned not so much by the budget,
though that is important, but the most important considerations are time and space: How much time is provided to
set up the stage and the lighting? How much space is provided to transport what the budget can buy? How many bodies are provided to help hang and get the show together?

Lighting Designer, Electrician, Stage Manager
When there is no staff lighting designer, someone with an
"eye" and hopefully a visual concept for the "look" of each
dance, an understanding of dimmers, cueing, composition,
and color must order the necessary equipment and coordinate the placing, mounting, focus, color, and cueing of the
lighting for the dances, as well as the integration of the
"house equipment."
If the company owns or rents its equipment it must have a
staff electrician who will set up and run the lighting during
performances and be responsible for its care and maintenance. The electrician must have enough technical knowledge and expertise to assemble, load, hang, and focus the
lights, and to supervise whatever crew is available and with a
feeling and understanding for the dances and music sufficient to operate the control boards.
In most cases, the stage manager should be responsible
for the "look." Many modern dance companies begin touring
with no equipment. If there is none or only a very small
quantity, no electrician is necessary. The stage manager must
then be trained to cope with everything. The Phoenix Panel
recommended that, if one wants to become a dance lighting
designer, the best training possible is to be a stage manager
in charge of adapting the lighting originally established by a
top lighting designer, on tour, under all the most impossible
conditions to retain the "look" of the original lighting design in
very different places.
USITT/Summer, 1979

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1979