Dance and Light PDF

DANCE AND LIGHT
Dance and Light examines the interconnected relationship between movement

and design, the uid partnership that exists between the two disciplines, and
the approaches that designers can take to enhance dance performances
through lighting design.
The book demysties lighting for the dancer and helps designers under-
stand how the dancer/choreographer thinks about their art form, providing
insight into the choreographer’s process and exploring how designers can
make the most of their resources. The author shares anecdotes and ideas
from an almost 50-year career as a lighting designer, along with practical
examples and insights from colleagues, and stresses the importance of clear
communication between designers, choreographers, and dancers. Attention
is also given to the choreographer who wants to learn what light can do to
help enhance their work on stage.
Written in short, stand-alone chapters that allow readers to quickly navi-
gate to areas of interest, Dance and Light is a valuable resource for lighting
design classes wishing to add a section on dance lighting, as well as for
choreography classes who want to better equip young artists for a signicant
collaborative partnership.
Kevin Dreyer is a freelance lighting designer and an associate professor at

the University of Notre Dame.
DANCE AND LIGHT
The Partnership between Choreography and
Lighting Design
Kevin Dreyer
First published 2020
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Taylor & Francis
The right of Kevin Dreyer to be identied as author of this work has been asserted
by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identication and explanation without intent to
infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-33823-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-25944-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-29069-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Baskerville
by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK
C ON T ENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Author’s Note ix
Introduction 1
1 Why Do We Need a Book about Dance Lighting? Or, if It Is

All Done with the Same Lights, Why Is Dance So Hard to
Get Right? 5
2 What’s It All About? Or, Dance, Meet Light; Light,

Meet Dance 14
3 Learning about Dance 25
4 Dance and Light 35
5 Dance and Space 47
6 Talking with the Choreographer 60
7 Communicating with the Dancer 73
8 A Conversation I Wish I Had 81
9 Learning the Dance Work 87
10 Understanding the Piece or How to Approach Cueing 101
11 Why Did You Put That Light There? 111
v
CONTENTS
12 Dance and Color 122
13 Color as a Storytelling Tool 133
14 The Designer as Storyteller 144
15 Sharing Your Ideas for the Dance 155
16 The Designer’s Toolbox 166
17 The Dance Light Plot 176
18 Changing Technologies and What They Mean 188
19 Simple Rules 199
20 Limitations as Design Ideas 209
21 On Being the Only Designer in the Room 219
22 Advice for the Choreographer Who Has to Go It Alone 229
23 My Partners in the Theatre 240
24 A Little Help from My Friends 251
25 Practical Examples 262
Index 273
vi
A C K N OW L ED G MEN TS
This project was many years in the making both guratively and literally.
I have been training or working in lighting design for over 50 years now and all
of that went into this book. The actual work of putting it on paper was
a challenge that I rst contemplated almost ten years ago. The nal part of this
undertaking happened in the last 12 months. That means there are a lot of
people I feel I need to thank, but don’t worry I have already made peace with
the idea that I will not remember nor be able to include all of them.
My journey down this path began even earlier when my father, as the story
goes, took me to a theatre where he was working on a production. I was an
infant in arms and he walked me around backstage pointing things out, saying:
“This is a batten and that is a Fresnel and that is a at, and you have to hurry
up and grow up so you can help me with this because I don’t understand it all.”
To my parents’ credit I was not told this story until I was in college at Carnegie
Mellon studying Technical Production. I also grew up in a house where we had
a bookstand, usually in the dining room, with an unabridged dictionary on it.
Any time a new word came up we all knew the drill – “Look it up.”
My father Bill directed and produced theatre that involved all of us at one
point or another and my mother Donna Jean, a published author herself,
wrote all her life. My brother Robin writes and takes wonderful photographs
for a craft school in North Carolina where he handles their publications and
my sister Melissa founded an arts focused newspaper. So, to my parents and
my siblings I say thank you – for the love of theatre and of words.
I thank all of the teachers I have had in my life, both formal and informal.
Some of them have made their way into the pages of this book, but whether they
did or not they were all a part of my journey. I also thank my colleagues in the
arts because I believe we all learn from each other, even if we don’t realize it. The
chapter with thoughts from fellow designers is included because of that belief.
I could have written other chapters with input from directors, choreographers,
and scenic, costume, and projection designers because I have learned from all of
them. I also want to thank my students because a good deal of what is here I put
into words as I answered questions and shared my perspectives. Which brings me
to Notre Dame and the many people who deserve to be included here.
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I begin with Mark Pilkinton because he hired me and got me started on this
improbable path in academia. I must also thank Jim Collins and Peter Holland
who were both my champions and my challengers along the way. Their faith in
me has always been humbling, and it was their conviction that I could write this
book that kept me going more often than I would like to admit. In reality every
member of the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre over my 30 years at
Notre Dame had a hand in this as well. They were the ones who I talked things
out with, went to for advice, shared with in successes, and gured out how to
grow from missteps. I include faculty, sta, and students in this group because
they were all a part of it. If it were not for a sabbatical leave funded by the Uni-
versity I am not sure I would have ever gotten started, no matter how many
people believed in the project.
I want to thank Ellen Lampert-Greaux and the folks at LDI who gave me
a platform from which to speak to my colleagues in the eld of dance lighting.
Ellen’s faith in my ability to lead large seminars and panels in dance lighting
gave me a forum where I crystalized many of the concepts in this book.
I thank Stacey Walker and Lucia Accorsi who have walked me through the
process of getting into print, Christina Watanabe and Nicholas Fox, who pro-
vided editorial support, and I thank Stacey Stewart who is always ready to
talk about ideas and who was one of the rst people who read any of what
I wrote. Her comment that she had learned something about both dance and
lighting after two chapters showed me that I was on the right track.
Most importantly I want to thank my three daughters, Natalie, Lydia, and Wil-
helmena who all listened, and supported, and encouraged me. Finally, I thank my
wife Indi who did all of the above and more. Who danced into my life at the
American Dance Festival, who brought me to South Bend, Indiana when she
took over the Program in Dance at Saint Mary’s College, who shared a sleeping
mat in the room that was the Kurt Jooss archives in the Netherlands, who has
always been my biggest fan and believer in what I have chosen as my life’s career.
She was my partner in some of my favorite collaborations. I truly would not have
been able to write this without her. She had to put up with the research trips, the
out-of-town design gigs, the LDI and USITT conferences, the constant refrain of
“I have to go write” as each deadline approached. I was the most concerned
about her response to my writing and an ohand comment on the phone
one day, when she said she wished she could be spending her time reading my
beautiful words, made all the dierence at a moment when I didn’t think I would
get to the nish line.
For those of you who have made it to this point, thank you. Thank you for
caring enough to see who I care about, for being invested enough to take the
time to read this, and for being understanding enough to realize I cannot
include everyone who actually got me to this point without making the acknow-
ledgments as long as the book itself. I realize there is something rather indulgent
and self-involved in acknowledgments, so I thank you for accepting that as well.
viii
AUTHOR’S NOTE
One of the things you may notice about this book is the absence of photo-
graphs. This was a deliberate choice on my part. I believe one of the bar-
riers to better collaborations between lighting designers and choreographers
is the absence of clear, jargon free, communication. If either party uses
words that are not commonly understood they put their artistic partner at
a disadvantage. On the other hand, when we can directly describe what we
are looking for without relying on terminology, we level the playing eld. In
this book I seek to balance the knowledge on both sides of the conversation.
While photographs can create a lovely counterpoint to words, they can also
feel like established goals. Goals that can get in the way of individual creativ-
ity and short-circuit the process of rening language. What I hope this book
will do is to create a new way of discovering what role each partner in the
creative process is being asked to ll. I also hope that it will be a step
toward the goal of helping the Jeraldyne Blundens of the world nd the next
Tom Skeltons. Read the book, you’ll understand.
ix
I N TR O DU CTI O N
For quite some time now I have been encouraged to write down why I do
what I do. Not because it is so unique or because no one else does it but
rather because I have a unique point of view and it seems to illuminate
work which I have discovered many nd quite mysterious. Of course, those
who are not mystied by what my colleagues and I routinely do tend to dis-
miss it as technical stu. To the few of you out there, not involved with this
profession, who view what I do with respect and even acknowledge that it is
an art form, perhaps you will nd what I have to say interesting.
Much of my work life has been spent in the world of dance. I nd this is
a very comfortable place for a lighting designer to reside. Dancers tend to
value what we do very highly. They seldom take it for granted and generally
are openly appreciative of lighting. Dance lighting is a partnership of art
forms. Yes they can and do exist separately but I for one nd each benets
greatly from the other’s presence. Much of what people admire in contem-
porary theatrical lighting – acute angles, strong color choices, isolation,
quick changes, embracing shadow, etc. – has its roots in the theories of
dance lighting. Either there or in rock and roll lighting, where the money is
always rumored to be.
Stanley McCandless started things o quite simply and directly with his
wonderful little book A Method of Lighting the Stage. People have been trying to
ignore it ever since but the truth of the matter is that in that little book,
which was never intended to be the denitive way, rather simply a way of
lighting the stage, is a logical approach that allows the novice to be condent
that they, like the physician, will rst do no harm. Lighting is there to make
things visible so of course the rst thing we need to make sure of is that
things can be seen. The how and what and when of the making sure things
are seen is where the art begins. As I have been thinking about what I do
and how I do it, I have come to realize that as a lighting designer what
I am most proud of is when I have helped to successfully tell a story. I think
all designers are storytellers, it is simply that the way the story is told in each
profession is a bit dierent. If the costume designer and the set designer do
not do their jobs well we will not understand the place or the characters.
1
INTRODUCTION
These are essential to a successful story and so we are all partnering in that
process. In theatre early conversations with the director routinely center
around what story we are telling and how we intend to tell it. Choreograph-
ers often shy away from using the term “story,” but communication is just as
important in dance – we simply use dierent words.
So why do I single out lighting and what keeps me doing it? I believe the
lighting designer is essential to the entire story-telling process. This is not to
diminish what the other design professionals accomplish; far from it. My
work would be signicantly harder without theirs. What is dierent is that
I am involved in the moment-to-moment story telling, just as the choreog-
rapher and dancers are. My work remains active and can, and often does,
evolve as the work of the performers becomes more specic and rened.
The set designer tells the story of place and often that is not a singular story.
The costume designer tells the story of character, and again that is not
a single story – even in most one-character shows there is change. But both
of these artists, because of their medium, must commit to a nal (or near
nal) version well before the play (or other performance) is set before an
audience. It is simply the nature of the process. Sets must be built and
painted and installed. Costumes must be built or purchased, tted and
altered, before they can go on stage. All of that takes time.
I am not trying to say that lighting does not take time; far from it. Lighting
takes time to install and to plan. It needs to be designed and drafted, hung
and focused, all of which takes time. But now the ability to alter the sequence
in which lighting is triggered or to change the actual number and intensity of
lights with the push of a button has allowed lighting to become as uid
a medium as the imagination of the performing artists. This means that I have
to move as quickly as they do, I have to plan a design that is malleable, that is
mutable, that has room for additions or changes. It is why so many lighting
designers want moving lights and LED xtures and color changers. It isn’t just
about having more toys, at least not with the really good designers; it is about
being able to join in the creative dance that happens during the nal push
toward an opening night. I have to be ready to recognize where I am needed
as a partner in the story and where I need to stay out of the way. I have to be
ready with a concrete idea that can be shown to a director as soon as technical
rehearsals begin; but I also need to be ready and willing to chuck it in the face
of a better idea. I also need to help the director understand my process and
make sure they know that I do not consider a cue complete until the whole
show is in place. No matter how wonderful a moment may look, if it is out of
step with the story it is wrong.
I realized as I was writing the previous statements that I am describing
a process that is now very easy for me. I wish that I could say that it was
always the case; and in truth there were shows that I worked on early in my
career where it was that way. There were also a number of times when
I stubbornly stuck with an idea that did not help the story telling. There
2
INTRODUCTION
were also times when the story changed during the process, and it was not
until we were getting into problems in tech rehearsals that I realized it had.
I also know that my eectiveness is not just a reection on my preparation
and my understanding of the story – it is also dependent on the trust I am
able to build with the rest of the artists. Building this trust happens in big
and little ways. It starts with the rst conversations you have and it continues
through the kinds of questions you ask and your ability to honestly and
clearly respond to those asked of you. It requires that you are condent in
yourself and what you can bring to the process. It also requires you to say
so when you are not up to a task. In a profession where we are trained to
never say no to a job (otherwise you may never get asked again) this is
a very hard lesson to master.
So how do you go about doing what I do? First – you don’t try to do
what I do. I realized a long time ago that if I ever went to see a show and
there was not one cue I would change or one moment I would handle dier-
ently then I needed to quit. Because it would mean that I was no longer
unique. I have grown up a bit since then and I realized that even if someone
executes the moment on stage in the same way I might have, they will never
do it the same way I would have. Because it is in the doing, the working
through a moment with fellow artists, that we are most uniquely ourselves.
No matter how much we may wish to emulate someone else’s approach, we
are not someone else and the process is inexorably changed by that simple
fact. So I am not writing this to teach you how to do what I do. I am not
even trying to teach you to think about design the same way I do. I intend
to share what I have discovered over the years. Some of this is what I was
taught in school; sometimes I even realized how important it was when
I learned it. Some of it is what I learned in school even though I wasn’t
taught it, but most of it is what I have realized through the process of doing.
I have tried to present the material in a logical fashion, moving from
broad concepts into more tightly focused ideas. Anyone who has ever taken
a class from me knows I am a non-linear thinker, but I usually get back to
the point I was making; digression as a method of teaching. Each chapter
was written as a stand-alone piece so while there may be some referencing
back to other sections, for the most part you could look through the Con-
tents and pick the topics that you are most interested in. In time I would
hope you would read all of it but really the order is more an organizational
tool than a proscriptive way to move through the material.
I could not have done this without a lot of help, but then again if I am
honest that same statement holds true about my design work as well. I have
had people who oered me time to write, have given advice, have read early
drafts, and who have constantly encouraged me when I needed it. I have
discussed ideas with colleagues and have discussed what I was doing with
a few. I have drawn on many experiences that are not mine alone and have
tried to be as fair and honest about them as I can. So I hope anyone who
3
INTRODUCTION
recognizes themselves in any of the stories feels as if they have been fairly
treated. I honestly believe that we get nowhere in life or in art by ourselves.
Even if we are alone when we are working on a project, at some point
someone helped us with something that got us to that point. What is singular
is the way we assemble the parts.
4
1
W HY D O WE N E ED A BOO K
A B O U T DA N CE L IG HTI N G ?
O R , IF IT I S A L L D O N E W I TH
T HE S AM E L IG HTS, WHY I S
D A N C E SO HAR D T O G E T
RI GHT ?
If you ask any lighting design teacher to recommend a good source of infor-
mation about lighting, they will generally point to the same half dozen or so
books. They do a good job covering the basics of lighting, and that is why
so many teachers use them. The main drawback as far as I am concerned is
that in virtually all of these books dance lighting is relegated to, at best, one
chapter. I have been designing dance for many years but I never thought
I was doing anything that unique. I used many of the same principles as
most other dance lighting designers to the point where it bordered on the
formulaic, except it wasn’t. I had a clear point of view but that didn’t mean
that the way I was doing it was all that dierent. This started to change
when I was asked to give a three-hour presentation on dance lighting for
the 2009 LDI conference and trade show, an annual gathering focused on
live performance design. I remember starting by asking how many people in
the audience had ever lit a dance piece. Virtually every hand went up.
I then asked how many of them had been taught how to light a dance piece
and virtually every hand went down – and I began to realize there was
a gap that needed to be lled.
For many years now dance lighting has been considered a sub-
specialization in lighting design and by and large it was assumed that if you
knew how to light one kind of performance you could light any kind of per-
formance. The curious thing about this business is that while I can assert
that this sort of an assumption existed, I can also tell you with condence
that lighting designers tend to get pigeonholed. Early in my career I was
identied as a dance lighting designer. I found it very hard to get jobs
designing straight plays and virtually impossible to get musicals. I did
migrate into opera but only on a very limited basis. The great irony of this
5
WHY DO WE NEED A BOOK ABOUT DANCE LIGHTING?
is that I received my design training from Carnegie Mellon University,

a university without a dance program; I was trained exclusively in spoken
word theatre.
So why was it that no one seemed to think there was a need to train
designers in specic areas of lighting despite their being recognized as
having areas of specialization? I have never been able to nd a satisfying
answer to that question. I have some ideas, and by and large they fall under
the heading of economics, but I am not convinced that is the only reason.
After all there are separate acting programs focused on straight plays and
musicals within single theatre training programs – why not lighting design?
Sub-specialties are recognized in other elds; it is about time that it hap-
pened in lighting.
I have seen and met many people who called themselves dance lighting
designers, who worked in dance, and yet they had no real concept of what it
meant to light dance. They didn’t think you had to do anything dierent,
except maybe pick dierent kinds of color. It was always amazing to me
when I would run into these folks and I soon discovered they had something
in common – they all wanted to be doing something else. I often wondered
how they had gotten into the position they were in and why they tried so
hard to keep it. Dance lighting will never make you either rich or famous.
I also wondered why no one seemed to notice their work was not really that
good. You could not clearly see the dancers, there were streaks of light
across the bodies that broke the line of the movement, and sometimes the
scenery had better lighting than the dancers. It is harder to work with
a moving target than you might assume.
Dance acionados, choreographers, dancers, and on occasion critics
could tell you when they saw bad dance lighting. Most of them have an idea
when they have seen good dance lighting but are less condent about it.
Almost none of them could tell you why. In fact, it is the elusive “why” that
prompted this book. I was recently part of another session on dance lighting
at LDI that was called “Why Is Dance Lighting So Hard to Get Right?”
We came in with a number of ideas and had covered most of the topics and
toward the end we opened the oor up for questions. Most of these were
along the lines of “I was lighting a piece and the choreographer asked me to
do …” – fairly predictable. Then as we were about to wrap it up someone
raised their hand with a question. They asked us to describe what bad
dance lighting was and how to get it right. Everyone on the panel hesitated.
The answers started out from the same direction as the now famous state-
ment from Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart: “I know it when I see it.”
Ultimately we did hit on some more specic examples and they have found
their way into another piece in this book.
Lighting designers can quickly tell if there is a problem, and I have read
some very astute critics that got it as well; but if there are still concerts with
bad lighting it either means not all artistic directors can see it, or there are
6
not enough people who know how to do it correctly. We all hope that the
right people are able to make that distinction. There have been times when
I was not sure I had hit the mark and there have been others when I heard
words that conrmed I was doing it right. I was touring with the Nikolais
Dance Theatre and on one of the very rare occasions that Alwin Nikolais
(Nik) was not with us we performed in a municipal theatre in Roubaix, in
the north of France. After the performance a man came backstage and
introduced himself as Alfonso Cata. He demanded to know who had done
the lighting for the performance. I had no idea who Alfonso was but I later
learned that he was the artistic director for Ballet du Nord, the resident
dance company in the theatre.
I told him that the designs were Nik’s. He said he knew that but wanted
to know who had actually done the lighting in that theatre. I told him
I had, and he said “Good, you will design my next concert. I have been
performing in here for years now and tonight was the rst time I could see
the dancers.” I told him I was interested but it would all depend on my
availability. He condently told me when he set his mind to something he
generally got it. Sure enough, in May of 1984 I was back in Roubaix to
light Alfonso’s production of Sweet Carmen, the rst of almost a half-dozen
pieces I would design for his company. After we opened Carmen Alfonso told
me that his former lighting designer had sat next to him during the dress
rehearsal. After a few minutes he had leaned over and said “I see what he is
doing. He has put all of the light on the dancers.” Alfonso said that before
he had a chance to react this fellow then leaned in again and said “Too bad
he didn’t light the scenery, it is hard to see.” It turned out he was also the
set designer and made sure his own work always looked good.
One could argue that it is largely a case of aesthetics or personal taste
but in fact there are several common mistakes that are made in dance light-
ing and many challenges. Certainly, the single biggest error, at least to my
mind, is underestimating the task at hand. Lighting for dance is not really
that easy. If you have been trained as a designer in a college program where
there is no focus on dance, you have to be ready to let go of some signicant
assumptions about lighting. Other common pitfalls include knowing that you
need lights on booms but not necessarily knowing what they should light,
believing that McCandless-style front light is also the best answer for dance,
or deciding that really saturated color makes it “dance lighting.”
It is true that all lighting is done with the same lighting instruments, but
one quick look at a light plot for a play and a good dance plot and you will
be immediately struck by several obvious dierences. The choice of color,
the use of scenery, and certainly the location of the lighting instruments will
dier to a certain degree. These are all clues that the designer is thinking
about the space and the subject being lit dierently. The answers are not all
to be found in the plot. Look at the stage managers cue sheet, see how
many cues there are and how close together they come within the dance
7
piece. Try to understand the pace or rhythm of the dance from the place-
ment of the cues. The biggest dierence is only apparent in a performance,
that is when you should be able to see how dierently the lights are used to
create the stage pictures.
I am left then with the question of how best to ll the gap in the training
we oer new designers. I could simply oer formulas – how many units per
boom, how many colors in back light, how to focus seamless washes, how
best to use front light, and so on. The “how to” sort of answers. But the
point of this book is not just to tell you how to create a good light plot for
dance but rather to try to help you understand why it is a dierent process
and why we make the choices we do. Because if you do not understand why
I am putting the lights where I am then it will be much harder for you to
create eective light cues that will help the audience understand what the
choreographer is trying to do. So how do we answer the big question of
“why”?
To start with, we should all be able to agree that the basic function of
lighting is visibility. This is true of architectural lighting, industrial lighting,
and theatrical lighting. What elevates lighting to the realm of lighting design
is the process we are working to understand. It is the need to make choices,
choices driven by an artistic or aesthetic set of circumstances – this is the job
of a designer. Lighting consultants who work in the industrial market have
guidelines, generally established by safety groups such as OSHA, that deter-
mine the minimum number of foot-candles at a given work site; a very
clear-cut and measurable standard for appropriate visibility. In general, that
is where the process ends for them. They are interested in clear visibility
because to them areas of darkness can lead to accidents. No one is likely to
argue the case that this is an aesthetic process.
When we move into the area of artistic expression things are much less
clear-cut, individual opinions and the “eye test” matter much more. It is in
this realm that the ability to see something as bad or good is so much more
subjective and why the very direct question from our audience member
about bad dance lighting received a very indirect answer. But there are cer-
tain criteria we can dene, and the criterion of visibility is certainly one of
those. There are even cases where the level of visibility represents a specic
design choice, but in general that is not the totality of what we are trying to
accomplish. This is what distinguishes design – namely, choice. Without
clear choices we are falling back onto the way it has always been done as
opposed to nding our own way.
The primary way in which information is communicated to the audience
in dance is through the body, and the way in which the body occupies the
space. This may well mean that our ability to clearly see faces or eyes is no
longer the priority it is in a text-based theatrical production. It most cer-
tainly means we need to be able to address both the gure and the space
the gure occupies distinctly and, from time to time, independently. This
8
need dictates that we cannot simply use our lighting instruments in the same
locations as we do for a traditional play, hence the dierence between the
two hypothetical light plots I described earlier. This basic idea about the dif-
ferent way in which information is being communicated to the audience is
something that seems to have been missed in some of the poorer lighting
designs I have seen. Or to put it another way, each form of communication
or artistic expression deserves to be seen as dierent and the designer’s
response should reect that. Using the same set up you had the last time
you were in the theatre is not the right way to do something new.
Another big mistake that I see in poor dance lighting is in the way the
designer reveals the space in which the dance occurs. Dancers occupy the
stage in a dierent way than actors. They don’t gravitate to down-stage center
when they have something important to share. Sometimes the choreographer
puts the critical moment as far away from the audience as possible. While
blocking for an actor is critical it is also not as specic as choreography. This
means that a dance lighting designer can be more specic in their cues
because they can be fairly condent that the dancer will be within a foot of
the same spot on stage every single time they hit a particular point in the
music. I also believe that dancers are much more likely to know where the
light is supposed to be and they will get to that place almost every time.
Most dance lighting designers approach light in very similar ways. We
have come to accept certain conventions as foundational and we do talk
with one another about theories or techniques for lighting dance. These
relate to where lights should go, what sorts of colors should or should not be
used, how best to focus the instruments, and how to gure out where a cue,
or change in the lighting, belongs in a particular dance. These technical
choices are what this book is about; but that is not all that I am trying to
do. It is my hope that you will not only learn how to do these things but
that you will also understand why we do them the way we do. Without an
understanding of the “why” I do not think you can claim to understand
“technique” – whether it is for dance lighting or classical music or painting.
I do not think that what is in this book is new; but I do believe that I may
have a dierent way of thinking about it. I started designing lights in 1971; the
earliest dance techniques trace back to the 15th or 16th centuries. Electric
lights were developed in the late 1800s and stage lighting shifted to electricity
as the century turned into the 1900s. My point in all of this is that it did not
start with me and I have not really brought anything new to the process of
lighting dance. The woman most people credit as establishing the rst specic
approach to lighting dance, Jean Rosenthal, wrote eloquently about the
unique relationship between dancers and light. In her book The Magic of Light
(p. 117) she opens her chapter on dance with the following quote:
Dancers live in light as sh live in water. The stage space in which
they move is their aquarium, their portion of the sea. Within
9
translucent walls and above the stage oor, the lighting supports
their ashing buoyance or their arrested sculptural bodies. The
dance is uid and never static, just as natural light is uid and
never static.
From the rst time I read this quote I was struck by its poetry. The wisdom
it contains was something I came to understand a bit more slowly. Dancers
have a very dierent relationship with the theatrical space than virtually any
other performer and as a result with the lighting that seeks to dene it. The
idea of an aquarium created by light is poetic, but it describes a practical
process of dening, for the audience, the space in which the dance is to
occur. It also speaks to the philosophical concept of support. We are called
upon to support dancers in motion and in stasis, and as any dancer will tell
you support is the key component in partner work. So we are, in eect,
asked to create lighting that will partner the dancer.
Finally Ms Rosenthal speaks to the most challenging aspect of lighting
dance – motion. When we were getting ready for the panel presentation one
of the participants emailed us all a note that said “And did we mention that
dancers move?” Actors certainly move about the stage space, so this concept
of lighting things that will not be pinned down to a single spot is not alien to
lighting designers. But dancers move as a way of communicating images and
ideas. Generally speaking, they also move more frequently and cover greater
distances than actors. Movement is their language and it is up to us to reveal
it in appropriate ways without distorting the meaning of what is being said
through the choreography and the performance. Ultimately it is a dierent
and unique aesthetic partnership, more so than virtually any other that exists
in live performance.
If that were not complicated enough we create new dance works and
designs while inventing a new language almost every time we light a piece.
We come into the process without a common text. Dances do not start from
a script as a play does: it is written with the dancer’s bodies in the rehearsal
studio. And as if it were not already hard enough, most of the time they are
creating a new way of moving that will t the needs of their new piece of
choreography. If it is new to them how can we possibly be expected to
understand it? But if we do not try, we will not get anywhere.
We, the designer and choreographer, have to nd a common language.
The designer will often have to create their own script of the piece because
they need a way to communicate with the stage manager so that changes in
the lighting happen when they are supposed to. Beyond that it helps them
communicate with the dancers and choreographer, so that we are hopefully
all talking about the same moment in the dance at the same time. This script,
for lack of a better word, charts the course of the dance, identies shifts in
mood or perspective, highlights key moments, and serves the necessary func-
tions of structuring the design impulse and providing a communication tool. If
10
it is done well it will be a tool that gets used by multiple people in the produc-
tion. But even the poorest dance script will serve the lighting designer and
improve the discussion with the choreographer. But to be clear – it is not
a decisive record of the choreography, no one would ever dream of trying to
teach a dance from the record the lighting designer makes. I will come back
to this issue of communication and common language but there are other pit-
falls to consider as well.
The role of the lighting designer changes from dance piece to dance
piece. In some cases I have found myself called upon to create structure for
a work, in others the focus was on storytelling. Sometimes I nd I am called
upon to organize the space in which the performance will take place and at
others I have been asked to focus on supporting emotional communication.
This is not unique to dance but it is more prevalent in dance. Sometimes
I have even found that my role has been to follow specic technical instruc-
tions from a choreographer. (I will admit that I tend to rebel against those
kinds of constraints and nd ways to introduce my own ideas, as long as
they do not do artistic damage to the work.) But even in those situations
where I feel I am more of a technician than a designer I do nd that dan-
cers honestly respect the necessary partnership with light in ways that actors
do not always understand – and that makes it easier to accept.
As an example, I was working with an actor on a production of Shake-
speare’s Henry the Fourth. I had created a very atmospheric cue that relied on
templates of Gothic windows coming in on an upstage diagonal as
a diagonal backlight. The actor playing the king had a critical line to deliver
on his exit and I asked the director if I could help the actor understand how
to play the light so we would not lose the line. By the time I got to the stage
the actor had found the light and was experimenting with how he could
use it. I asked if he would like me to stand in the light so he could see, and
he said yes. As I headed back out into the house I complimented him on
how quickly he had discovered what he had to do to make it work; he
smiled at me and said “I used to dance.”
Dance frequently has a greater need for lighting as the space is frequently
empty of any specic scenic elements. Light serves to not only provide visi-
bility for the dancers but can also take the place of scenery. Or at the very
least dene the space in the same way scenery might in a play. This leads to
yet another dierence. In a play scenery will often dictate where you can
place lighting instruments and how those instruments can shine onto the per-
formers. In the absence of scenery there are many more options available to
the designer. These two variables are oset by yet another challenge –
budget. Dance is generally produced on a very tight budget. This often
means working within a xed inventory, with reduced hours in the space as
well as being asked to share it when you can get into the theatre. These
competing interests have to be managed. The lack of scenery can be as
much an aesthetic choice as a budgetary one. That same budget constraint
11
probably cuts into those wonderful options we thought we might have in

terms of instrument placement.
Cueing – the pre-programmed shifting of light in terms of color or inten-
sity to signal a change of mood or location in the performance – becomes
critical as the need to maintain interest in a plain black box falls to the light-
ing and the dancer. The ability to create a large number of changes and
dierent “looks” to the stage also suggest abundant instruments in many
locations. It also means that the designer is looking for increased amounts of
time in the theatre both to focus (or direct) all those lighting instruments and
then to work out all those dierent cues. This is when the other budgetary
issue comes to the surface – time. Time is of a premium in the world of
dance, both because of the rental and labor costs but also because the space
itself is at a premium. Many dance companies rehearse in chronically under-
sized spaces. If there is enough room to replicate the entire performance
area there will certainly not be enough room for the wings and the rest of
the backstage areas. As a result the dancers and the choreographer are con-
stantly looking for time in the performance space. And honestly, if they
don’t get their work right, there is very little for me to do.
But limits can be good and sometimes too many options are indeed too
many. Another lesson I remember from Jean Rosenthal was a statement in
her book that she did some of her worst lighting when she had unlimited
resources. When you are not forced to make the right kinds of decisions
prior to arriving in the theatre, you will frequently nd you do not have
enough time to make them once you are there. Limited budgets spill over
into all areas of the production. No money for scenery, no extra money for
renting more lights, reduced number of crew members, and limited amount
of time in the theatre. Not all of these will help you create a better design
but they are all factors that impact your design. Nothing happens in
a vacuum, particularly in the theatre where we all collaborate on a common
outcome.
This brings me to a nal, often overlooked, challenge in lighting dance.
The need for speed and eciency. I have never been asked to work as fast
or to do as much in a limited amount of time as I have been when I have
worked in dance. This was true with the Nikolias Dance Theatre with its
domestic and international touring schedule; it was true of the Jorey Ballet
in its home seasons; and it was true when I took the company into the
Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center. But I also feel I have to say
that if you can learn to work fast, if you can create your art under these
pressured circumstances, you will make something that is spontaneous,
inspiring, and absolutely right for the dance you are lighting. More time
would simply cause you to second guess and overwork the piece.
I was reminded a while back of an apocryphal story about a designer who
said their ideal process was to write cues while the dancers ran the piece.
They allowed themselves the period of time that it took to perform the work
12
and, when the piece ended, their design was complete. In preparation they
attended various rehearsals to fully learn the dance, they thought about their
through line or visual arc, and made any adjustments they needed to in the
plot so that they felt prepared. Then they went into the theatre and wrote
the cues. I do not think that it is practical to try and cue an entire piece in
the amount of time it takes to perform it, and as designers get more compli-
cated instruments to work with it becomes a virtual impossibility. But the idea
is sound and speaks to a level of preparedness and eciency we need to strive
for. If we can reach the same level of understanding of the dance that the dan-
cers have, we should not need hours and hours of time in the space.
This desire for speed and eciency appears in my own work as an
admonition I often make to myself – never work on a cue longer than it will
appear in the dance. The more you tinker and play the further you can
stray from the central idea of the design you are creating, not to mention
the tricks your eyes will play on you when you sit in a particular cue for
a long time.
Dance is a wonderful performing art form to light. For whatever reason,
I have felt that my work was more appreciated in the world of dance. There
have also been more times that I felt as if my work was seamlessly incorpor-
ated into the performance in a way that made me very proud. When I can
contribute to the nal performance in a signicant way and at the same
time not pull attention onto my work, that is when I feel that I have been
a good partner. That I have indeed (to borrow Ms. Rosenthal’s words) sup-
ported the dancers “ashing buoyance or their arrested sculptural bodies.”
And that is when I feel I have fullled my responsibility as the lighting
designer.
In the following chapters I hope to answer some of the “why” questions
that surround this enigmatic art form. I will also return to some of the chal-
lenges I touched on briey here. And hopefully I will make all of you want
to go out and nd a choreographer or a dance company with whom you
can work to experience this incredible partnership. Jean Rosenthal closed
her quote about dancers and light by saying “Designing for the dance has
been my most constant love.” It has been mine as well and I hope it will
become yours.
13
2
W H AT ’S I T AL L AB OU T ? O R,
DA N C E , M EET L I GH T ; L I G HT ,
MEET DANCE
Lighting design as a discipline – or an art form as I like to think of it – is

relatively young. Up until about the 1930s all the formal lighting work in
theatre was accomplished by people who were fullling other tasks. The set
designer was often tasked with lighting the space as an extension of their
vision for the set. They relied on the electricians to place instruments and
masking based on general directions and then adjusted the intensities. Abe
Feder, whose earliest Broadway credit dates to 1934, is frequently cited as
the inventor or “father” of lighting designers. While he was not the only
person fullling this function, Broadway records show he was the earliest
one to be credited with lighting design on a Broadway production. It would
be almost ten years before Jean Rosenthal and Peggy Clark would claim
that same title; however, many of the earliest theories about lighting design
are based on ideas that predate any of these individuals.
At the turn of the 20th century, Adolphe Appia (in the late 1890s) and
Edward Gordon Craig (in the 1910s) wrote about their ideas for lighting in
theatre, although much of what they theorized was not practical due to
the limitations of the available equipment. Still they recognized the power
of light to not only provide visibility but to convey emotion and to add to
the overall scenographic statement of a piece of theatre. One of the earliest
books written exclusively about lighting design for the theatre was A Method
of Lighting the Stage by Stanley McCandless. Published in 1932, it contained
practical directions for how to apply a standardized methodology to creat-
ing illumination that could serve an artistic purpose. It also discussed four
properties of light and design that should be considered. Three of these –
intensity, color, and distribution – are the same terms I currently use when
I teach lighting design. Movement, the fourth property I discuss, was
replaced with a section on control in McCandless’s book. They are cer-
tainly closely related concepts, as we use the control system to create
movement in our designs. These concepts are what I call the manageable
properties of light. Ultimately these ideas all became codied into
a standard approach to teaching lighting design.
14
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
In my class I start with a very simple idea that, to my mind, runs to the
core of lighting design. The most important thing about lighting is visibility,
and we can never forget that part of the job. But what turns mere lighting
into lighting design is the addition of one word. That word is “selective.”
Lighting design is selective visibility. The word “selective” implies choices,
decisions, specicity. All of these are part of it, but the foundation that all of
this sits on is the idea that we care enough about how things are going to
look that we want to make those choices. For a good designer it also means
that those choices are always dierent because they relate directly to what
we are lighting. Which brings us to the questions: What are the choices we
are making? How do we make those choices? And almost more importantly,
why are we making the choices we make?
I am starting here with the biggest kinds of questions about light; the
answers apply to much more than dance. In fact, the same basic manageable
properties of light apply to all lighting design. As designers we are working
with tangible equipment – lighting instruments, cable, gel, control boards –
in an eort to control an intangible element, light. While the tangible and
the intangible can be bit of a mystery to anyone who has not taken several
lighting classes or worked with the equipment in some capacity, we should
remember that we do no one any good if we try to maintain an aura of
mystery about these ideas. We are not members of some secret society, and
directors and choreographers are not the enemy.
My father was a theatre director and one day he was heading out the
door to a design meeting for a musical he was directing. He heaved a sigh
and said he was not really looking forward to the conversation. I asked with
whom he was meeting, because I was not used to anything but excitement
when he was starting on a new production. He told me the meeting was
with the lighting designer and that normally he enjoyed these conversations
but that this particular designer liked to always speak in numbers when they
were talking about color. To make matters worse if my father ever ques-
tioned the colors in tech rehearsals the designer would reply that my father
had approved them when they met.
I suggested he was doing this for clarity and my father disagreed and said it
felt more as if the designer was trying to keep the upper hand and never seemed
to want to just describe the colors. He went on to say that he had simply not
been able to gure out how to redirect the conversation away from numbers and
back to ideas. I was still in college so I had some of my supplies from my design
classes with me. I got out three gel swatch books. These “books” are sample
pieces of all the colors a manufacturer makes with a piece of paper behind each
one with the name and number of each color along with some technical informa-
tion about the color medium. (Note: The term “gel,” while widely accepted in the
industry, is a bit of a misnomer. It harkens back to the early days in lighting when
color media were largely fabricated with a gelatin base to which dye had been
15
added. In modern usage “gel” is understood to be shorthand for color medium –

the more technically correct term.)
I handed them to my father and he demurred saying he didn’t want to sort
through them to nd the numbers. I responded that he should think of them as
a prop. I was certain that if he simply sat down in the meeting and set the gel
books in the middle of the table his designer would have the sort of conversation
with him that my father wanted to have. With the ability to immediately trans-
late his numbers into actual gel colors there would be no value in using numbers
instead of ideas. When my father came back from the meeting he was full of his
usual energy leading into a new project. I asked how it had gone and he said it
was the best meeting he had ever had with the designer, they shared more ideas
than usual with each other, and the conversation about color had gone very
well. He had managed, through the use of a simple prop, to get the conversa-
tion to be about the ideas of the design. The technical approach, the choices,
were left entirely to the designer since they both now fully understood the ideas.
A real partnership.
Color is one of the properties of light over which we have control and,
by extension, choice. It is more important than ever to have color conversa-
tion without a total reliance on numbers of specic color media. This is
because we now have a wide range of lighting instruments available to use
that are capable of mixing colors directly in the instrument. We can now
start with a particular shade of blue and then decide we want a little more
green, or perhaps a touch more red, added to the color which can be
accomplish by the turn of a dial. The ability to choose anything we want
from the light board does not, however, mean that we should defer that
decision to the level set or tech rehearsal. Choices still need to be made and
they need to relate to the choreographic ideas and to the costumes and
decor that will be part of the piece we are designing.
Color is also one of the two easiest manageable properties of light to under-
stand, even with little to no training in lighting design. The other is intensity –
how bright or dim we make the lighting. If color is ultimately one of the more
complex elements of the design, intensity is probably the simplest. I say this
because of the way in which we encounter these elements in our lives. Every-
one has dealt with light that was too dim or too bright. We all have had the
experience of walking into a dark room and hitting a light switch, or of sitting
in a chair toward the end of the day reading and suddenly realizing we should
have turned on a light much earlier in order to be able to see what we were
reading. These are the functions of intensity. This property is one that we
spend very little time discussing because it is so easy to adjust. In virtually
every theatre the lights are managed with a dimming system so that the regu-
lation of the intensity is almost as commonplace as the light switch
I mentioned, just with many more options than on and o. The way that we
do need to consider this quality is in terms of groupings and control. Even
that has become signicantly less important over the years.
16
In the past dimming systems were large and cumbersome. The amount of
control you had was often a reection of the amount of room available for
those systems – they took up a lot of space. Contemporary systems typically
feature more individual dimmers than you could imagine using and they are
located at a distance from the stage to avoid both noise and heat, and to
free up backstage space for more important functions. It is certainly not
beyond the realm of possibility to put every individual light on its own
dimmer.
In contrast color, or more specically color in light, is a bit more alien to
most people. It is not that we do not encounter colored light, it is more
about how we see or interact with colored light. Our eyes have the remark-
able capacity to adjust to changes in both intensity and color. Together with
our brains they are able to keep adjusting to maintain a singular perception
of color or intensity until the dierence gets so extreme it is no longer pos-
sible for the brain to compensate for the changes. In other words, if you are
in a room where there is a light source with variable color and you intro-
duce a touch of blue, it will do very little to change your perception of the
room. Unless the shift in color is abrupt or extreme your eye and your brain
will maintain a consistent perception of color around you.
Another way of thinking about this is what happens with the sun through-
out the day. At sunrise the color of sunlight is frequently seen as golden and
those early rays of light coming in through a window can give a warm,
almost candle-like, quality to morning light. Very quickly and almost imper-
ceptibly that color shifts and we begin to see the sunlight as white. Toward
the end of the day we can plainly see that the sunset has moved to a strong
orange or even a reddish pink which we can sometimes see as we look at
a tree or the side of a building. But if we look at a book or a piece of paper
in our hands we will probably not see much, if any, of those warm colors.
Our brain knows that paper is white and so that is what we see.
But now I feel as if I am making this about some secret knowledge again
and that is not the point. The point is that when you ask most people to tell
you a color of light they associate with an emotion or a place, they have
a hard time doing so. If they can, their answer often turns out to be more
about color in pigment than light. That does not mean we don’t make choices;
in fact one of the things I studied in lighting design was how to use color to
support thematic or emotional ideas in a production. If a designer asks you
about concepts or themes in a piece, or about the overall feel or idea of the
work, they are often working on how to use color. I will still ask if there is
a strong color sense or idea in a work I am designing because more and more
theatre artists are able to speak in those terms. If, however, there is no real
answer I do not take that to mean I cannot use color. It simply means that
I will need to make that choice based on other criteria.
After color and intensity we look at distribution, or angle, in light. When
a designer talks about this manageable property they are thinking about how
17
to reveal the three-dimensional quality of the body, and the space which the
body occupies. This is an important component of the overall lighting design
as it is what determines the placement of the lighting instruments. Light can
come from virtually any direction. Our limitations are those created by the
design of the theatre space in which we are working. The relationship of the
placement of a light source to the object (person) being lit is what determines
the “angle” of light; and the term “distribution” refers to the various com-
binations of angles we may choose to use to surround the object with light.
When teaching about manageable properties of light I use these two terms
interchangeably.
This consideration about distribution is important because it determines
the kind and quality of shadows that are cast by and within the object being
lit. Shadows are important because we actually learn more information
about the three-dimensional quality of an object through shadow than we do
from highlight. This means that the shadow can also distort our perception
of an object. The simplest example of this is how kids will take a ashlight
and put it under their chin, lighting their face from below to look “spooky.”
This has that quality because all of the shadows have switched from their
regular position below the thing casting a shadow, to above. Our brain
immediately communicates that this image is unnatural and so it becomes
strange or spooky.
In dance lighting, distribution also takes into account one other signicant
task: being able to separately light the dancer and the space, usually in the
form of the oor or the background. This is not something that we only
think about in dance, it is simply that more signicance and more attention
is placed on this aspect of the design.
Although not always counted among the manageable properties of light,
I also like to consider texture as an element over which I have control and
about which I have to make choices. It, along with color, distribution, and
intensity, is a decision with direct impact on the light plot and so should be
decided long before you go into a theatre. Texture is created either by mul-
tiple lighting instruments creating patterns of light and shadow, or they can be
created within the beam of a single light by way of “gobos” or templates
which can be placed in certain instruments. These patterns can be used to
create a sense of place by projecting trees and leaves or cityscapes and
window patterns. They can also be used to create abstract textural patterns
that will icker across dancers’ bodies as they move through the beam of light.
The nal manageable property goes by the rather unfortunate title of
“movement.” I say it is unfortunate because in a conversation that is about
dance and light it really seems as if movement belongs to the dance side of
things. In fact we are not really talking about movement in the traditional
sense. While it is true that we may decide to use follow spots in certain
instances, so that the beam of light moves across and around the stage in syn-
chronicity with a performer, that is not the denition of this particular term.
18
In this case we are actually referring to the visual movement through the
space that can be created by the shifting arrangement of static lights as they
fade in and out. Basically we are talking about the manageable property of
light that guides the audience member around the space by brightening and
dimming lights so that the exact spot we want them to look at has the most
light, or perhaps the most interesting light.
Earlier I described the work lighting designers do as using tangible equip-
ment to control an intangible element. Light itself is insubstantial, it is not some-
thing we can grab hold of and directly manipulate. So we settle for wrestling
with the tangible instruments, symbols of which are arranged on a drawing we
call a light plot, so that the actual lights can be set up in a theatre to create the
intangible light in a specic manner we then call a lighting design: A design that
is the result of carefully considered choices that impact intensity, color, distribu-
tion, texture, and movement with the eventual goal of creating an environment
that supports and reveals a work of art on stage.
In order to make the right choices for your light plot you need a very
clear understanding of what you are lighting. I have started this discussion
about lighting with examples from theatre because it is an art form that is
widely understood. The basic concepts apply to all lighting design, no matter
the subject or object that is being lit. This conversation happens to be about
a very specic art form and one that is not as widely understood: Dance.
How does the process dier between spoken word theatre and dance, or
movement-based theatre? The most signicant dierence is how ideas are
communicated to an audience. In one we need to hear words and in order
to properly understand those words we need to see the actors faces. In
dance the body delivers the information and the face is simply another
aspect of the body. The dierence, in the long run, may seem small, but the
impact on a design can be large. When I look at a light plot for a dance
company and compare it to a plot for a play the thing I notice immediately
is how many lighting instruments are placed above and from the audience’s
perspective for a play. This is the light that I often refer to as “face light.”
The dance company’s plot, on the other hand, is going to have more light
to the sides and less from the front.
This is a rather simplistic comparison and the point is not to impart some
great truth about dance lighting but rather to bring home the idea about
responding to what you are lighting. Once you have a clear understanding
of what you are lighting, it must necessarily impact the choices you make.
So how do you gain that understanding? Just as I have begun from very
basic ideas about lighting, I want to do the same for dance to help us reach
an understanding of the art form with which we are working. Which begs
the question: What is dance?
I would venture to say there are almost as many denitions of dance as
there are artists involved in creating it. Like most overarching categories of
art there are subdivisions upon subdivisions in the world of dance. At its
19
most basic, dance is a specic form of physical movement that is presented

for a particular purpose. And there we have one of the basic problems with
dening dance. If our denition is broad enough to allow for all of the many
dierent forms dance can take, it leaves room to include things that most
people would not necessarily consider dance. For our purposes I am talking
about an event that is performed for an audience, typically in a theatre,
where the primary – if not exclusive – means of communication is through
specically designed movement for individual performers and groups of per-
formers. Many people also refer to this as “concert dance,” a broad term
that I am not particularly fond of.
There are two main classications in the world of dance: Ballet and
modern. While there are many works that clearly fall into one or the other
of these classications there are also an increasingly large number that resist
clear classication. Ballet is also referred to as classical and you may hear
those terms used interchangeably. My problem with that is that it negates
the notion that perhaps there is a classical form of modern dance. This is
a notion we need to leave more room for as we are well into the fth or
perhaps even sixth generation of modern dance choreographers. Much of
what the rst generation of modern dancers created would look out of place
if it were set on most modern companies today. They share a philosophical
approach to movement but the way those ideas are expressed in dance have
changed dramatically. In addition, modern dance has made room for non-
Western forms like Butoh and Capoeira and brought them under the
umbrella term of “modern.”
Most modern dance only dates back to the 1890s and most of its roots
are from the 20th century, while ballet identies its earliest examples in the
mid-16th century, although many people look to the reign of Louis XIV in
the 17th century as the real beginning of ballet. Ballet has a very large
vocabulary of very specic steps. While there are dierent “schools” of ballet
the dierences between what the dancers perform is more stylistic than
structural. Everyone learns the same basic positions and the same founda-
tional steps. In some cases, pushing the height of the leg as much as possible
in a particular position is stressed while for other teachers the correct execu-
tion may be about precision in height that is specically related to the dan-
cer’s anatomy as opposed to their maximum reach.
In addition to its vocabulary of steps, ballet also identies a basic set of
ve positions that are dened by specic placement of the feet and carriage
of the arms. These positions can expand the look of some of the steps. For
example, take a plié, or bending of the legs. Pliés come in a variety of depths
(grand and demi) and can be executed in all of the basic positions. Each
one, though related, will appear dierent in the context of the choreography.
Dierent choreographers and “schools” of ballet will also alter some aspects
of steps to suit their aesthetic needs. The steps are basically the same but
arm position, depth of the plié, or the elevation of a leg will alter the look of
20
the dancer’s body in the space. Most ballet choreographers remain faithful
to this vocabulary although contemporary ballet choreographers will play
with the line or the shape of a step to create a distinctive feel, using, for
example, a exed foot instead of the traditionally pointed one.
This does not mean that more recent choreography that identies as
ballet cannot bring new movement ideas into a piece. In fact, there are
a number of choreographers working with major ballet companies today
who ask their dancers to use their bodies in ways that might not t the
normal expectation of ballet. They do, for the most part, base it on trad-
itional ballet steps but they alter the line or introduce movement vocabulary
that blends with ballet vocabulary to create a dierent look. Some of these
choreographers and some dance critics have begun to throw around the
term “modern ballet.” I believe the intention with this term is to suggest
a new approach to ballet as opposed to identifying a new hybrid form cre-
ated from elements of modern dance and ballet.
Some of the visual characteristics shared by ballet are an elongated look
to the leg, which, for female dancers, is often accentuated through the use of
pointe shoes. (This type of ballet shoe has a hardened front section called
a “box” that allows the dancer to literally dance on the tips of her toes,
adding the length of her foot to the overall length of her leg.) Ballet also
seems to try to defy the limitations gravity places on the human body. Dan-
cers seek to move above the surface of the oor often using lifts and leaps to
increase this gurative distance from the oor with a literal separation from
it. Coupled with this is a desire to make all of this seem eortless, with an
emphasis on grace and an almost weightless appearance in performance.
While the subject matter for ballets has expanded by leaps and bounds it
remains the home of fairies and princesses, princes and cavaliers, sorcerers
and magical animals. It is also the technique that brought us the full length
“story ballet.” These works, usually in a three-act format, tell a magical
story and follow certain choreographic conventions such as the grand pas de
deux. This highlight generally occurs during the nal act and is comprised of
ve parts: the entrée, the adagio, two variations – one for the man, the
other for the woman – and the coda. Perhaps the best known story ballet is
The Nutcracker although other well know examples include Swan Lake, Sleeping
Beauty, and Giselle.
In many ways the preceding two paragraphs could be said to describe the
reasons modern dance came into being. While the early pioneers of modern
did not completely shed some of the airier qualities of ballet dancers, they
did move away from the stories associated with ballet. Their work was more
interested in creating a new sort of movement that could express dierent
sentiments and ideas about the relationship between movement and music.
Isadora Duncan was one of these early rebels. Although born in America it
was not until she moved to England in the late 1890s that she found her
inspiration. Her work did not explore the use of the oor which would
21
become a signicant characteristic of modern but she did discard the dance
shoe and the story ballet. She is said to have taken her inspiration from
Greek statues and to have danced barefoot with her own style of movement.
Another one of these very early gures that led the way to modern dance
was Loie Fuller. Her work in the early 1890s was the earliest reported
example of a direct relationship between movement and light. Fuller’s
exploration of movement that could be augmented by the use of owing cos-
tumes and that played with the dierent colored lights she had directed at
her makes her a special person in any discussion of dance and lighting
design. Fuller also traveled to Europe around the turn of the century and in
the early 1900s invited Duncan to tour with her. Both of these women
sought to break away from the carefully constructed steps associated with
ballet and to explore freer more improvisatory movement.
It was in the late 1920s/early 1930s, with the next generation of modern
dance pioneers, that dance underwent even more drastic transformations.
This generation also felt the strong inuence of a German school of modern
dance which blended with its compatriots in the United States. Among the
more recognized names here were Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and
Hanya Holm. We also have the introduction of very specic modern dance
techniques. Graham’s technique used approaches to movement driven by
the ideas of contraction and release and of the spiral as a way to motivate
movement from deep within the core of the dancer. Humphrey introduced
the idea of fall and recovery and explored gravity’s pull on the body.
Modern dance began to use oor work where the dancer could fall, spiral,
and collapse onto the oor and dance there without having to immediately
launch into the air.
Movement was no longer focused on making the dancer look good while
moving, the elongated leg and graceful arm positions gave way to movement
performed with the whole body in contact with the oor and desperate
yearning reaches. When there were stories they were about struggles
between good and evil, stories of mythology and very human stories of deep
emotional needs. In my opinion one of the greatest things that happened
with modern dance was the freeing of the choreographer to discover new
and distinctive ways of using the full body to move through space. The idea
that you did not have to be bound by rules, that you could nd compelling
and expressive ways of moving that did not have to t into a set of steps and
positions, opened up the possibilities that could be found in dance. As
a more recently created form of expression, modern dance was also less
bound by traditions and history, and was more likely to be inuenced by
societal and political issues than ballet. Despite Graham’s use of Greek
mythology, her stories seemed to hold a cautionary moral that applied to
modern society; these were not the pretty myths of sylphs and sprites, but
ones about esh-eating monsters and family betrayals.
22
In lectures he would give, I often heard Alwin Nikolais say that after the
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, he felt it was no longer possible to dance
or choreograph in the same way. At the time I will admit that I did not
fully appreciate what he meant. Since then, however, I have found myself
going back to that idea and considering it more carefully. I now believe that
what Nik was talking about was the idea that as a choreographer he could
not deny any part of what made him the person he was or else he was not
really committing to his work. Modern dance had the freedom to consider
such messy ideas as war and destruction.
Both modern and ballet have continued to evolve and quite frankly it is
not always possible to classify dance pieces as cleanly as it used to be. There
are many choreographers that work in both modern and ballet and the
result is a blending of techniques. Ballet underwent a signicant shift with
the introduction of “neo-classical ballet” and modern had its own transform-
ation with the introduction of “postmodern dance.” These shifts expanded
rather than replaced ideas about dance and choreography and the idioms
and styles of dance are in a constant state of ux. This challenges the dan-
cers as well, as they need to train their bodies to be able to meet the chal-
lenges given them by new choreographies.
Some things remain consistent. The classical story ballets continue to be
mounted and performed by large companies. Ballet dancers still perform
with that airborne sense of barely being contained by the forces of gravity.
These dancers still wear pointe shoes and tutus and even tiaras. The idea of
beauty is important and is expressed in costume, movement, and gesture. To
quote a musical theatre tune: “Everything is beautiful at the ballet.” But you
are now likely to encounter a ballet dancer falling to the oor and dancing
there for several measures before rising again. Pieces on a mixed bill with
a major company will feature tutus but also simple leotards and tights. Some
pieces will be choreographed with pointe shoes and others will have ats or
dance sandals that give the impression of dancing barefoot.
Modern dance has incorporated other forms of movement to expand or
alter its vocabulary. There are clear inuences from ballet as well as jazz,
acrobatics, African, and other ethnic dance forms. Sometimes the choreog-
rapher will be just as interested in pretty lines and lifts, although it is no
longer a given that men will be lifting the women; partnering happens in
many dierent combinations. There are stories involved but just as often
there are none. Dance as an expression of movement and the inventive
approaches to space are enough – no story is required.
The great thing about working with dance now is that the rules that we can
identify are as frequently broken as they are followed. We have companies like
Pilobolus Dance Company and Diavolo who work with props and large archi-
tectural structures to augment the dancers’ movements. They use dancers with
non-traditional training, frequently former acrobats or gymnasts, and are often
dismissed by dance purists. Yet their work is deeply rooted in the concept of the
23
body as a means of communication – with the props serving to extend their

movement vocabulary beyond what their bodies alone are capable of. An
approach that has roots in the work of Alwin Nikolais, a dance pioneer who
was also criticized as not really being modern dance yet was trained by Hanya
Holm who is clearly considered one of the pioneers of modern dance.
We have companies like Giordano Dance Chicago that grew from the heri-
tage of classic jazz dance but has expanded both the denition of jazz dance
and the boundaries of their own company. Or the Jorey Ballet which, under
the direction of Gerald Arpino in the 1990s and early 2000s, brought in works
by Laura Dean and Alwin Nikolais from the world of modern dance while
reviving works created by the Ballet Russes. The Martha Graham Dance
Company continues to exist and performs internationally despite the loss of its
namesake, while the Merce Cunningham Dance Company closed operations
two years after its founder’s death. Many ballet companies perform works cre-
ated by Marius Petipa, although they were originally choreographed in the
1860s. Rules are made to be broken, expectations are always deed, dance is
hard to dene or contain – and that is one of the reasons I am regularly chal-
lenged and rarely bored when working on dance.
Each one of these types of dance and each piece of choreography within
every subheading asks something dierent of the designer. I understand
I will never learn all there is to know about dance and I would never expect
a choreographer to know what I know about lighting. I do, however, feel as
if we owe it to each other and to the art form we represent to do our best to
understand – and beyond that to appreciate – the work of our fellow artists.
The work I do starts in my imagination with a vision of how light can be
manipulated to become a partner to the dance. The choreographers work
also begins in their imagination as they conceive dierent ways in which
their dancers can use the stage. I use lighting instruments and seek to control
the manageable properties of light. The choreographer and their dancers
create new ways of moving or discover dierent ways to use existing steps,
pushing the body to be as expressive as possible. We speak dierent lan-
guages but should always work to understand what each of us is saying. If
we are both fully doing our jobs the result of the collective whole is certain
to be better than the individual parts.
In Shakespeare’s Tempest, Prospero famously says “We are such stu as
dreams are made on” (Act IV, scene 1). I believe that dancers are truly the
“stu” on which their art is made. They are the inventors and creators of
new ways of moving through space. They rely entirely on their corporeal
being as their means of expression. They require nothing else to communi-
cate their ideas. They are “such stu as dance are made on.” If dancers are
indeed the substance of their art form then anything less than their full
being feels as if they are being dishonest with their audience. They are the
most unmasked, most vulnerable, of any artist I can think of. I would be
a fool to give them anything less than my best.
24
3
LE A R N I N G A B OU T D AN CE
The mechanics of lighting a performance are fairly universal. Basic decisions

are made about angle, color, and control, and those decisions are then laid
out on a light plot so that they can be executed. Technically, anyone who
understands and can do those steps can light virtually anything. Actually
I don’t believe that is really all there is to it and if you are still reading this
book you probably don’t either. So what makes the dierence? What is it
that lets me call myself a dance lighting designer? I would argue that the
dierence comes not from my knowledge of lighting but rather from my
knowledge of dance.
Over the years one of the questions I have wrestled with is: How well do
you need to know/understand the type of production you are designing? No
one expects a lighting designer working with an orchestra to be able to play
an instrument anywhere near the caliber of the musicians in the ensemble. It
is generally believed that theatre lighting designers have no interest in acting,
or if they did it is something in their past. On the other hand, I have often
been asked if I can read music and I would never dream of going into
a design meeting without carefully reading the script of whatever play we are
about to produce. It has always surprised me how many people who claim the
title of lighting designer for dance not only have very little understanding of
the art form but can be downright dismissive of it. (Of course, to be fair,
I have heard any number of lighting designers dismiss actors and musicians as
little more than an excuse for the designer’s job.) I suppose many of these
dance lighting designers have suered through the small dance studio recital
and that has colored their opinion, but to allow that to be the complete basis
of your background information is laughably inadequate.
How much do you need to know about dance in order to design it?
A tricky question and one that I have discussed with colleagues over the
years, yet I still have no denitive answer.
Do you need to take a dance class to design for dance? The answer to
that one is probably no – but it could very easily be yes as well. Why the
ambiguity? One class will not make a huge dierence other than that you
will be sore and probably frustrated. And if you are going to take enough
25
LEARNING ABOUT DANCE
classes to become good at it, then why design? Just go ahead and dance. On
the other hand, it will indisputably help with your understanding of how the
dancer uses their body to communicate with an audience and it will improve
your ability to communicate about abstract ideas based on a distinct vocabu-
lary of movement. Taking class is also not always a practical option and as
a result not an approach that I recommend. It is, however, not lost on me
that both Tom Skelton and Jennifer Tipton started in dance classes and
then moved into lighting. I am not alone in considering both of them to be
very important designers in the world of dance lighting.
Another approach is to watch classes if you are somewhere that will let
you. There is a great deal that can be learned by watching a dance class.
But you will need to watch a great deal of them for it to sink in. Don’t focus
as much on the complicated and delightful combinations or the exhilarating
leaps that happen toward the end of a class. Watch instead the careful work
that happens during the beginning and middle of the class. The way in
which a dancer warms up their body, or a teacher structures that portion of
a class can tell you a great deal about how they think about movement. It is
also fundamental in understanding a particular dance technique. The warm-
up prepares the body to work in a particular way.
After that pay attention to the progression of the class. What are the tech-
nical goals of the class and how is it being taught to the student? Classes, par-
ticularly ballet classes, will often seem as if they are going over the same
ground each time. Unlike traditional academic classes it is not always the goal
to learn a new step. It is just as likely that the class will be about strengthening
the student’s technique with something they have already learned. It is this
very repetition that becomes so valuable for the observer. The small pointers,
the ideas that are communicated by the teacher, help the observer begin to be
able to physicalize something they may never be able to do.
Another way is to simply spend time with dancers. Learn what bugs
them, what they think is important, what they focus most of their attention
on. How they relate to the space, the oor, the audience. What do they say
about the process of learning a new work, about how a choreographer
works and communicates with them? Find out what steps or what sections of
the piece they are most concerned about. What new aches and pains have
cropped up as a result of working on a new piece of choreography?
I was a newly arrived junior in high school at the North Carolina School
of the Arts when I was rst introduced to dance in 1970. I was standing at
the student mailboxes trying to gure out my combination when someone
came up next to me, clearly a foot or so shorter than I was, and then all of
a sudden she was almost eight inches taller. It turned out to be an advanced
ballet student who had put on her pointe shoes for class and taken advan-
tage of the added height to look into her mailbox at eye level instead of just
above her head. My rst thought was, I have to learn how they do that.
My second was, that has got to hurt.
26
I was hooked – I had to understand what made that possible. I wanted to

know why someone would want to deal with the pain I imagined it took to
get to that point. I went to watch her class. I met a bunch of her fellow
students, made some friends, and learned a great deal about what it takes to
become a dancer. One of my new friends commented on the fact that I was
always there at the beginning of ballet class. He asked me once why I didn’t
come to class later on. “That’s when we are doing the center work or going
across the oor, that’s when it feels like dancing, you always seem to leave
after barre.” I responded, “But that’s where all the fundamentals happen
isn’t it?” “Yes,” he replied, “but how did you know that?” I told him it
simply made sense, why else would class start there every day.
I gradually learned the names of steps; I did start coming to class at dier-
ent times and I saw the combinations and watched the extra time at the end
of the class where the pianist kept playing and everyone got to practice turns
and jumps without the need to follow a specic combination set by the
teacher. I learned to appreciate the tradition of the reverence at the end of
class. What I didn’t know at the time is that I was learning how to be a better
designer for dance. Actually, at the time I still didn’t know I wanted to be
a lighting designer. I was becoming better because I was learning to respect
the work that went into creating something that appeared so eortless. That
understanding led to a deep respect for dancers and the work that went into
what they create on stage.
It is that respect that made me always want to give the best I could to
a design. I wanted to have my contribution to the dancer’s performance ele-
vate their work. To make sure that I was never in the way and that I would
make them look as good as I possibly could. Many years later I was working
with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and its founding artistic
director, Jeraldyne Blunden, was standing next to me at the back of the the-
atre watching the performance I had just designed for her. She commented
quietly, “You make my dancers look so good, what colors do you use?”
After the performance I told her that I was using many of the same colors
that had always been in her repertory plot. She was quiet for a moment and
then asked, “Where are the next generation of dance lighting designers
going to come from? Where is the next Tom Skelton being trained?” I had
to confess I didn’t know the answer.
Her point was that she felt that people like Tom and me really cared
about dancers (she generously put me in the same category as him). It
meant something to her that we wanted them to look good while they were
working their butts o on stage. Tom was the co-artistic director of Ohio
Ballet and I was already working for Notre Dame at that time so she
couldn’t hire us for her company. She wanted to know where to go looking
for the right person. She had gotten frustrated with the people she had been
working with because they were missing that intangible aspect, a passion for
dance.
27
In 2017 I was asked to give a talk about the “Legacy of Tom Skelton” at
a day-long event focused on dance lighting for the annual LDI conference.
I was surprised because I was never one of Tom’s assistants. We became
friends later in life and a mutual colleague, Christina Giannini –
a wonderful costume designer I got to know rst at the North Carolina
School of the Arts in the 1970s – kept trying to get us to work on projects
together. Tom also reviewed my design work as I was getting ready to join
the United Scenic Artists, but I had never done my “apprenticeship” with
him. I cared enough to want to do this right, so I went to visit his archives
both in Ohio and in New York.
When I visited the Tom Skelton Archives in Ohio I was able to listen
to a recording of a lecture he gave on dance lighting. It was for a group
of graduate students in lighting design and I thought it was a very inter-
esting class. Tom spent far less time explaining how to create a plot and
much more time on how to understand the event. The last 30 minutes or
so of the 90-minute lecture was a loose history of dance and of choreog-
raphers. He gave a homework assignment at the end of the lecture. It
was a list of names of ballet steps, of classical ballets, and a list of chore-
ographers, mostly modern dance. The assignment was to learn what all
the terms meant and who all the people were and why they were
important.
As I listened to this lecture and the assignment I realized that I could
have answered virtually every question Tom was asking his students to
research. I had not set out to study the history of dance but by being an
attentive observer and taking advantage of the opportunities to meet chore-
ographers and watch many dierent dance companies I had a strong frame
of reference that helped me in my design work. I realized the value in the
assignment he was giving; frankly I wished I had learned some of this sooner
than I had. I eventually listened to three or four similar tapes – most made
reference to writing a book and wanting to record his thoughts; the pattern
repeated itself. In all of these early “lectures” Tom was speaking more about
the art form and the designer’s responsibility to it and spending much less
time on how to light dance.
I believe that Tom was telling his students that they could not really
understand how to light dance without learning to appreciate dance. And
that the level of appreciation had to come with some technical knowledge of
what the dancers were actually being asked to do. They needed to go
beyond simple reactions like, “Isn’t that pretty.” to get to an understanding
of how much work was involved in being that pretty. Beyond the divisions
of ballet and modern, and into the stylistic dierence between the various
“schools” of ballet and strands or branches of modern dance. To understand
the structure of a full length “story ballet” and the legacy of the “Ballets
Russes,” to know the dierence between German Expressionism, Martha
Graham, and postmodernism.
28
Tom never did write his book on dance lighting. He wrote a series of
articles which were published in Dance Magazine in the 1950s and he made
a number of recordings in which he discussed his ideas and thoughts with
other lighting designers and with his students. Going through some of that
material and trying to put my nger on his “legacy” was a challenge. I was
looking for a singular idea that would sum up his entire experience with
dance, an experience that started as a dance student who assisted Jean
Rosenthal at a summer dance festival and ended with his working tirelessly,
even from a wheelchair, to make sure he left his dance company in good
hands. I was coming up short.
When I nally did give my talk, my conclusion was that Tom’s enduring
legacy went beyond the generations of designers he had trained, it even
went beyond the continuation of the inherited aesthetics that those designers
passed along to their students. In the end I feel as if Tom Skelton’s legacy
was a passion for dance, not just for dance lighting. My position is that if we
learn nothing else from Tom it should be this: To care passionately about
the art form we are lucky to have partnered with. We will be better at what
we do if we really care and we will be rewarded by an artistic partnership
that will always keep us on our toes – so to speak.
One of the more important things I learned from watching all those
dance classes and eating lunch with those dancers at school was about their
relationship with the space in which they dance. This manifested itself in
a number of ways: Things had to be just right or a dancer was not able to
perform to the best of their ability. Temperature I understood right away:
leotards, tights, a unitard, or even a T-shirt are barely more than underwear
to the rest of us. Stand around in your underwear for a little while and
a room that feels ne quickly becomes too cold, and cold leads to injury. No
matter how carefully they warm up, a dancer does not remain in motion the
entire class. You stand still, frequently dripping with sweat, as the teacher
demonstrates the next phrase, and as the other dancers in the class take
their turn going through the combination of steps. A warm-up is not success-
ful unless a dancer manages to break a sweat, and the last thing they want is
for that sweat to evaporate and chill their muscles. That was only one of the
things I learned through all my watching.
The one that was a revelation was the oor. A dancer has a very intimate
relationship with the oor. This is true of all dance forms but especially true
of modern dance, which has often been dened by its use of oor work.
Modern dancers will fall, glide, collapse, sit, spiral, and contract down to the
oor. Once there they will roll, crawl, squirm, slide, scoot, and drag around
it and then explode, leap, rise, or simply stand up from it. There are whole
sections of modern techniques that are built around what the dancers can
say through movement while lying or sitting on the oor. But even ballet
dancers who strive to create the illusion of rising above the oor rely on it
for everything they do. An uneven oor makes it hard to glide across the
29
space, an angled or raked stage makes it hard to balance, a hard oor

makes leaps and jumps unbearable, and an unexpected slick spot or even
a piece of tape can take their feet right out from under them.
I worked with the Nikolais Dance Theatre for six years. During that time
I was nally able to take some dance classes. The classes were oered in the
evenings for adults who were probably never going to dance with
a company; I t that category. I got comfortable enough with the vocabulary
and the exercises that after a while I found I could sometimes join the com-
pany warm-ups. This would of course be on days we were not loading into
the theatre; however, I don’t think I ever took the warm-up if it was being
led by Nik. I learned some of the company’s pieces well enough that on
a couple of occasions I helped teach them to non-company members. In my
nal performance with the company I asked if I could dance with them as
a farewell. We were performing a piece we called “Water Studies” and it
was one of those I had helped a group of college students learn during
a residency at the start of the tour. We ran the piece as part of tech and the
ballet master sat out to watch and see if I stood out. His one note was that
I was taller than all the dancers and so I needed to bend my knees slightly
when the company lined up facing the audience part way through the piece.
I was in.
I cannot say with certainty that the experience made me a better
designer. I know with utmost condence that it made me a better stage
manager for dance and I immediately regretted that I had not done it much
earlier in my time with the company. There was something so revelatory
about lying on a dance oor in the dark waiting for the curtain to open and
the music to start. Every deviation in the cold oor was imprinted on my
back. Every small sound from the wings or from the house felt amplied
and when a few moments into the dance I heard the sickening “thunk” of
jammed slide projector trying to advance to the next image, I almost missed
my cue in the score.
I ashed back to this experience when K.C. Hooper, a lighting designer
who was working for Apollo Design, asked me the same question I posed in
the opening of this piece about teaching students to design for dance: “Do
you make them take a dance class?” After rst answering that there was
very little opportunity for this in my current program I told him my Nikolais
story. He agreed that taking a class seemed more important for stage man-
agers but he had been trying to gure out how to get at the same issue that
Jeraldyne had asked about. How do you build that artistic connection to
a medium that you only sort of understand as an audience member?
I would say it is possible to accomplish this just from the audience’s side
of things – but I believe it is much harder. As an observer you do not have
the advantage of discussing how to accomplish a particular movement. You
cannot spend time talking about the use of space, of pattern, of motion, and
of stasis with the choreographer or the dancers. It will take a great number
30
of carefully selected performances to help you understand the dierences

between genre and style. Just like learning a new spoken language, we are
learning a dierent system of communication and we need to gure out the
backbone of the work, the structure of the piece.
I have discovered that most choreographers with whom I work for the
rst time are surprised at how quickly I understand the structure of their
pieces and the quality of the movement. I know a great deal of that has
come with time but I also think it goes back to my high school days of sit-
ting in the corner of a dance studio. I think about getting permission to sit
just o stage in Heinz Hall, in Pittsburgh where I was going to college, as
the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre took the stage. I wasn’t there to
watch the lighting because you can’t tell much from the side, but I learned
a lot about the dancers. I think back to the rst dance tour I went on in
high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts as a stagehand.
I remember being surprised that the dancers came o stage and practically
collapsed to the oor before jumping up less than a minute later to charge
back out on stage seemingly full of energy.
I have been a student of dance for most of my life. This is not to be con-
fused with being a dance student, a title I would never claim. I have always
had close friends that were dancers and choreographers. My wife is a dancer
and choreographer. One of my favorite moments is sitting in a rehearsal
hall watching a new piece for the rst time, often less than three feet away
from the dancers. It is about the sweat, about the strain, about the eort to
make it look eortless. It is about participating in the dance, even if just vic-
ariously. It is about the kinesthetic response I feel, the quickening of my
pulse, the involuntary muscle movement as I try to drive the dancer on to
greater feats from my seated position.
Oddly enough though, when I go to see a dance performance I want to
sit back, far enough that my comfortable perspective is the whole stage. This
allows me to take in the full intent the choreographer had for the piece.
I can appreciate the shaping of the space through movement and lighting
choices. I can see the interaction of the company, not just a single dancer.
I nd it easier to understand the full impact of the work from this distance,
while in the studio I understand the visceral, kinetic act of the dance. It is
that kinetic connection to the movement and the choreographic intent that
allows me to design the piece. But it is the perspective I gain in the auditor-
ium that allows me to fully appreciate a piece.
If taking class is not really a requirement, how then does a lighting
designer become a better designer for dance? My answer is that you must
nd a way to become passionate about the art form. Not just your part of it,
but all of it. I am reminded of the story of one young lighting director/stage
manager who was working with a small dance company. I was asked to
cover for him on a short tour and fortunately my schedule allowed me to
take the job. Getting to know the dancers more as individuals was great.
31
Joining their conversations, getting to know their personalities, gaining their

trust was all a bonus on this short gig. During those down times we talked
about a wide range of topics and they liked hearing about what I saw in the
pieces they were dancing. We talked about my touring background and how
I approached learning a dance well enough to be able to call cues. We also
talked about their past tours.
Listening to them critique the regular lighting director’s work was enlight-
ening. His shortcomings all seemed to be in the area of the intangibles. He
focused the show just ne, but sometimes there were visibility issues for the
dancers. His cueing was good but the calling was not always in sync with
the piece. As an example, they talked about a tightly cued piece that had
been in the rep for a while and how it was hard for him to call.
I understood completely; when I was learning that piece from the video
I knew it had at least one cue that I was certain I was going to miss. Yet in
performance, once it started, I felt myself relax into the piece and even that
bump cue that seemed to come out of nowhere when I was watching the
video fell perfectly into place when I was calling it. I did not realize how
unlikely that was until the dancers told me how often the cue was missed in
performance.
Almost a year later I was back to design a new work for the company
and the conversation about the lighting director was very dierent. He was
calling great shows, he was paying closer attention to the dancer’s perspec-
tive, and the result was the performances were going much better. The main
change that I could see was that he was now dating one of the dancers in
the company. He cared about the company in a dierent way. It was a level
of investment that had not been there before and with it came those
intangibles.
I am not suggesting that one needs to fall in love with a dancer to
become a really good dance lighting designer. Although being able to see
the process and the space and the dance through the performer’s eyes is
a wonderful advantage. I would, however, encourage that conversation
about the dancer’s perspective whenever and however you can have it.
What does need to happen is to fall in love with dance. There are many
ways for that to happen and how it happens will dier from individual to
individual.
Chief among the ways to fall in love with dance that I can think of is to
watch as much of it as possible. Go to a dance festival and see as many indi-
vidual performances as time allows. Make a point to see at least one major
ballet company in a large theatre and then nd an experimental perform-
ance space and see the work of an unknown choreographer. Watch it live.
You will eventually get to the point where you can get a lot from a video
but that cannot happen until it is under your skin. Read biographies of dan-
cers and choreographers. Watch documentary lms about dance makers and
the making of dance pieces. There are many wonderful lms out there.
32
Some ction lms that incorporate a dance or dancer story line can add to
your understanding, even if they are full of unrealistic expectations and
sometimes rather bizarre fantasies.
Make dance a regular practice in your life. Become a student of the art
form and of the practice. Read reviews and longer pieces of dance criticism,
see if you understand the writer’s perspective and if not, try to gure out
why. If you are brave and/or foolish enough, take a class or two. Find out
what dancers put their bodies through. There is a reason why almost every
athlete who has made an honest eort at taking a dance class insists that
dance is as demanding as any sport, and frequently more so. Dancers, after
all, are athletes who incorporate a particular artistic aesthetic into their phys-
icality. Working out with a rst-class athletic team would not be easy and
neither will taking a dance class.
I know I am still learning, and for me a great deal of the attraction in light-
ing dance is that there is always something new to learn. I also believe in look-
ing backwards to better understand the art form. Learn about the history of
dance, the genealogy if you will. When you uncover where choreographers
trained or danced you will begin to understand how they think about move-
ment. This will sometimes mirror their training and at other times be in
strong opposition to it. I worked with Daniel Ezralow when he danced with
Momix. One day we were talking about how he began to choreograph. He
said it really happened while he was dancing with the Paul Taylor Company.
He and another dancer used to play around with the movement Paul had cre-
ated and think about what they might have done dierently; out of that
Danny developed his point of view as a choreographer. Years later he choreo-
graphed the dance sections in the lm Across the Universe. I could see the
choreographic vision as clearly as I had when I was in the studio watching
him gure things out for the company.
I recently had the opportunity, for the rst time, to recreate the lighting
on a Nacho Duato piece. While learning the piece, watching the video at
home, my wife pointed out to me that part of the movement felt like some
pieces by Jiri Kylián. Later, when I was reading the choreographer’s biog-
raphy in the program, it came as little surprise that Nacho Duato had
danced with the Nederlands Dans Theatre for ten years while Jiri Kylián
was the artistic director. I learned something new. The pieces fell into place.
In the beginning the dierence between classical ballet and modern dance
will be enough, but if you stick with it the dierences between Balanchine and
Fokine will become clear to you. The subtle dierences between Cecchetti,
Vaganova, and Bournonville training will emerge and you will wonder why
you used to think all classical ballet was the same. Seek to understand the sig-
nicance of Martha Graham’s work in the world of modern dance. What
made Cunningham so unique and what was “chance dance” really about?
What do “fall and recovery” or “at back” or “contraction” mean in terms of
choreography? What is an overcurve or an undercurve? If modern dance is
33
an American dance form why do the Germans matter so much and for that
matter what on earth is Butoh?
Try to understand the core concepts that dene certain schools of move-
ment. In modern dance the dierence between two techniques may be
related to how dancers go down to the oor and how they get back on to
their feet. It can also be about embracing story or discarding any notion
beyond the idea of pure movement. Some modern dance is clearly derived
from ballet vocabulary and some may grow from pedestrian movement.
And now I sound like that lecture Tom Skelton gave back in the 1970s.
I understand that all of this may sound extraneous to creating a light
plot, but I would argue that it is essential to fully understanding the piece
you are designing with that plot. Further, I would argue that understanding
the piece will help you make sure your light plot provides all the tools you
need to best serve the dance. Beyond that is the level of communication that
can be opened up when you speak with a choreographer in terms that show
your understanding of their movement vocabulary. When I was able to iden-
tify a distinctly dierent use of weight by the dancers of a company
I regularly worked with, the conversation I was having with the choreog-
rapher turned on a dime. We talked about concepts and origins of the
movement, we talked about intention in the movement and the meaning of
space in the work. He shared his background in terms of his training and
how that contributed to the overall aesthetic of the piece we were about to
work on together. And we talked about what went into getting the dancers
to move dierently so that his choreography looked like it t the company.
The result of that conversation was apparent in the tech process. Trust
had been created that paid o when our time was shorter than anticipated.
Quick ideas could be exchanged instead of long careful descriptions of
exactly what we needed to see at every given moment. I felt I was in charge
of the lighting design even though the choreographer had created many
moments in the work that relied on specic lighting looks. More importantly,
based on that early conversation I knew the light plot was ready to meet the
needs of choreography. We got to that point because I understood the
movement, which in turn meant I knew what the piece was trying to do and
I could help the audience understand what the choreographer was trying to
say. To me that is the mark of good lighting designer.
There are many ways to make yourself a better dance lighting designer but it
is my contention that the most important one is to care enough to understand
why dance is so dierent. To understand why dancers are so incredibly dierent
in the world of performers and to get to the point where you can appreciate the
remarkable dierences and similarities between modern and classical ballet dan-
cers. If you cannot bring yourself to care about these things you will still be able
to light a dance piece but I am not really certain you will be able to become
a dance lighting designer. And if you can’t nd the passion, there is no reason
to try to do it. We certainly don’t do it for the money or for the fame.
34
4
D A N C E AN D L I G HT
When I was discussing why it is so hard to get this whole thing right
I brought up Jean Rosenthal’s quote about lighting dance. One of the won-
derful things about her image of an aquarium of light is that of supporting,
or as I put it, partnering the dancer. While every designer will tell you that
they are a critical part of whatever art form they are lighting, I am con-
vinced that it is much more the case with dance. There are many reasons
why this relationship between dance and light developed. I believe that at
the heart of it, the relationship was driven by economic factors.
Dance, in particular modern dance, has always struggled for recognition in
the pantheon of the performing arts. It is considered an elitist art form where
the uneducated feel as if they are missing something. The reality couldn’t be
further from the truth. The egalitarian aspect of the removal of the barrier to
understanding that comes with spoken language, when one does not speak
that language, should make dance an art form for all. The fact that it does not
work out that way is probably as much the fault of the artists as it is the
audience.
When we treat what we do as something beyond simple explanation it
becomes unexplainable. The reluctance of choreographers to put into words
what they are saying with movement can be interpreted as elitist. I am con-
vinced that it is much more a desire to let the movement speak for itself
than any eort to create a mystique around the art form. I say this because
I have rarely met a choreographer who was not able to speak with a great
deal of clarity about their work when I was designing for them.
I understand, and largely agree, that they think the performance needs to
speak for itself. This means that if I want to be a good and trusted partner
in the creation of that performance, I have to understand the choreograph-
er’s perspective.
The result of this attitude that dance is somehow not a populist art form
means that for most of the people making dance, it is not a lucrative profes-
sion. Things are produced on smaller budgets and works are revived and
maintained in a company’s repertory because it is cheaper than creating new
pieces. Audiences also respond to the familiar and come back to see those
35
DANCE AND LIGHT
works they really loved. Most major ballet companies mount an annual pro-
duction of The Nutcracker. Why? Because this production, once it has been set
and all the costumes and scenery created, can be remounted at a fraction of
the cost of a new work. It also has a regular seasonal audience who don’t care
that they have seen it before; it is an event that represents the holidays just like
those theatre companies that mount an annual production of A Christmas Carol.
I have been told that in some cases The Nutcracker balances the books for
a company.
Why focus on this economic issue? The fact is that the cheapest artistic
element in a production is the lighting. Unless a designer insists on renting
large amounts of equipment the cost is largely that of labor with a few
expendable items that do not amount to much at all. Most regional theatres
own enough lighting equipment for a basic light plot and many have
enough to create a more elaborate design. The design process is shorter and
requires less labor before the company gets to the theatre.
Scenery takes time. It needs to be designed, built, and painted before it
ever gets into the theatre. Even though you want to keep most of the oor
open and available for the dancers – and so you may very well wind up
with painted drops instead of dimensional scenery – it still takes time. There
are trade-os: Less time building generally means more time painting. It can
take anywhere from two to six weeks for a set, depending on the complexity,
size, and level of detail. You also need to buy the materials that are used to
build the scenery as well as pay for the crew who will build and paint
things. While it is true that some companies rent scenery for their produc-
tions, they typically do so because of the expense related to creating their
own.
Dance costumes are generally minimal (unless you are dealing with
a story ballet) in order to allow the dancer greater freedom of movement.
To be able to dance well costumes need to t properly and if they do and
there is a change in the cast there is not much chance of sharing costumes.
Unlike street clothes even a minimal dierence in size means a new gar-
ment. Each piece needs to be built or purchased and altered to t properly.
In order to do this there will need to be several ttings and, again, this all
takes time and costs money. It is possible to buy tights and leotards in
a variety of styles and colors so that is a faster, but not necessarily cheaper,
option. The result is a preponderance of dance pieces that are costumed
with simple dance wear and performed on an empty stage with black mask-
ing and either a black background or a cyc (a plain drop that can be lit with
dierent colors). That leaves us with light as the most economic means to
make a strong artistic statement in support of the choreographer’s work.
And this brings us in turn to the question: What can I, as a partner to the
dance, accomplish with my lighting? The short answer is – nothing if I do not
understand the piece of choreography. If I do not work to understand what
the choreographer is creating, I am less than a passive participant, I can easily
36
DANCE AND LIGHT
become an inadvertent obstacle. This issue of how we communicate is a very

tricky part of the process, one that is a discussion all by itself.
But let us assume for the moment that I do fully understand the intent of
the piece. Then there are many answers to the question of my role as
a partner in the dance. I can help the audience know where they are supposed
to be looking. I can build on the dynamic and/or emotional structure of the
piece. I can shape or dene the space in which the dance is taking place. I can
create a visual interest or complexity where one may not be apparent. I can
amplify the dancers’ movements or their path through the space. I can create
a sense of place or mood or time of day, just as I might for a play. In short my
options are only limited by my own imagination, the demands of the piece,
the choreographer’s vision, and our ability to nd a common vocabulary – so
that we are talking about the same thing at the same time.
Dance moves at a dierent speed than any other kind of performance.
This does not always mean faster. Butoh can be so slow that it feels as if no
movement is occurring at all. But that does not mean that nothing is hap-
pening and it does not mean that it cannot be a compelling, and at times
disturbing, work of art. Time takes on a dierent meaning when it is meas-
ured by movement instead of words. Even words become more of
a measurement of time than a sharing of meaning when used in dance.
Lighting must measure time in the same way the individual dance work
does. Sometimes our understanding of time comes from the music but more
frequently it comes from the choreography. While it is true that we have to
tap into our own musicality when cueing a piece, if we ignore the choreog-
rapher’s approach to the soundscape even the most musical of cueing can
feel out of step with the piece.
Time is also at a premium in dance. There is never enough time in the
theatre. Every hour of stage time is shared. Scenery and props get the oor
and set installed while the lighting and sound crew set up their equipment.
Focusing the lights requires darkness but work continues in the wings and
behind the backdrop. Sound requires silence to balance levels but light cues
can be written and scenery shifts can be worked on in silence. Dancers come
on stage to space their movement and the lighting designer works on cues
around them, taking advantage of having bodies to work with. Dance lighting
designers need to be exible and they need to work quickly. They also need to
work intelligently, with purpose and direction, because they will not generally
get a chance to do the same thing more than once. It is very important to
know where you are going and what you want your lighting to say.
I believe that as a lighting designer I am also a storyteller. I use the con-
cept of “story” here in a very basic way. To me story does not always have
to follow a model of beginning, middle, and end, it does not need to have
a protagonist nor does anyone need to undergo a transformation. This is an
idea that I have come to in time, based in large part on my work in dance.
I believe that even a work with no plot or particular meaning can still tell
37
DANCE AND LIGHT
a story. We start somewhere; there is a relationship of a dancer to the space

in which we encounter that dancer. The relationship alters in some way and
we have – perforce – moved to a new moment in the story. Even pure
movement with no character or plot still tells a story. We simply accept that
not everyone sees the same story.
Even when there is a literal story being told it relies on the viewer to ll
in many of the details. Character development happens through action not
thought or dialogue. Stripped of language, we encounter emotion and
objectives in raw states. If it is done well we get to the core concepts faster
and more directly than with conventional story telling techniques. One of
the major reasons for this is the uidity and speed with which ideas or
images are formed and reformed in a dance piece. A good example I can
think of to help explain this is ballet adaptations of Shakespeare plays.
There are several and they have been quite successful. Among them Taming
of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello – all have
received critical acclaim. Of particular interest in this case is Jose Limon’s
The Moor’s Pavane.
The Moor’s Pavane distills the essence of Shakespeare’s tragedy into an
approximately 20-minute-long dance piece. The cast is reduced to four essen-
tial characters, The Moor, Iago, Desdemona, and Emelia, although they are
often listed in the credits as The Moor, His Wife, His Friend, and His Friend’s
Wife. The work focuses on the relationships, betrayals, jealousies, and the
tragic conclusion of Shakespeare’s play while omitting the political and mili-
tary intrigue. It also omits close to two and a half hours of run time. It is
a masterpiece in the canon of modern dance and still receives performances
well over 60 years after it was choreographed. I was able to recreate the light-
ing for this piece when I was working with the Jorey Ballet.
The Moor’s Pavane does not have ashy lighting and it is not jammed full
of cues, but the lighting etches the movement when needed and softens the
quartet into a court dance at other times. The impact of the story is as emo-
tional as any other version I have seen and the ambiguity of regret and of
good and evil is more keenly felt. It is performed on an open stage with four
performers who never leave or change costumes and use a single prop, the
handkerchief. The choreography and the dancers tell the story, but their
fth partner is the lighting. I have seen the work in rehearsal and in per-
formance and I can say with certainty that the lighting elevates the piece.
Why? Yes, we need to return to that question.
The design leans heavily on a center pool and the form of the dance
returns to the quartet contained in this space on a regular basis. The part-
nering is across the space and around it, setting up the dierent relation-
ships. Gestures reach high into the down light that creates the pool of light
as bodies collapse to the oor within its connes, and then it moves away
from this space. Lighting conceals and reveals, sculpts and compresses, the
movement and the dancers. It brings visual variety to an unchanging space
38
DANCE AND LIGHT
and underscores the emotional currents that run through the choreography.
When I worked on this piece it was also a rm reminder that clarity of idea
wins out over abundance of equipment every time.
Another work I was privileged to light was The Green Table by German
choreographer Kurt Jooss. The Green Table was created in 1932 and I had
the great good fortune to be entrusted with recreating the lighting 40 years
later in 1972. As a result I have set the work with ve dierent companies
and at least eight dierent casts. The central character of Death, which was
originally performed by the choreographer himself, is one of the great roles
a male dancer can perform. The work’s devastating indictment of war and
of the politicians that do nothing to prevent it carries as much strength now
as when it premiered between the two world wars.
The Green Table, like Pavane, is very spare story telling. It moves quickly
between locations and shows us nine dierent deaths with distinctly dierent
qualities. A dance in eight scenes, with no set and very few props – the light-
ing must carry us from the diplomatic negotiating room to a town square, to
a battleeld, a brothel, and nally some limbo state where all the victims in
the piece unite before returning us to the never-ending negotiation. Light is
an essential partner in the story telling.
The design is called upon to indicate place, it elevates emotion, and it
brings Death magically onto the stage just in time to claim his victims. It is
a very detailed design but surprisingly simple. The entire piece can be lit on
a full size (40 feet by 30 feet) stage space with a plot consisting of only 80
instruments and one follow spot. In fact the most critical lighting is handled
by about 20 of those instruments and another 10 or 15 are only used in the
prologue and the epilogue.
I have picked these two examples to start with because they were pro-
duced at a time when lighting for dance was in its infancy. In fact it was not
yet seen as a dierent discipline in the France of the 1930s where The Green
Table premiered. When I rst got the paperwork, one of the things that
struck me was how “old fashioned” the design really felt. The reaction was
based on where the instruments were placed and how much those place-
ments reected European opera house lighting. These pieces represent two
dierent kinds of design challenges. In Pavane the lighting wasn’t needed to
tell the story, in The Table it would be impossible to tell the story without it.
The choreography of both works is just as eective in a studio as in perform-
ance but the dance piece itself is not. The lighting brings critical aspects of
the choreography to the forefront. It helps the choreographer communicate
their ideas to the audience. It partners with the dancer in a signicant but
not demanding way. Unless you really understand what lighting can do for
a dance, neither of these are pieces in which you would spend much time
discussing the lighting design.
As a designer these are also the kinds of works that give me the most pride.
I do not need my lighting to be singled out. I appreciate the recognition, but
39
DANCE AND LIGHT
I am convinced that my best work has generally been on pieces where the
conversation after the performance was about the totality of the work, not my
contribution to it.
In the beginning I referenced Jean Rosenthal’s assertion that light sup-
ports the dancer. I said I like to think of my role as a partner – with an eye
toward modern partner work and “contact improvisation.” In contact, the
partners learn to share one another’s weight and pass energy back and forth
between them. Who is lifting, or supporting, the other’s weight moves
responsively between the dancers. Unlike a classical pas de deux where, with
the exception of the male variation, the focus is on the ballerina with the
man playing a supporting role, dance and light share equally with the
emphasis shifting in often imperceptible ways.
There have been times when my role was much more along the lines of
a classical partnership. My job is to make the dance look good without bringing
in any commentary or adjustments with my design. In order to do that I have
to understand the dance piece and the way the choreographer wants the audi-
ence to see it. I need to pick color that will complement the costumes and the
skin tones of the performers. The angle of light that I choose to use has to
respond to the dancer’s movement and has to dene the space in which the
dance will take place. These are choices that impact the light plot and how
we focus it in the theatre. There have also been works where my role was
almost as obvious to the audience as that of the dancer. Quick shifts in the light-
ing – drastic jumps in color and angle – quick cues that are easily noticed and
then shifting seamlessly to subtle choices that hand the focus back to the dancer.
The most critical work happens after all the instruments have been hung
and focused and I sit at the tech table to write the cues. This is where the
story telling happens, this is where the style emerges. Some pieces can be
accomplished with a handful of cues, others need the light to feel as if it is
in constant motion. The cues move with the dancers through the space,
arriving just as they do to another part of the stage. Evolving with the piece
to create the journey and unspool the narrative – it is ironic that this critical
part of the process almost never has enough time. This is where the designer
nds out how well they know the piece, how well they have done their
homework. This is where the “magic” happens. This is also the last place
you want to be when you discover that you and the choreographer were not
on the same page. You are stuck with all of your choices at this point. The
tools (design concepts) have all been set up and there is no time to change
anything.
This is also where you learn to trust your instincts. Where you learn just
how good your eye is as you balance the elements to make the dancers
stand out. To make them appear and disappear as needed, and where you
build the energy of the performance in sync with the choreography and the
dancers. There is almost never time to stop and think and certainly no time
to go back and start the whole thing over.
40
DANCE AND LIGHT
When I was starting out as a free-lance designer someone told me that as

a general rule modern dance pieces should have a light cue for every minute
of the piece. As with all “general rules” they are only right a certain amount
of the time and are just as frequently wrong. It depends on the company,
the choreographer, and the individual piece of choreography. But for sake of
argument let’s see what this really means.
In 2016 I lit a new piece of choreography, Divided Against, for Giordano
Dance Chicago. The choreography was by Peter Chu and it was our rst
time working together. The piece ran for about 14 minutes, with the nal
moments occurring in silence. There were some very specic needs for this
piece with dancers appearing in place and lights fading out before they
exited. I got Peter’s breakdown of how many cues he thought we needed
and it came out to 20 cues including the rst lights up and the nal fade. As
I did my homework I felt there should be about six or seven more to deal
with internal shifts and to follow the energy of the piece.
When the theatre schedule was published we had two hours and twenty
minutes to light the piece. As per usual practice with the company, this
would also be the rst time Peter had seen the dancers since he nished the
choreography over a month earlier, and they would be spacing the dance as
I was lighting. We also had to keep the last 20 minutes available to run the
piece for notes and photographs. In the remaining 120 minutes I had to
create what turned out to be 33 light cues, which meant an average of three
minutes work time per cue. Some of them took much longer as they
involved questions about where we were in the piece and needing the dan-
cers to gure out where they were lit and where they were in the dark. This
meant that there were a handful that had to be set up and recorded in the
board in under a minute. Under these kinds of conditions you have to know
what you are doing, you have to have done your homework, and you need
to trust your instincts.
But even more importantly, your choreographer has to trust you. If your
partner doesn’t feel safe they can never look their best. Ask any dancer and
they will tell you that is the case. As a lighting designer I am useless if the
dancers, the choreographer, and the artistic sta of the company do not
trust me, because if they don’t trust me they cannot possibly feel safe.
I am also responsible for the literal safety of the dancers. It does not
matter if my cue makes them look great if they cannot dance in it. They
cannot dance if they are not sure where they are. If they do not know where
the audience is or where the oor is, they cannot perform. They need to be
able to see a xed constant horizon point toward the front so they know
where down stage is, so they can balance, and so they can spot their turns.
I learned this lesson from Murray Louis. I was assisting Alwin Nikolais in
lighting a joint season for the Nikolais Dance Theatre and the Murray Louis
Dance Company. Nik was lighting a solo for Murray and said something
about moving to the end. Murray stopped him and said no, he didn’t think
41
DANCE AND LIGHT
the cue was right. Nik insisted he looked great and Murray said something
like, “It doesn’t matter at all how I look if all I can do is stand still. I can’t
see the oor so I can’t relevé or balance and don’t even think about asking
me to jump.”
I never forgot this lesson. Right when I joined Nik, long before I was
responsible for the lighting, a dancer was out for weeks with a fractured
elbow. Nik had put his dancers on clear acrylic boxes about 12 to 15 inches
high and had choreographed movement that included them jumping on and
o the boxes. When he got to lighting the piece he added another design
element, a mirrored piece of polystyrene that sat under the cube. Visually it
was stunning, but it was deadly for the dancers. While he had included oor
light in the cue from the top light, the acrylic box all but disappeared into the
mirrored surface, but more signicantly the mirror masked the true location
of the oor and that in turn altered the dancer’s perception of the top of the
box. The dancer had jumped o his box, landed safely but when he turned to
jump back on the box he miscalculated and fell hard on his elbow.
Once the dance captain helped Nik understand what the dancers could
and could not see it was a simple matter to add a very low side light that
made the boxes fully apparent. The overall look on stage was still what Nik
had been after but the dancers could now do the movement safely, and with
condence.
There are other more mechanical things that are done to make the dancer
feel safe in the space. All dance companies use a spotting light. This is located at
head high or slightly above in the center of the audience space – it is usually red
and of very low wattage. It needs to be visible without adding any light to the
stage. The name comes from the dancers need for a focal point to use in “spot-
ting turns.” Spotting is a technique dancers learn to help prevent dizziness and
disorientation during a rapid series of turns. By holding their focus on a single
place or spot as long as possible then quickly whipping their head around to
regain their spot they can improve their turns and are able to keep dancing
after a quick turning sequence.
In addition, many companies put similar kinds of very low wattage red
lights on their side light booms. This allows a dancer to exit quickly and
with condence in a black out with full knowledge of where the painful obs-
tacle in the wings is actually located. More and more companies are using
light along the downstage edge of the dance space as an additional safety
measure, either a rope light that is blacked out on the audience side or
a line of LEDs that are shielded from the audience or even just three indi-
vidual LEDs, one on center and one each at the quarter marks. These keep
the dancer from wandering too far down stage and out of the light and they
also help maintain their orientation in the space. More importantly it means
they will not fall o the front of the stage.
All of this goes to building trust with the dancer. It has always been
important to me that the dancers know that I will keep their safety in mind.
42
DANCE AND LIGHT
The dancer’s broken elbow and Murray’s insistence that he would not dance
in a space where he did not feel safe stuck with me. If the choreography is
slow and grounded I know I have the freedom to play with light and dark
more than I usually can. If there are lifts and leaps I know the visibility of
the oor is hypercritical. If the movement is fast and intricate or executed in
a crowd I have to make sure the light is not creating blind spots. I always
pay attention to the dancer’s safety, but I admit I have at times pushed the
limits. As far as I know my lighting has never been responsible for
a dancer’s injury. But trust with the dancer is not always the same as trust
with the choreographer.
I know that choreographers appreciate my awareness of the dancers
needs and have never asked me to take out light that I have added to a look
or cue to provide the right kind of visibility for the dancers, but that is not
the trust that they need with me. They need to know that I will work to
understand their concept and never make a choice that will undermine their
work.
When I was working with The Jorey Ballet, Gerald Arpino was the art-
istic director and he prided himself on giving opportunities to young and
rising choreographers. One year I was asked to design a new work for
a choreographer I had only met once. He was a bit of a one-man show and
often choreographed, created music, and designed his works for his own
company. I came to rehearsal to watch the piece and then met with him to
discuss it. He listed seven or eight very specic looks he wanted and I wrote
them all down. Then I asked if we could simply discuss the piece. He was
surprised and wanted to know why since he had just told me how to light it.
I explained that I wanted to get a better understanding about how these
cues t into the choreography.
After a few moments he relented and we talked through the work in
much greater detail. As a result I had a slightly dierent idea about a couple
of the cues he had listed and when we met in the theatre I told him what
I wanted to do. He refused and I patiently explained what I felt would be
the deciency in his approach. Not wanting to waste the dancers’ time I did
what he asked and we ran the piece. Right after he asked me to show him
what I wanted to do in the places I had asked to change things. After
I showed him he asked if I could rewrite the piece with my cue ideas with-
out erasing what we had already done. We did, we ran it again, and then
he told me to use my version.
What I changed did not alter his concept but it improved the visual
impact of what he was trying to do. At one point he had asked for a single
downlight for a couple; I replaced it with four lights focused into the same
area which maintained the idea of isolation but lit the dancers from four
angles, increasing their dimensionality and highlighting the movement. In
another case I colored the oor downstage of the dancers who were moving
in front of the backdrop in stark silhouette. This kept the space present and
43
DANCE AND LIGHT
set up the next visual idea in the piece. Once he understood that I was not
trying to take his work away from him he relaxed and let me help him, to
partner with him.
As is often the case in this oddly interconnected industry, I wound up
working with this same choreographer with a dierent company in Chi-
cago years later. He greeted me as an old friend and this time told me
his choreographic ideas and let me design the lighting to go along with
those ideas. This time he was the one who asked me if he could try some-
thing dierent on one or two cues and we did. He was much more com-
fortable partnering with me the second time because I had supported his
vision the rst time. Sometimes partnerships come from your reputation
and people simply trust you because of what they know of you but more
often trust has to be earned. Everything you do, every interaction with
a new choreographer, is about building that trust. The more groundwork
you can lay in that process the easier time you will have once you are in
the theatre designing the work.
I make the eort to learn the piece but I also try to understand the train-
ing and background of the choreographer. Knowing their artistic roots helps
me understand their artistic present. I also nd the connections fascinating.
Seeing the bits of dierent techniques and choreographic approaches woven
together in new ways is exciting for me. This is part of what comes from
being a student of the art form. This understanding also builds a connection
for me with the work: I nd that when I really commit to getting to know
the work I also become protective of it as if I have a bit of ownership.
My respect for the choreography also means that I want my work to
respect the dance as well, to make sure that I t my work in without needing
to draw attention to it. There have been works and moments within them
where the lighting was very present and created a very strong visual. But
I know that these moments, no matter how great they look, are wrong if
they do not support the piece. I will say more about moving lights and
where they t into dance later but I oer an example now of one time
where they certainly did not.
I was watching a workshop where three student designers were given the
same piece of choreography and the same light plot to create a design for
a three-minute piece. The plot included three or four moving lights as one
of the available tools for the design. The rst designer used them sparingly,
more as refocusing specials and area lights to redene the size of the space.
It was subtle and, I felt, appropriate for the delicate trio he was lighting.
The next person decided to use more of the bells and whistles.
As the dancers gathered into a cluster in the center of the space the moving
lights all came on with a template pattern. Just before the dancers started to
move, the templates started to spin. Likewise, before the dancers left the center
cluster the movers started to spread across the area they were covering, almost
a full measure before the dancers left their places. The dierence was striking:
44
DANCE AND LIGHT
The dancers were dancing with the lights and it was about the movement of
the templates more than the movement of the dancers. The moving lights, still
spinning away, led the dancers to their new locations in space giving away the
choreography before it had a chance to reveal itself.
The second design was certainly ashier, it drew attention to the instru-
ments and what they could do, but when the attention moved to the lights it
came o the dancers and that diminished the choreography. To use my con-
tact improv analogy, one of the dancers had just fallen on the ground
because the other one gave up supporting the movement.
The point here is that understanding the relationship between dance and
light is not just about what you can do with light but it is also about the fact
that there are things I believe you should not do. I was trained by people
who felt that since lighting generally comes in later in the process it should
nd its place rather than announce its presence. I tread lightly, particularly
if this is the rst time I have worked with a choreographer. I understand the
allure of designing a work with high visibility cueing that almost leads the
movement and becomes something visually dierent with aggressive fre-
quency. I myself have even designed pieces that had light cues every 20 to
30 seconds, many of which were zero counts or two-second fades. That is
not my default mode, and I have to hear from the choreographer that this is
a direction they want to go with the look of the piece before I go in that
direction myself.
Occasionally you will get pieces of choreography that are developed
around lighting; without foregrounding the lighting the piece might not even
work. An excellent example of this is Caught, a David Parsons piece. The light-
ing in this work is a combination of down pools and strobe lights. It begins
with a solo dancer moving around the perimeter of the stage, stopping in
a succession of down lights. At a certain point the lights go out and the dark-
ness is split by the ash of a strobe light that catches the dancer at the peak of
a series of leaps. At points this happens so quickly that the dancer appears to
move through the space without ever touching the oor. Take away the down
pools and sections of the choreography are less eective since the movement is
built around the limitation of a single beam of light. Take away the strobes
and you are left with a dancer running and jumping through the space for no
apparent reason. This piece was choreographed with the lighting in mind; the
lighting, by Howell Binkley, based on a concept by David Parsons, was devel-
oped alongside the choreography.
I have been talking about light in a combination of both artistic and prac-
tical concepts. I have left visibility toward the end because I often nd that the
discussion of lighting stops at that point. One of the things I dislike hearing
during a lighting session is “I can’t see their faces.” To be clear, if the choreog-
rapher talked about needing to see faces from the beginning then that is what
will happen. My problem is with the artistic sta member that waited until all
the work was done to announce they couldn’t see faces. My personal aesthetic
45
DANCE AND LIGHT
in dance lighting is to virtually ignore front light and add it in at the end of
writing a cue. Then I can create the space for the dance that I am looking for
and add a bit of front light on top of it. If you start with the fronts your bal-
ance will inevitably be o. Likewise if you start throwing front light into
a completed design you will upset the balance. I am much more receptive to
this sort of comment if it is accompanied by the quality of connection that is
missing for the person as opposed to simply “faces.”
I do understand the need for the audience to see and to understand
the work, but I do not always think that connection involves faces. I was
fortunate enough to be part of the City Center house crew when Paul
Taylor premiered a work called Last Look. The dance had a number of
three-sided mirrored columns around the stage and when the rst set of
low angle side lights was brought up their beams were split and reected
out through a portion of the house. Soon the question was asked whether
Jennifer Tipton, the lighting designer, and Mr. Taylor were comfortable
with that. A discussion ensued and the piece opened that way. I do not
remember if it was the very next day but soon another discussion hap-
pened and the result was that a second set of light cues was created to
minimize the impact of the reected beams into the house. There had
been complaints from some audience members about not being able to
see with the light in their eyes. It is my understanding that the rst set of
light cues were not used again.
Personally, I was not bothered by the light hitting my face, in fact I felt
drawn further into the world that was being played out on stage. I also
know that, when it comes to light, I am not the usual audience member.
I was not part of the discussion about the changes so I can only speculate
about the reasons, but in retrospect I can imagine a few of them. There was
no way to democratize the viewing experience, only a limited number of
people would experience the glare. The work itself was hard to watch
because of its subject matter and aggressive choreography, and perhaps it
was not deemed wise to make it any harder to watch. Most importantly
would be the issue of visibility for the audience members. How much could
they actually see with the light bouncing o the set’s mirrors and into their
faces. I do consider myself to have been fortunate enough to have seen the
piece both ways and, while I have a distinct preference for the rst set of
cues, I understand the desire to change the look of the piece.
Dance and light are a remarkable partnership and the best combinations of
choreographers and designers create incredible artistic experiences. It is
important to not lose sight of the needs of the dancers, the other members of
this partnership, as you are working. It doesn’t matter how incredible it looks
if the dancers can’t perform in it or if the audience cannot tell what is going
on. As we design we need to remember we are not just in it for ourselves. Nor
are we the stars of the event. We can shine but only so long as in shining we
are supporting all of the other parties involved.
46
5
D A N CE A N D SP ACE
Dancers are spatial creatures. With very rare exceptions, they occupy as
much of it as possible and if they choose not to move it is invariably
a decision that is about being static within a given space. So not moving
does not mean they are not using the space.
Space serves as a boundary or a denition but is, in the hands of the
most creative, not a limitation. I know a choreographer/dancer who broke
her leg, a very bad break, and was conned by a cast and unable to move
without crutches. Her space had been severely limited and so she embraced
it and created a piece that was all built around, on, and in a chair. Space as
a denition, not a limitation.
If we are designing light in partnership with a choreographer, and I do
believe all really good design must be done in partnership, then we must
understand how the choreographer or dancer is engaging their space. What
is the actual shape of the space or what space should the observer perceive?
Does the impression of the space change as the piece moves forward? Do
we need to see all of it all the time or do we want to discover parts as we
go? How do we want to look at this space? Do we want to consider this as
a horizontal plane or are we also interested in overall volume, the height of
the space?
I was once asked to light a production of Appalachian Spring for the Jorey
Ballet. This was a new piece for the company and it was at a dicult time
in the Graham legacy. I had seen a number of Graham concerts, had in fact
met Martha Graham at a reception, and so I felt pretty condent going into
the process. During the pre-production phase there was a lot of talk about
“getting it right,” and Jerry Arpino went on at length about the shade of
blue for the cyclorama. I spoke with the repetitour for the piece and also
with the artistic representative for the work, as this was after Ms. Graham
had died. I went into the theatre and worked for a while on my own; the
dancers came in for spacing, and we had a dress rehearsal. While it looked
good it didn’t feel right.
At that point I was oered the opportunity to see the original light plot
from the premiere. While I knew that the equipment changes alone would
47
DANCE AND SPACE
not allow me to duplicate the design I was being oered, I jumped at the
chance to see an original Jean Rosenthal plot and study it overnight. It was
not at all what I was expecting. To begin with it was a cyanotype print, in
other words white lines on a deep blue background. None of the graphic
standards that I had become accustomed to were present in the drawing and
the symbols were ones I was used to seeing in section drawings. There was
a note indicating that all instruments were to be lamped at 500 watts which
was signicantly dimmer than our instruments. But the systems of lights
were familiar and didn’t show any remarkable dierence from what we were
already doing, with the exception of available intensities and beam qualities.
The thing that really struck me was the fact that the trim height for the elec-
trics was 14 feet. We were trimmed at twice that height and I felt that the
issue I had been ghting was one of scale – not color.
The next day when we met to work on the lighting for the 30 minutes
I had managed to carve out of the day, I asked that we look at the cues in
front of a black backdrop. Everything fell into place. It had originally been
performed in front of a cyc and while we had done a good job of getting
that to look nice we all agreed the black curtain t the scale of the piece
better. While the work does express the idea of wilderness and expansiveness
the majority of the choreographic gestures related to that aspect of the piece
are directed toward the audience or perhaps toward the wings. Nothing is
about looking up at expansiveness. It is about looking out. When the delicate
Noguchi set was backed by a cyc that shot 30 visible feet into the air, the set
felt insignicant in the wrong way. With the black curtain behind it we
came back down to human scale where the strong independent Frontier
Woman commanded the space as opposed to being diminished within it.
If I had been more in tune with the nature of the choreographic space
I might have reached this solution without Ms. Rosenthal’s light plot, as it
was I felt like I had her sitting behind me softly saying “See, bigger isn’t
always better.”
A good place to start is to gure out what space means in the piece you are
lighting. If the answer is not obvious from the movement, ask the question.
Use your own imagination to consider how to help manipulate the space in
a way that elevates the choreography. Consider space in terms of dimension,
volume, and area. Is this a story telling space? Is it a performance space? Is it
a ritualistic space? Does the space need to be transformed in some way to
allow the piece to occur or does it transform during the piece? As with all
lighting design the most important step is to watch and to be open to what the
movement tells you about the place in which it is occurring.
In dance we are both fortunate and at times challenged by the fact that
generally we work without scenery. If a dance work has scenery it is most
generally three-dimensional elements in the space that take up little room or
it is in the form of backdrops and legs. The set designer is, after all, creating
a place where movement can be featured. If there are platforms or levels
48
DANCE AND SPACE
they are either very limited or broad enough to accommodate a group of

dancers. So, unlike working on a play, we usually have very little help from
scenery in understanding how to control the performance space.
When I teach lighting design it is mostly to theatre students. One of my
regular lectures is about the “architecture of space.” I use this term because
I feel as if the set designer usually does a very good job of dening space. As
a result it is generally pretty easy to predict how a director will move their
actors around in a given space. Doorways, stairways, landings, platforms,
ramps all dene space and movement in very predictable ways. Most dance,
and in particular most modern dance, presents the designer with a wide
open at space backed by either a black void or a white sheet on which we
can play with color and patterns.
In dance the lighting designer denes the space by virtue of what we
make visible. The most common tool is back light or top light. These angles
of light are the most obvious to the audience and dene parts of the stage as
signicant. While we generally think of side light as dancer light, a high
angle side light has a similar visual impact as back light. Depending on the
oor treatment high side light may not be as obvious to an audience
member but it is more visible on the oor than front light and low side
light.
Low side light – in this case anything that is hung from ve feet on down
the boom – is not generally regarded as light that denes the space. Its
intended target is the dancer and the expectation is that the dancer’s
shadows and the beam of light will disappear into the wings on the opposite
side of the stage. Very low side light that is carefully focused o the oor
and o the masking can oat the dancer in a void where there is no clear
sense of space.
Creative Force was another piece I designed for the Jorey Ballet. In this
piece I dealt with the issue of oating a dancer in a seeming void. The rst
entrance was to rather quiet music and it was a simple walking pattern with
no jumps. Therefore landing from a jump or for that matter maintaining bal-
ance were not issues as the only times the dancers rose up on pointe they were
on two feet in second position, a very stable posture. Along this opening diag-
onal the dancers were constantly turning to face the audience and then to face
the background. In this case it was a cyc with a black scrim in front of it. Con-
cerned about safety issues I did introduce a very low intensity back light in
dark blue. It was something that the audience did not perceive because it was
seen in sharp contrast to a well-lit dancer. I thought the spotting light at the
back of the house solved the issue of knowing front from back.
During the rst run in lights the rehearsal came to a screeching halt. It
wasn’t that the dancers felt unsafe or that they were facing the wrong way.
They realized, when they were within eight feet of the scrim, that they had
no idea where it was. Having had it drilled into them that they should not
dance into the scrim, they simply stopped dancing. The problem was solved
49
DANCE AND SPACE
by putting big white landing marks on the oor in the fourth wing where
the audience could not see them and by adding a pair of lights that were
focused into the scrim in such a way that the audience didn’t notice them
but the dancers could clearly see the scrim.
Creative Force presented an unusual challenge in terms of understanding
how it dealt with space. It was one of those wide-open space pieces, and
I found out when I met with Laura Dean, the choreographer and an old
friend, that she would not be at the premiere of the piece. I had to design
this without her in the room, something I had not yet done in my career.
This was where our friendship came into play. She told me she trusted me
based on the other work we had done together and that she was looking
forward to seeing the piece after it was established in the rep.
She had a few general admonitions, the main one being that since all the
dancers were to be costumed in red silk garments, that even though she
knew I had to use red light to keep the costumes alive, it could not look like
we had all gone to hell. Then I learned that even though she was ready to
show me the piece it was not yet nished. This brought us then to
a conversation of how the piece would end. She had three possible endings
and we talked them through. I remember the conversation moved into what
her sense of the overall piece was at that time and what she hoped the audi-
ence would take from it.
As a choreographer Laura is less concerned with story and more so with
the idea of journey. The piece was much more about pattern and shape and
space, so it wasn’t as simple a conversation as you might imagine. Each pos-
sible ending would work with what she had established up to that point.
I can’t remember if she took my recommendation but it didn’t matter
because we had talked about why and how each one of her options would
play into the overall eect of the piece. This meant that I was able to con-
sider an approach to the entire piece even though I did not know the spe-
cic ending. I saw the nal version after Laura had left and she and I had
one more brief conversation by phone before I was on my own for tech.
There were plenty of people at the tech table who wanted to oer their
opinions but by and large I stuck to my guns. They had not been part of
the conversations with the choreographer and, I had come to learn, they
were not condent in the piece. They felt I was making some things too
dark and they didn’t like the no-color back light, among other objections.
Once it premiered, it was a dierent story. One of the ballet masters went
so far as to ask me how I had done it. “Done what?” I asked. “Saved the
piece,” was the response. I had saved nothing, the dynamic work was there,
all I had done was to help dene the space in the same way the choreog-
rapher was engaging it: contracting and expanding, shifting between diag-
onal, lateral, and advancing dynamics. I had come to understand the
partnership with space this choreographer wanted and had created a design
that brought the audience into the conversation.
50
DANCE AND SPACE
This could be because we had worked together before, or it could have

been because I saw the same thing in the rehearsal room that she did, par-
ticularly after we had talked about the piece. Maybe it was instinct. But how
I got there was much less important than the recognition of the critical
nature of space in the work. That drove the design and brought the clarity
to the piece that the ballet master didn’t think was there.
Are you always going to help shape a dance piece like that? No, not always,
but you should never simply assume that the audience and the choreographer
want to see all the space all the time. Have there been dances where I felt that
was the right approach? Certainly. Those are usually the works that I watch in
a rehearsal room and walk away wondering if I shouldn’t just turn on the work
lights and let it rip. And there have been a few other kinds of works, ones where
I felt I could be imposing an aesthetic on the work that maybe did not belong
there, that I needed to tread lightly. But it is always essential that you get to
know what relationship the dance has to the space and then make sure that is
something you are ready to accomplish in your plot.
The lecture on Tom Skelton’s legacy which I gave at the LDI presenta-
tion was not the rst time I had turned to his archives looking for informa-
tion. I listened to hours of interviews on several other occasions and spent
countless more going through his papers. While I considered us friends,
I had never spent the time asking him the sort of questions he was answering
in these les. I found that he too thought space was a critical issue in looking
at dance. He went further, though, suggesting that the way dancers used
space was directly responsible for the early breakthroughs in Jean
Rosenthal’s rst dance plots. At LDI I also heard Judith Daitsman speak
about this as she talked about Jean Rosenthal and her early contributions to
the eld of lighting dance.
In a nutshell, during the late 1930s and into the 1940s lighting was prin-
cipally from in front of or directly behind the proscenium arch. House light-
ing positions were frequently limited to a balcony rail position and, on
occasion, a small ceiling slot – although they were very rare. In addition,
standard lighting positions included footlights, torm pipes just behind and to
the side of the proscenium arch, and in very large theatres a bridge hanging
just behind the main drape. I often refer to this as opera house lighting. It
was perfectly ne for operas where the need for clear communication
between the maestro in the pit and the acoustics of the hall caused most of
the performers to gravitate to the down stage 1/3 of the stage. The rest of
the space was lled with scenery which could be seen perfectly ne with
overhead washes of light from strips since most of the detail was painted.
When dancers took to the stage they wanted more space. They needed the
depth for the choreography, and the long diagonal from one side up stage to
the opposite side down stage gave them the room for explosive leaps and com-
plicated turn sequences. This meant they were performing further up stage and
the opera house lighting was no longer adequate. Jean Rosenthal’s radical
51
DANCE AND SPACE
solution for this was to put lights in the wings to create visibility, dene the dan-
cer’s gure, and lift them in the space. This is widely considered to be the birth
of dance lighting technique. In Jean’s wonderful book The Magic of Light she
remarks on the modesty that caused Stanley McCandless to name his text on
stage lighting A Method of Lighting the Stage instead of “The” method. I suspect
a similar modesty would preclude Ms. Rosenthal from claiming to have devel-
oped the technique for lighting dance. Despite that, in my opinion there can be
no doubt that she established the formative approach to lighting dance.
Tom’s start in dance lighting was in a class that Jean taught at the Ameri-
can Dance Festival so it seems natural that he would look at the way dan-
cers use space to determine how best to light them. In one of the taped
interviews I listened to I heard Tom speak of sneaking into the theatre after
hours and listening to Jean discuss the needs of a new piece and how the
instruments might be rearranged to meet those needs. As I listened to his
description I really wished there had been a tape recorder available to pre-
serve Jean’s conversations. Too many lighting designers have been taught
the approaches that came out of those conversations without understanding
the ideas behind them. The result is that there is not enough discovery and
exploration in the creation of new lighting designs.
This understanding of how the choreographer uses space was what was
behind Tom Skelton’s concept of dance areas as opposed to acting areas,
and was the genesis of a very basic 15-instrument light plot he published in
Dance Magazine based on his “12 areas of dance.” He dened them as
a combination of planes, paths, diagonals, areas, and washes:
• Planes represented the lateral space created by the imposition of masking

legs in a space that then created logical crossing patterns for dancers. In
his early descriptions there were three of these planes.
• Paths were up-stage to down-stage spaces that were created by advancing
and retreating movement; again there were three of these.
• Washes came from grouping the planes or the paths together to create
side washes and a front wash. To this early list we almost always add
back washes as well to support the paths.
• The diagonals were what they sound like, space that was dened by
entering from one corner and exiting through the diagonally opposite
corner of the stage.
• Areas recognized that sometimes dancers enter the space and remain in
a geographically signicant spot for a signicant period of time. The prin-
ciple area of this type would be center stage, illuminated in a pool of light.
Figure 5.1 shows those areas applied to a theatre space to help you under-
stand how they can drive a plot.
While I will spend more time on angles of light and on dance light plots
in other sections there are a couple of quick observations I want to make at
52
DANCE AND SPACE
SR Path Center Path SL Path
US Plane
Center Pool CS Plane
DS Plane
DSR to USL Diag. DSL to USR Diag.
Figure 5.1 Tom Skelton’s Dance Lighting Areas
this point. If you look at each of these areas as the shape of a beam of light
it seems to dictate a couple of things that you nd in most dance plots.
It would take hanging lights in the wings to create the planes as dened
in Figure 5.1. The paths are best accomplished through a combination of
front and back light that is aligned along the axis of each pathway. The pool
seems very obviously to be a down light. Looking at this simple spatial
breakdown leads us logically to some of the most basic instrument place-
ments that are common to dance lighting.
Another observation I would make is that the rule of thirds (paths and
planes) is much more of a choreographic reality. Most dance companies
work in larger spaces with four or ve entrances to the stage and as a result
that many more planes. Some designers like to work with ve paths as well.
When I was originally presented with the idea of lighting areas for dance
I resisted the concept. My introduction to dance lighting started in a lighting
design class while I was in high school at the North Carolina School of the
Arts. My teacher, Ward Resur, presented dance lighting in terms of angles
and washes and never discussed areas. Instead he paid attention to the axis
of the movement, movement patterns on the oor, and complementing the
line of the dancer. As you can see from the Skelton areas, the two ideas are
not mutually exclusive. So, why areas of light for dance?
I believe, in part, that Tom was trying to demystify dance lighting for
theatre designers and technicians. He once advised dancers to nd a good
53
DANCE AND SPACE
lighting technician who had an appreciation for dance as a way to get good
lighting. Just as Stanley McCandless had done in his text A Method of Lighting
the Stage where the goal was to present a formula for success, Tom was pre-
senting a short cut to a design. For someone who had been trained to think
of managing space in terms of acting areas as a way to logically subdivide
large parts of the stage, dance areas made sense. What I eventually came to
understand is that this was a very simple way of helping the beginner to
look at space.
In my two earlier examples I represented two extremes in the conversa-
tion about space. Appalachian Spring was about pioneers and exploration and
expansion of the west. It was about new frontiers but, more importantly, it
was about the individuals and their internal monologues. When the visual
world around them dwarfed the individual then their own strength was
diminished. The large expanse of blue behind them invited our eyes to
travel away from the intimacy of the individual in exploration of a new land
and of themselves in new relationships to the land and to each other. There
were two conicting notions of space that were trying to nd a way to be
compatible: The vast space of the plains and the intimate space of a new
relationship and a new beginning. It was my job to nd the right denition
of space to help the audience connect with the movement on stage.
Martha Graham worked from a very strong physical center. The image
that most people associate with her is that of the contraction, a whole body
gesture that is initiated in the abdomen with a strong gripping of the core
muscles by contracting and pulling them inward. This impulse then reects
itself in the rest of the body as it is held in a resonance to the contraction or
as it gives in to the totality of the contraction and folds in as part of the
movement. The way in which that central gesture is echoed in the body
becomes the basis of deeply personal and, at some level, emotional choreo-
graphic moments. If the audience is distracted, looking somewhere else, the
power of this moment is reduced to a shape the body makes as opposed to
an impulse deeply felt.
In Creative Force, the piece was very much about the relationship of the
dancer to the physical space in which they were performing. It was not about
personal space rather it was about ritual space. The choreography repeated
patterns that spoke to this relationship as dancers followed each other on spe-
cic pathways through the stage space. The awareness of the dimension of
this space was explored gradually beginning with very deliberate diagonal
stair-stepped paths through the space. After the two diagonals, the horizontal
space was introduced by a path the dancers took directly in front of the cyclo-
rama across the top of the last wing and nally the full depth of the space was
celebrated as all the dancers rushed the apron in a single line that swept from
up stage to down in a heartbeat. This choreographic gesture was reected in
a strong swell in the music as if to say the dancers, having dened their bound-
aries, were now laying claim to the entire space.
54
DANCE AND SPACE
Creative Force was very much a piece about the space around and outside
of the dancer. It was about the lines or pathways in space that could be cre-
ated as they followed and led one another through it. My job was not to
limit that space but to explore it and its directionality, in partnership with
the dancers. Creative Force was a high energy piece that began with
a deliberate and gradual entrance to the space that stood in stark contrast to
the rest of the piece. The choreography then built to an almost ritualistic
ending that crashed into the center of the space and folded down to the
oor as the dancers disappeared into the void without leaving the stage. In
between there was energetic dance that explored the range of movement of
the human form from languid to explosive, and a celebration of the joy of
movement as a form of expression.
In retrospect I realized that I used all of Skelton’s ideas about areas in
this piece. The dancers moved up and down stage in the paths, crossed the
space in the planes, dened the space by its diagonals, and returned to the
center several times before ending there. I did not, however, light it with
areas in mind. That may be the evolution in this theory about lighting
dance that has happened across the years. The Skelton areas are a good
way to gain access to the ideas of the choreography but they are not neces-
sarily the best way to light those ideas. And while they may be fundamental
ways to consider stage space, they are certainly not the only ones. Each
choreographer engages space in a dierent way. It is up to us as designers to
learn how they are looking at the space, how they are engaging it, and to
gure out how we can both partner with them in this process and help the
audience see what the choreographer sees.
I believe the best approach to this process is to rst watch the piece.
I have evolved in this stance. I used to feel it was important to talk with
the choreographer about where the work came from, what ideas or con-
cepts drove it rst, and then to watch it. While I still consider this to be
a valuable conversation I now think that if you can watch a piece rst
you bring an audience’s eye into the conversation with you. Do you see
what the choreographer is talking about? If you do then your work is
easy. If you do not then you now have the added responsibility of
pointing these ideas out to the audience. If you have the conversation rst
then you are looking for those moments and so they are much more
likely to be apparent.
This is not about “xing” the choreography, it is about sharing choreo-
graphic vision with the audience. In order to do this your job is making sure
you understand the choreographer’s intent and that you use that to guide
the work you do as a designer. If you are imposing too much of your own
aesthetic onto a piece you are usurping the choreographer’s role. By the
same token if a choreographer starts telling you where to place the lights as
you design the piece they are usurping your role.
55
DANCE AND SPACE
The key, and I say this all the time, is the partnership. This implies trust
and mutual respect. It relies on a mutual understanding of an artistic goal.
When trust is established the conversations surrounding a new creation are
very short; a few key visual references, pointing out a critical moment that
was conceived choreographically with a certain “look” in mind. It is one of
the reasons why choreographers and artistic directors tend to latch onto
a particular designer and bring them back over and over again.
So how do you go about learning to look at space the way a dancer or
a choreographer does? There are no secret recipes to this one. You do it by
watching as much dance as you can. Do not limit yourself to a single genre
or style or choreographer. Do look for similar choices when you happen to
see two works by the same person. Try to understand how dierent genres
of dance use the stage space.
Look at how the choreographer chooses to have the dancers enter into
the space. Are there particular entrance patterns that reoccur? How do they
attack the space – do they favor diagonals? Horizontal planes? From down
stage left? Center right? All the way up stage? Once they have made it into
the view of the audience how do they move through the space? When there
is a group of dancers are they close together or do they spread themselves
over the whole stage? If it is a solo do they hold to a tight area or explore
all the corners?
The question here is, once again, about how much you need to know.
The answer will be dierent for each designer but the more you see, the
more you compare and analyze, the greater your understanding of dance
and the easier it becomes to look at the space like a choreographer. Then
you can become a real partner.
There are some general rules that have been shared with me over the
years. I hesitate to oer them because, to use a very old joke, generalizations
are generally wrong. So please take these with a grain of salt.
• Most choreographers favor entrances from the corners. Where the dan-
cers go from there is not as predictable. The next most popular point
onto the stage is mid-stage left or right. So while the space is often set
up with four or ve entrances per side of the stage, two or three of
them handle the majority of the trac.
• Modern, or contemporary, dance uses the diagonals through the space
with greater frequency than ballet. It is a very dynamic and forceful
way into the space. It embraces the angularity of locomotion and shows
the dancers body in a less presentational manner, particularly when
moving from down stage to up stage along the diagonal.
• Center stage and down stage center are the two strongest positions on
the stage for a soloist, or for that matter a pas de deux. Many ballet com-
panies use lighting that is often referred to as the “star turn” light. This
is quite literally light that has been focused into a particular area
56
DANCE AND SPACE
(generally along the center line), that is for the turns that invariably are
part of a classical variation.
• Interestingly enough, the longest line or path on a stage is not
a diagonal, rather it is a circle. When a dancer, typically a male dancer,
wants to show o a series of leaps, turns, or leaping turns, they will
travel around the stage instead of across or through. This more than
doubles the amount of distance they can cover on a diagonal and more
than triples a simple cross stage path.
• When lighting a story ballet, generally three acts and featuring a large
corps de ballet as well as many supernumeraries, you need to think of
the stage as a stage within a stage. Signicant amounts of choreography
will take place from just outside the quarter mark to a corresponding
place on the other side. The extras will occupy the space along the
edges of the stage and will frequently block any sidelight hung lower
than six feet o the ground.
I think I will stop oering “general rules” at this point.

One of the earliest jobs any new lighting designer has to do to prepare is
to understand how the company you are working with uses space. This
information will come from rehearsals you attend, videos of previous per-
formances, and even from old light plots. In her book The Magic of Light Jean
Rosenthal suggests that you should watch at least eight ballets from
a company before you determined their needs for a repertory light plot.
Many established companies will already have a rep plot, although they will
frequently let that go for full-length works. The rep plot will tell you not
only where they are used to having light located, but also what they are
used to seeing on their dancers. Don’t worry too much about color, particu-
larly anything below ten feet from the ground, as that changes between indi-
vidual pieces. Look at angles.
Is there a great deal of equipment in the front of house positions over the
audience? This is a company that is very interested in seeing the dancers’
faces and expressions. Is there a great deal of back light, with either color
changers, or several circuits of color? This is a company that cares what the
oor looks likes and uses it to create mood and atmosphere. Are there more
than one or two lights hung below six feet? This is a company that likes to
visually separate the dancer from their surroundings. The clues are all there
if you take the time to look for them.
But the best way to learn about a new company or choreographer is to
watch as much of their work as you can. After that spend as much time talk-
ing with people outside the rehearsal process as possible. Time in the
rehearsal room is too valuable for chatting. There are many people on
salary and the conversation you are having only involves two or three of
them but it probably prevents the others from doing their work. It is import-
ant to have the conversation, just make sure you are having it at the right
57
DANCE AND SPACE
time. Talk about the pieces you watched. Ask about dancing in them and
how they compare to other works by that choreographer. Find out how they
t into the overall repertory of the company. If it is not a work by the artis-
tic director or resident choreographer nd out why the company added the
work to their repertory. Figuring out how it ts into the overall scheme of
things will help you understand how to t it into the light plot.
I do not want all of this to imply that every company engages space in
one manner. That is completely wrong. I do think that understanding how
a choreographer – and by extension a company – think about space is
a way into their aesthetic. Ultimately, I feel as if choreography is made up
of two main components, space and movement. One denes the area in
which the piece occurs and the other denes how that area is engaged. It is
for this reason that most lighting designers are taught to carefully look at the
patterns of movement on a ground plan when they are learning a new piece
of choreography. In fact, one approach is to work with a set of miniature
ground plans laid out on a sheet of paper and sketch the patterns while you
watch (I refer to these as “tracking sheets” and Figure 5.2 is an example of
my tracking for two moments in Creative Force).
Using lines with arrow heads to indicate direction, you chart the
entrances and exits together with the pattern the dancer follows between
those two points. I will get into more specics when I cover ways to learn
a new piece of choreography, but it is one of the ways we can try to under-
stand how a particular choreographer uses space within a particular piece.
While some patterns may emerge across many works by a single choreog-
rapher, it is much better to look at each work as a singular entity.
Space is always part of the choreographer’s tool box, and it impacts how
they think about their art form as well. During a lecture-demonstration in
Indonesia, Alwin Nikolais was asked to dene dance. He talked around the
topic for a bit and nally said that while he disliked formal denitions in his
mind dance “represented an intentional way of moving through space.”
Figure 5.2 Examples from a Tracking Sheet for Creative Force
58
DANCE AND SPACE
A member of the audience, himself an experimental choreographer, raised his

hand and wondered aloud if by that denition the set of dusty footprints that
wandered across the stage might also be dance as they “represented” move-
ment through the space. Ultimately the denition was rened to include the
person as a component of dance.
I have long remembered this denition, even though Nik didn’t always
answer that question in the same way and eventually a more complete den-
ition replaced it. The response from the young Indonesian artist caused me
to think a good deal about my own response to space and the choreography
that moved through it. I realized I needed to be careful that I was not the
set of dusty footprints, announcing the path of movement without the dan-
cer’s involvement. I think that my aversion to leading the dancer in the
space as opposed to arriving with the dancer was inuenced by that discus-
sion. I do think that a good lighting designer needs to not only understand
the movement but also the intention behind the way the dancer moves
through the space before they can begin to design. If we do not then we run
the risk of reshaping the choreographer’s intent. That will ultimately change
the way the piece is perceived and then we are no longer partnering, we are
instead usurping.
59
6
T A L K I N G W I TH THE
C H O R EOG R AP HER
When we work on a play we can go into the rst meeting with a director
with some sort of common language. The language of the play. Even when
a director is reconceiving the setting or the circumstances of a play there is
still the text the playwright created. By contrast, if we are working on a new
piece of choreography we do not have the script, often we do not have the
music, and just as frequently we are working with a new approach to move-
ment. I have heard it described as something akin to writing a new play
while inventing the language in which the actors are going to speak their
lines. I would add to that that you are also teaching the actors the new lan-
guage. It is no small task. To the uninitiated it may seem like something
anyone can do; the reality is much more complicated.
In an earlier chapter I wrote about working with a new choreographer
and telling him how impressed I was with the change he had brought to the
company and the way the dancers moved. I was even more impressed when
he described the process of creating the new work because it involved time
working in class, teaching a new idea of how to use the body, and how to
engage the space. Then those ideas were brought into the development of
the choreography. This was repeated each day for two weeks to get to the
point where the dancers were “speaking a new language.” The change in
their approach to the movement was so dramatic that I had been able to see
the shift in vocabulary in the rst few moments of the choreography. The
dancers had come to own this new work in a way that led me to believe it
would be performed quite often. This is not always the case; sometimes
a piece doesn’t t a new company and may only get a couple of perform-
ances – in those cases I believe not enough attention was paid to the
demands of the new language.
When I rst interviewed with Gerald Arpino to discuss the lighting dir-
ector position for the Jorey Ballet, I had an unexpected conversation.
Noting that I had worked with The Nikolais Dance Theatre he asked me
which Nikolais piece he should get for his company. I was surprised, but
I took him seriously and I started to think through some of the shorter
works I knew from my time in the company. Then I thought about the
60
TALKING WITH THE CHOREOGRAPHER
technical requirements – which ruled out some of the options; nally

I considered how a ballet trained dancer would engage the movement.
I wanted to try and nd a piece that I thought would look good on the dan-
cers. I had not yet begun to work for the company but I knew their recent
history and I had seen them perform and was aware of the active repertory.
I was trying to overcome a movement based “language barrier” in order to
come up with a piece that the Nikolais/Louis Foundation would license to
a ballet company and one the Jorey would want to perform.
I never knew if this was a careful ruse on Mr. Arpino’s part to nd out
how much I knew about dance or if he gured I wouldn’t have made it to
his oce without being good enough at my craft to take care of his com-
pany and so he decided to have a more general conversation instead of
a formal interview. I do know that within a few years the Jorey Ballet was
performing Alwin Nikolais’s Tensile Involvement and doing a very good job
with it. I also realized that I would never have been able to answer that
question appropriately if I had not had experience working with a wide
range of companies. In order to answer I had to know how ballet dancers
trained, what sorts of backgrounds created the type of dancers the Jorey
hired, and how Nik’s movement t on dierent types of dancers. I needed to
know his vocabulary and how far the dancers could be expected to reach
into the movement. I also had to gure out if what they could do would be
good enough to make the piece look good on this company. It was almost
a bilingual consideration with the languages being classical ballet and Nik’s
particular modern dance choreography, and I had to understand both to be
able to make the right suggestion.
Ultimately there are as many dierent approaches to movement as there
are choreographers. Even within the highly structured world of ballet there
are artistic interpretations that cause each choreographer to “speak” their
movement a bit dierently. It takes a lot of work to become uent in all the
permutations of dance, a uency that allows us to fully understand the inten-
tions of each and every choreographer. Most dancers do not try to become
uent in all types of movement but most good dancers are at the very least
“conversant” in most major dance languages. The more they learn, the
more they are able to do, and the more exible they become artistically. To
be clear, I am speaking metaphorically here. In describing the ability to
speak a language of dance I am specically meaning the ability to move cor-
rectly in a particular dance technique. The other way to consider the idea of
speaking a style of dance refers to learning the names of steps, movement,
and phrases in order to be able to communicate eciently about a piece of
choreography.
While the lighting designer does not necessarily have to be uent in
either meaning of speaking the language of the dance piece they are lighting,
it helps to learn a few key words or phrases in order to be able to talk about
the works. Just as a tourist traveling to a foreign country buys a phrase book
61
to elevate their experience and allow themselves to be a bit more adventure-

some, so too a designer should familiarize themselves with some key terms.
In the case of dance it is less about being able to “speak” the movement as
it is about being able to describe or identify the movement. In classical
ballet the majority of the steps have generally accepted names. They may
not always be performed exactly the same but they usually look enough
alike that they can be called the same thing. In modern dance the move-
ment frequently resists, or avoids, specic repeated types of movement that
can come from other disciplines. Within a given school of modern dance the
movement may look similar and key bits of physical expression will become
codied and named, but often a new choreographer sets out to nd their
own form of expression. In these cases there may be some carry-over in ter-
minology but the idea is that much of the movement vocabulary will be new
and therefore the names must be as well.
In these situations you will often nd that the choreographer or the
dancers have come up with a name for the movement that means some-
thing to them but not very much to anyone outside of the process. These
names are useful. We call things by name as a way to make sure we are
all on the same page, thinking about the same moment in time. If I am
not sure what a step or movement is called I do not hesitate to come up
with my own names when I am rst watching a new piece of choreog-
raphy. I nd that it is often the way to tease out the terminology the
dancers and the choreographer have begun to use, but on a couple of
occasions I have been surprised when they decided to adopt my
language.
Until you can get to the names of steps or sections it is important to be
able to clearly describe what you are seeing. If you need to ask questions
about specic points in the dance you need to be clear what is happening in
that specic moment. Even if you have never taken a dance class or heard
anyone mention the names of specic steps in a dance technique you should
be able to describe what you have seen. I admit this is a learned skill and
relies on your ability to see small dierences in how people move through
space and on your ability to paint word pictures that describe a moment in
a dance and the action happening at that time.
I think that a very good exercise for developing this skill is to watch and
then discuss dance pieces with a dancer. It does not have to be pieces they
have choreographed or even necessarily danced in. The process of describing
a specic moment, based on a description of the movement being executed
at that point, will help you to develop the vocabulary you need to start.
Eventually the terms will come, but basic movement patterns do not always
need specic names for you to describe them. Take turns for example. You
might see something and describe it as “That time when the dancer was
turning and moving forward.” Your description has brought to mind an
image that they can respond to.
62
They might not be sure and ask if you can describe the turns any better;
they may ask if the dancer was turning on two feet or on one foot; or they
may ask if they were being partnered. If they think you know some termin-
ology your friend may answer by saying, “Right, the chaînés.” You are ne if
in fact it was the chaînés, but what if you saw fouettés and they were supposed
to be in one spot and the dancer just sort of drifted. At this point you would
be discussing two completely dierent points in the dance. The exercise
requires patience from your dance trained friend and persistence from you.
In the above example you could say yes and continue talking about those
turns for a while before saying something that would clue your partner into
the fact that you were thinking about two dierent points in the piece.
Try to give detailed descriptions and see if you can add other details.
Chaînés are turns that are executed on two feet, fouettés are turns that are on
one foot but drop one leg down to whip the body through the next turn.
Fouettés have a characteristic up and down motion to them as the dancer
goes up on pointe and back down between each turn while chaînés stay at
the same height. Chaînés are designed to travel while fouettés are supposed to
stay in one spot. If you aren’t sure enough to give more detail about the
turns, try adding something about the music – who else was on stage, where
did the movement start, and where did it end on the stage? These clues
would all help to get you to the same point in the dance.
This exercise will help you learn a good deal about dance but more
importantly it will help you to improve your vocabulary and your ability to
fully describe movement. Ultimately, the goal of this exercise is to be able to
clearly and succinctly describe moments in a dance. I would start with
a ballet piece because there is more terminology available to you, but
I would continue with a modern work to stretch your abilities. Being able to
know with absolute condence that you are speaking about the same point
in a piece of choreography is invaluable. Clear dance vocabulary is one tool
you have for talking with a choreographer but it should not be the only tool.
It is best used to make sure you are both discussing the same point in
a dance. To move into the design part of the discussion requires other
things. It also means nding a common vocabulary of images and ideas.
When I was a student at Carnegie Mellon University I remember being
introduced to the idea of a “visual metaphor” for a production. In the par-
ticular example I can remember from my class, the image was a piece of
food – a French pastry to be specic. I also remember making fun of this
idea. A few months later I was visiting my parents in North Carolina and
found out that Nananne Porcher, a former associate of Jean Rosenthal, was
leading a master class in dance lighting. As luck would have it I arrived too
late for the class but my parents did arrange for me to join her for afternoon
tea. I listened to stories for a while and then she asked me what questions
I had. I was a bit star struck but managed to pull it together enough to ask
what courses she would recommend an aspiring dance lighting designer
63
should take in college. She thought about this a moment and answered with
something like: Certainly an art history class, but in addition I would suggest
you take a music history class. I also think you should take a course about
the physics of light but I wouldn’t go too deep into that, and since you are
at Carnegie, a class on computers – it is where the industry is going.
This conversation took place in 1972 or 1973 and while the rst compu-
terized light board did not arrive on Broadway until A Chorus Line during the
summer of 1975, computer boards were already being used in regional the-
atre and that suggestion made sense. The idea of studying the science of
light made sense and I did want to know a bit more about music, but
I asked: Why art history? After talking a bit about the way painters use light
and the evolution of those techniques she then suggested that sometimes the
best way to get onto the same page with a choreographer was through paint-
ings. Finding a painting that communicated a clear visual idea or demon-
strated a quality of light or an atmosphere that connected visually to where
the choreographer wanted to go with a work could save hours in the design
process. This certainly made more sense to me than a piece of French
pastry, but oddly enough it also helped me understand what my design
teacher had been getting at.
Often the answer to the visual metaphor (or symbolic vision of the world)
for a piece of theatre or dance has to be found outside of the area of trad-
itional theatrical design. Paintings, architecture, lms, and even culinary arts
may bring you to a common vocabulary much faster than a specic discus-
sion of design ideas. Just as choreography and dance will be a foreign lan-
guage to many lighting designers – the way we consider angle, color,
intensity, and movement will be unfamiliar to choreographers. Rather than
expect each other to get up to speed quickly in the respective disciplines, the
answer can be to move away from those discussions into areas where there
is already a common background or vocabulary.
I was asked to design a piece by Rennie Harris for Giordano Dance Chi-
cago. Rennie is an experience choreographer with his own company but for
this particular piece he was a little vague about what he was thinking of visu-
ally. I commented on the quality of the movement and pointed out that
there seemed to be a bit of a competitive feel to it – sort of like a challenge
dance, something that you could see in tap dance from time to time. He
agreed, so I asked him if he saw this as an interior space or an exterior
space. He said neither and so we moved along. As dismissive as that reply
may have seemed it freed me from a lot of things I had been trying to deter-
mine: Was this a night club, a back alley, a gymnasium? I tried to describe
what I was thinking about in terms of color and angle and overall feel. He
stopped me and asked if I had any pictures I could show him. (This is
a strategy that I often use if I feel as if I am speaking with a choreographer
who has trouble with the abstract nature of light. I had a clear image of
light in mind and was trying to gure out if it t the piece.) I said sure and
64
emailed him a production still from the television show CSI. It was a street
scene, the kind of image where steam is ltering up through a manhole
cover, night-time under articial light, with a blue green rim light on the
actors that colored the ground as well. I got a one-word email in response:
“Great.” It saved a lot of time and we were both on the same page.
We have a tendency to fall back on words. They are easier to carry
around and faster to access than an image search on a slow WiFi connec-
tion; but they are limited. Not even something as simple as the word “dark”
will mean the exact same thing to everyone. I learned this the rst time
I worked with Venezuelan-born choreographer Vicente Nebrada in Caracas.
He was mounting a production of Firebird in a new theatre that was not
even fully open. We talked through the whole piece and what he was look-
ing for, and I went to work writing cues while he rehearsed the company.
We came back together for tech and as the opening of the piece progressed
he got increasingly uncomfortable. Finally he stopped the rehearsal and said
“What are you doing? You are ruining my ballet.” We took a moment
and I asked him to explain. It turned out that when he said he wanted to
see the “reies” and then he wanted to see the “monsters” and then he
wanted to see the “magicians” that he literally wanted all other light on
stage turned o. I had created a very “theatrical” darkness where nothing
was distinguishable but you were aware of the whole space.
We worked on the rst cue for a few minutes; when we were done there
were two instruments on – everything else was out. In the next cue those
two lights went out, for the following cue three or four others came on.
I asked if he could give me a half an hour on my own; he agreed and took
the dancers o to work on some costume notes. When they all came back
we ran the piece; he looked at me and said it all looked very good and we
were done. To me “dark” never means blackout. I also tend to try to avoid
full blackouts during a piece because I do not want to interrupt the ow of
the choreography. Blackouts signify the end of a work to me and I like to
save them for that. Vicente on the other hand wanted a very literal “dark”
and once I understood that, everything went smoothly.
Generally speaking the “language barrier” we face working with
a choreographer for the rst time is nowhere as dramatic as that. In fact
a good deal of the conversation can and should stay away from the spe-
cics of the steps and the entrances and exits of the dancers. Over time
I have settled on some questions that I like to use that generally lead me
into the sort of conversation I like to have before I design a dance piece.
Sometimes this conversation happens after I see the piece but, if I can,
I prefer to watch rst and talk next. This order of things is always dic-
tated by the rehearsal and when the choreographer can work with the
dancers. I learned a long time ago that the time with the dancers is at
a premium for the choreographer and time spent with me when the dan-
cers are available feels like wasted time. My ideal situation is when the
65
schedule allows me to see a run right before a dancer break, but not at
the end of the work day. This way I can see the work, talk through it
with the choreographer while the dancers take their break, and then they
can run it again for me.
I try to stay away from questions that would lead into a laundry list of
eects or cues. Sometimes choreographers have a predetermined idea of
what the piece should look like and it is never a good idea to ignore that.
On the other hand, if I cannot get them to talk in broad concepts then
I may never have the chance to bring my own artistic ability into the pro-
cess. I had the experience of working with a choreographer who was pre-
senting a short work at a shared concert of the American Dance Festival
faculty. There were between eight and ten pieces being presented and most
of them were solos. She came in with a piece of paper and reading o the
page said she needed this specic gel in back light, these other specic colors
in side light, this color of front light, and these specic specials. Clearly she
had a designer that she had discussed her piece with and this was how she
thought she would get her piece to look right.
When I asked how she wanted to use those specic colors, she was signi-
cantly less condent. She started to read out a set of cues but once again
I asked her a why sort of question: What was she hoping to accomplish with
those cues? I try not to ask “why” as it can be a confrontational question
and if it is asked at the wrong time it can shut down a conversation. It
implies that somehow you doubt the information you have been given and
they need to justify themselves. We did eventually get to talk about the piece
and what she was trying to communicate with it and I was able to under-
stand the color and angle choices that she was presenting. I explained that
in a shared plot like this I couldn’t give her all of it but now I had enough
information to be able to make sure she had the critical elements for her
piece. I am not opposed to choreographers coming in with very specic
lighting ideas. I simply nd that there are very few who would not benet
from the input of a good and collaborative lighting designer.
How you approach asking the questions that will unlock the essence of
a piece of choreography is a personal process and I would be wrong to
imply that there was a specic set of questions to ask in every situation.
I have found a few dierent ways to start that conversation and then I listen
and respond to that rst answer. One of my more reliable opening questions
is: Where did this piece come from? I will admit that there have been times
when the answer was revelatory in an entirely unexpected way. When I was
working on Miracle Interrupted for the Jorey I asked that specic question.
The response I got was long and involved, and ultimately very insightful;
however, it included discussions of extramarital relationships, unrequited
love, mental illness, and institutionalization that had happened to people in
the choreographer’s life. The answer to that one question was almost 30
minutes long and at the end of it I felt almost as if I had been in a therapy
66
session. I wondered later if it had been something the choreographer had

been hoping to share at some point and I simply gave him an opening.
While the answer itself did not provide specic information that mani-
fested itself in the lighting design, the story he shared was in the back of
my mind during the entire design process and provided a lens through
which I could check my choices as we went along. The only thing
I regretted about the conversation was that it occurred before I saw the
piece and I wish I had been able to go into it without that much back
story. In fact, it was this experience that inuenced my shift to trying to
watch the piece rst, and then talk about it. As I mentioned the timing
of this is not always in your control. Rehearsal schedules will always dic-
tate when and how these conversations happen and the proximity of the
two is even more important than the order in which they occur.
I learned this on another Jorey project, the lming of Robert Altman’s
The Company.
The nal segment of the lm is the “premiere” of Blue Snake, a work by
Robert Desrosiers. Blue Snake is an actual piece of choreography that Desro-
siers created for the National Ballet of Canada in the 1980s. It was brought
to Bob Altman by the star and co-producer of the lm Neve Campbell who
had seen it in Canada and felt it was the right thing for the lm. I was sent
a video, invited to a rehearsal, but discovered when I went that I was not
going to be able to speak with Robert until the following week. He had
returned to Canada for other rehearsals but would be available by phone.
By the time we spoke I had formed way too many preconceptions of the
work and found that the rst part of the conversation became about
unlearning all that I thought I knew about the piece. It was a very worth-
while conversation and allowed Robert to feel comfortable leaving the work
in my hands. He was not going to be on set for the majority of the lming
of his piece and so we covered what he was looking for in great detail and
then he let me do my job.
Another problem was that I had not seen a dress rehearsal and his “char-
acter names” and the names for the sections were things like “the kite sec-
tion,” “the red monkeys,” and “the white prince.” The video had the
sections in a dierent order than the rehearsal I saw and certain parts were
being performed with dierent scenery as well. A good deal of the conversa-
tion was spent simply getting us talking about the same sections of the piece.
We talked about the importance of color, as it manifested itself in the cos-
tumes and how he saw that as part of the progression of the choreography
as well. We discussed illusion, children’s literature, dreams, storytelling, and
how Bob had asked him to rework some of the choreography to support the
overall vision of the lm. Ultimately major parts of the work were discarded
and what was left was reordered. Essentially, the same movement, costumes,
and decor were being used to create a new work. That part of it was par-
ticularly freeing for me, and I believe it was the same for Robert. It meant
67
we did not need to be bound by what the piece had been, instead we could
focus on what it was going to become.
The actual “design discussion” in the conversation turned out to be very
brief. He felt my understanding of the way the choreography t the space
was good and once we got the order of the piece worked out the progression
of color in the costumes essentially chose the palette for the piece. We talked
a bit about cueing and the rhythm of transitions and internal cues but noth-
ing specic about the individual looks of each part. In other words, we got
to where we needed to be for me to create the plot and feel ready to go into
the level set; it simply took us about three times as long as it would have
had I been able to sit with him in rehearsal and then discuss the piece dir-
ectly after. In addition, the process was spread out over several weeks instead
of being accomplished in less than a day of very focused conversation.
The other thing I have to keep in mind is that when this conversation
occurs the choreographer has, in general, been living with this piece for
between four weeks and up to six months or more. I on the other hand
have experienced one run-through (two if I am lucky). It would be presump-
tuous of me to think that I know exactly what the piece needs. I need to
listen. This is perhaps the most important consideration, and any questions
you ask should be designed to leave room for the choreographer to share as
opposed to being asked to react to my ideas. To me this means, instead of
asking: What do you want the piece to look like? I think it is better to say:
What is the overall feeling or atmosphere of the work for you? Instead of:
What do you want to see? perhaps try: How would you like the dancers to
appear within the space? This does not mean that I never oer specic ideas
about specials or colors and angles during this early meeting. If, while I am
listening, I hear a desire for specics then I supply them. I have learned that
if I do not have quick visual reactions to share there can be a feeling on the
part of the choreographer that I am not interested in the work or, worse yet,
that I do not like it.
You may need to clarify or elaborate on your questions but the idea is to
avoid a question that could be answered by specic directions like: I want
strong side light and saturated reds and greens, or I want a down pool in
lavender to come up on the dancer center stage. I do not have a problem
with very specic visuals, but if the way we arrive at that idea does not
include some larger ideas of why we are doing it I am left with the task of
executing someone else’s design idea. In most cases that is not what I was
hired to do. I have been asked to bring my training and area of expertise
into the conversation of how best to present this specic choreography to an
audience in a way that feels appropriate to the original choreographic
intent. I cannot do that if all I know is “Bring up the down light.”
In the mid-1980s I was asked to take over the lighting for MOMIX. At
that time it was a four-dancer ensemble which had collectively choreo-
graphed about half of the program and for the other half was performing
68
works Moses Pendleton and Allison Chase had created for an earlier incar-
nation of the company. The dancers came and visited me in my apartment
in New York City armed with videos of the company in performance, and
by the time they left I had to admit they had done an excellent job of con-
vincing me to join them on the road. Early in the meeting I asked if there
was room to modify any of the lighting and was told I could do whatever
I thought was needed. We had further conversations about some of the
pieces and what the tour looked like in terms of venues and equipment and
I tentatively agreed to go out on the road with the company. I felt I needed
a few days to make sure the work wouldn’t conict with any other
commitments.
One piece we talked about was one of the more visually striking works,
a duet entitled Skiva. It was performed by two dancers, a man and
a woman, in black tights that went to the oor and covered their feet, which
in turn were strapped onto a pair of black skis. They were both bare-
chested. In the video I saw, a pair of down pools came on over the two dan-
cers as the piece began. They gradually rose and after a minute or two they
turned toward center. At that point the two pools went out and another,
slightly larger pool came up and the dancers proceeded to move toward the
new down pool. The dancers described the piece as a movement piece that
explored the possibilities created when their feet were anchored to such
a long base. We also discussed the progression of the piece and the coming
together of the two dancers toward the end of the piece which created
a story telling frame. They asked what I thought.
I felt that, of course, the down pools did a nice job with the opening
moments as they caught the skin of the dancers’ arms which slowly rose
from behind the barrier of their legs. Both the angle of the light and the
slight sheen of sweat on the dancers’ torsos created a striking image as they
raised up to their full height. The problem was the transition. I felt that the
introduction of the third pool seemed to be calling the dancers to their next
position and the distance between the two spots, while short, meant the dan-
cers went out of light before reentering the pool. I talked about telegraphing
the choreography and discussed using side light and maybe a touch of oor
as an added cue once the dancers were fully upright. The sidelight allowed
us to fade out the original pools without losing the dancers’ gures and the
oor light would help us see the distance they had to cover to reach one
another. This allowed the introduction of the center pool to signal both
a shift in the nature of the dance and a closing in to the nal moments.
They all said they would love to see what that looked like and when we got
to the rst theatre we tried out the new cues.
The detail in the conversation together with the reasons for the changes
and the ideas of the new cue sequence had been so clear to all of them that
the reaction to the new looks was as if this is how it had always been done.
They felt the piece had a better arc to it and the pulling in to the nal
69
moments of the work felt much more intimate because we had rst
expanded the space before contracting it into the nal fade to black. We got
there because of an openness on the part of the artists to try something new
and because we were able to discuss a visual concept in a way that made
sure they understood what I was trying to make happen and why. More
importantly we got there because we were seeking a collaborative response
to the piece and we listened to each other.
The other technique I use to help with these conversations, particularly if
I get to watch the piece rst, is to begin to create a sort of a script for the
dance piece. As I am watching I record key moments and striking bits of
choreography. This is sometimes graphical with arrows and drawings of
oor patterns and entrances. (See an example of this in Figure 5.2.) At other
times I use words and describe what I am seeing. This will eventually
become the basis for a calling script that I will work out with the stage man-
ager so that my cues happen at the right point in the dance. Initially, how-
ever, it is how I track what is going on in the dance, nd the shape of the
piece, and give myself a reference I can use in my conversation with the
choreographer. Much as we have been told that writing down information
actually helps us remember it, I nd that if I create the record I have
a clearer memory of the movement when we begin discussing it.
I make sure I record all entrances and exits, I look for shifting arrange-
ments of dancers in groups – duets, trios, solos – I pay particular attention
to moments when the music changes. These moments are frequently the
sorts of places where changes happen in the lighting. I do not generally
bother with time. I know that at some point when I hand this o to a stage
manager, timings will get added, but at this point movement is what is crit-
ical – as well as any tonal shifts in the choreography. I nd that when
I have done a good job with my tracking notes, the conversation with the
choreographer begins to pick up speed as they realize that I have a clear
understanding of the order and pace of the piece. After one of these sorts of
conversations with a choreographer I had not yet worked with, they turned
to the artistic director and said: “How did he do that, he only saw the piece
once?” My answer would be, while I may have only seen this piece once
I have been doing this a long time, with a lot of dierent pieces. The result
is that I nd I am able to catch the key choreographic moments that can
help me break apart the dance to get down to the essential parts of it.
All of these ideas come back to the same goal – closing the gap between
you and the choreographer. This is how you get to the point where trust
comes into the process. I have learned that trust does not happen until there
is respect, and that it is a two-way street. If I do not respect the choreog-
rapher’s work enough to take the time to learn and understand what they
are saying with the piece, I have no right to expect that they will respect
what I can bring to the process. If we do not respect each other then every-
thing will take a lot longer and there is a very good chance we will run out
70
of time before we get the piece to the right place. Ultimately it is very
important to remember that despite how much or how little time you have
to talk with the choreographer you must spend the majority of it listening.
This is perhaps the greatest mistake young designers make. They are so
eager to show what they know, to share what they have observed, that they
often forget to listen.
I have spent a lot of time speaking about the partnership that can exist
between light and dance and it is a critical part of what I do. What I have
not really spoken about is artistic ownership, not to be confused with intel-
lectual/artistic property rights. You will nd, if you spend enough time in
this eld, that there are choreographers/artistic directors who generously
welcome your artistic input and embrace the idea of a partnership, and
there are others who do not. Sometimes they can be the same person, even
on the same project. I have worked with some very generous people with
very big egos and I did not always know where I stood. When I left the
Nikolais Dance Theatre it was in part because I could not grow any further
in that job. Nik had been promising to let me design a piece for him for the
last year that I was there. I believe he was genuine, that he really trusted my
aesthetic, and thought he would be able to let me do it. The reality was that
every time we got close, he pulled back. There was always a sincere conver-
sation where he assured me that it would happen and that he thought
I could do this one but … I came to believe that Nik was too invested in
being the choreographer/composer/overall designer to let me have a shot.
During my time there he did allow someone else to compose for him, but he
eventually stopped using the score that had been created for him.
No one makes it to the level of an Alwin Nikolais or a Gerald Arpino or
a Moses Pendleton without some degree of ego. In all honesty, I know of no
artist who is devoid of it. Some manage their own egos in a way that allows
room for others in the artistic process, while others cannot seem to make it
work. My approach of listening more and not feeling as if I had to oer an
opinion about everything helped me with those ego conicts. The other
thing was that I made it a point to understand where the insecurities might
be coming from and tried to avoid pushing those buttons. I am convinced
that the reason I worked so well with Gerald Arpino is that I had worked
around Murray Louis. Both Jerry and Murray lived in the shadow of their
artistic partners and both had a strong performing background before they
began to choreograph. Both also had to live with the backroom whispers
that they would not have gotten where they were if they were on their own.
Jerry and I did not always see eye to eye. But we enjoyed each other’s
company in the theatre and we found an easy working relationship. He told
me once that I should never use amber for him because he hated it. But of
course I needed it to solve one of his requests. He loved the results and told
me he knew I had used amber and to never use it again. He also gave me
the most useless note I have ever received when we were reviving a piece
71
I had never seen before. He sat at the tech table as the dancers came on
stage during a dress run and announced to me that it was all wrong. I can
still remember his words: “Of course you know this is all wrong?” How
could I know? I tamped down that reaction and instead got him to start
breaking it down. Was the problem the background, the dancers, the oor?
After a minute he began to oer very useful observations and by the end of
the run he felt it was looking pretty good.
I have had electricians, stage managers, lighting directors, and even other
designers compliment me on how I handle the blow-ups and contradictory
information that can y around a tech table. I credit Nik for helping me
gure this out. One day, when I was particularly frustrated by some “picky”
note he was hammering me on, I asked him why he wasn’t concentrating on
the dancers and the lighting instead of the masking. He told me he had to
look at every detail because when the curtain went up on any performance
by the Nikolais Dance Theatre, his name was literally on the line. I realized
then that the likelihood of anyone ever coming to a dance concert to see my
lighting was very slim, but they would be there because of the artistic dir-
ector or the choreographer’s name. That makes it a lot easier to check my
own ego at the door. I am still the lighting designer and I will not do some-
thing that looks wrong or bad to me, but I do not have to get the last word
or to convince anyone else at the tech table that I am right. If they can’t see
it in my work then how on earth are my words going to help?
72
7
CO M M U N I C A TI N G WIT H TH E
DA NC ER
I have talked a great deal about the language of dance. I also brought up
the idea that as people create new movement vocabularies it is often based
on existing steps that are then modied for the choreographer’s needs.
I have tried to explain how I go about communicating with the choreog-
rapher and how I share my cues with the stage manager. But there is
another conversation that should be happening on a much more regular
basis, that is the conversation with the dancer. It is not one that happens
naturally. The process of designing a piece happens in conversation with the
choreographer and almost never with the dancer. I have had to make it
a point to meet the dancers, to make friends in the companies I freelance
with because I come in late in the process and I am often there for only
a brief amount of time. On most occasions if there is any introduction at all
it will be an en masse sort of “May I have your attention? … This is Kevin
Dreyer, he is designing the lights for this performance.” No exchange of
names, no real conversation.
This is not usually the case with smaller companies; fewer dancers make
it very possible to have at least a rst name introduction. I also feel that
with smaller companies the dancers seem more personally invested in the
overall life of the company. In many instances they ll other part-time func-
tions for the company to make ends meet and the nancial wellbeing of the
organization is understood on a more personal level. The other big dier-
ence with the smaller companies is that they seem to understand how much
of a dierence the lighting makes for a new piece of choreography. I am not
sure why this is but they genuinely seem to appreciate what I can add to the
experience. They greet me like an old friend the second time they see me,
even if they haven’t yet had any extended conversations with me.
It is important to me that I seem approachable, and I can’t do that if
I am only a silhouetted gure in the dark of the auditorium. I try to make
time to go up on stage and meet some of the dancers face to face. In a large
company this is a much harder task to accomplish, not just because there
are more people but also because not everyone is in all the pieces. This
means that I will get one group for half an hour to 45 minutes and then
73
COMMUNICATING WITH THE DANCER
everyone is dierent. Again, this is a dierence with the smaller companies

where most of the dancers are in all of the works and so they all stay for the
entire rehearsal time. Despite the obstacles, I work to make the connections
and to break down some of the barriers. I nd this is important because the
dancer knows what is happening on the stage and the choreographer and
I are the ones that know what it looks like from “out there.” If there is
something that is making it hard for them to do their job, and I can x it
without radically changing what things look like from the front, why
wouldn’t I? On the other hand, how would the dancer know to ask if they
don’t even know who I am?
I was once watching a piece I had designed for the Ballet Nacional de
Caracas and I suddenly realized that as the male dancer launched into
a series of turns in the grand pas, the follow spot was no longer catching his
head. As soon as he nished, the spot slipped back up into position. After
the performance I found the spot operator and I told him in no uncertain
terms that the spot was to light the entire dancer at all times. He sheepishly
told me that the dancer, who was new to the company, had come to him
and asked if he could keep the light out of his eyes when he was doing his
turns. He had said that otherwise his eyes were drawn up to the light and it
threw him o balance. I reminded the spot operator that he was working for
the theatre not the dancer and then went to speak with the dancer. At rst
he was argumentative and insisted that I had no idea what I was talking
about and there was no way to do all those turns with the light in his face.
All of the time I had spent with dancers, in dance classes, in rehearsals,
and on stage paid o in that conversation. I started from the point of view
that he was a strong dancer and asking him if he didn’t enjoy the attention
he was getting? I pointed out that the follow spot helped him stand out from
the corps de ballet and when it went o his face it looked like a mistake.
I also talked about how sympathetic I was to the brightness on stage but we
were in a very large theatre and it was important if he was going to be seen
by the audience. He gradually realized I did know what he was going
through, and I discovered no one had pointed out the spotting light and told
him he could focus there during his turns. He had come from a theatre with
high balconies and was used to focusing up as well as out to the audience.
Once he learned to look a bit lower and let the spotting light hold his eye,
the follow spot was no longer a problem. It would have been so much easier
if he had felt like he could come to me to discuss the lights and the trouble
he was having, but he did not know who I was. So he went to the guy who
was operating the spot. I still wonder how many performances had featured
a headless dancer before I spotted the problem.
I have always made it a point to let dancers know how much I appreciate
their work and their craft. I look for what makes them unique, what it is that
they bring to the stage that is beyond the steps they have been given. I know it
makes the conversation personal to them and that helps make a connection
74
we can build on. I think about members of the dance faculty at the North
Carolina School of the Arts and how specic they were in their comments to
the students in the classes I watched. Listening to corrections during a class or
notes after a rehearsal sharpened my eye and improved my vocabulary. I was
lucky; in addition to my own curiosity, my father taught acting technique to
the dance majors and the dance faculty considered him one of them. I think
they let their guard down around me – or maybe we didn’t self-censor as
much in the early 1970s. In a world where people frequently dress in a very
similar fashion and where many companies embrace a specic physical aes-
thetic, I have always tried to make dancers feel as if I see them as individuals.
It helps the conversation, particularly when there is a problem to be solved.
One of the hardest things for me to deal with as I grew up in this world
of dance was the infantilization of the dancers that seemed to be almost con-
stant in dance programs and companies. Grown men and women being
called children, or worse “babies,” while they were working their butts o.
I know that if challenged those artistic directors and teachers would tell you
that it was a term of endearment, but it served a further purpose of subtly
reinforcing the hierarchy of the art form. I would like to believe that my
deliberate choice to not fall into that pattern and to choose language that
underscored the idea that we were speaking as fellow artists helped me build
the relationships I have with the dancers I have worked with. I made similar
choices with artistic directors and choreographers as well. During the second
time I was at the Jorey tech table with Gerald Arpino I asked him what he
would like me to call him. I had already decided that the commonly heard
“Mr. A” was not something that felt comfortable to me. I liked his answer.
“Well,” he said “the dancers all call me Mr. A but it would be ne if you
just wanted to call me Jerry.”
Early on in my professional life I worked for Walt Disney World. The
Orlando area eventually turned out not to be to my liking and I left after
about nine months, but something stuck with me from that experience and
I follow it today. Disney is a rst name company. Everyone who works there
wears a name tag that only has their rst name on it. While I will admit
that the rst time a complete stranger addressed me by my rst name it
caught me completely o guard, I learned what a dierence that small
choice can make in the life of an organization. In addition to being very
democratizing, it establishes a commonality of purpose and a partnership in
projects that is much harder to establish with the formality of titles and sur-
names. I adopted this idea as a sort of a philosophy of the workplace and
I like to say that the minute you stop dealing with the person in a job and
start dealing only with the title of the job is when things break down. If
I constantly talk to and refer to the “master electrician” instead of talking to
or referring to CJ or Rob or James, in some indescribable way it becomes
harder to do the job. This approach may not work for everyone, but it has
almost always worked for me.
75
I have come to realize how rare it is that a dancer will be taught much
about lighting during their training. Of course, the opposite is true for
designers with very few lighting programs oering any real education about
dance – or for that matter acting. It seems as if the assumption is that we
designers will take care of the light and let the performers worry about their
own art form. While this sounds very practical it is also part of the break-
down in communication. One of the more frequent conversations I have
with dancers is about nding their light. I was spoiled early in my career by
working with the Nikolais Dance Theatre. Since the choreographer was also
the lighting designer, those dancers were constantly drilled on how to nd
their light – and they were exceptional at it. In a piece called Crossfade the
demands were particularly stringent. A signicant part of the lighting came
from six projectors arrayed along the apron. These machines projected
images of the dancers in very specic poses shot on high contrast lm pro-
cessed for negative images.
This meant that the area that was the shape of the dancer was clear and
everything around them was opaque. When the dancers hit their marks and
the projector faded up, the eect was as if the dancer had materialized on
that point of the stage. The projector could then go out and another one
would fade up in the same image with a dierent color of gel on a dierent
part of the stage and, if the dancer did their part, the same dancer would
materialize in a dierent spot on the stage. Not only were the dancers cap-
able of nding these specic locations and poses from relatively small glow
tape marks, they knew how to nd the hot spot in their light. They also
knew how to focus the lights, strike and pack them away, and some of them
knew how to run the light board. I have learned not to expect that level of
engagement from most dancers. Now I am thrilled if the dancers I work
with know where their light is and can make the subtle adjustment that can
be the dierence between being seen and only being there.
I am not one of those designers who believes I have the right to ask the
choreographer if the dancers can move to get into the light. I feel like it is
still my job to put the light where the dancers go. But if there is a dancer
who consistently stops six inches away from being in the light, I will ask per-
mission to help them nd where they should be. This is usually preceded by
my asking the choreographer if they want the dancer to be in the spot
where they are located or if they can shift a little bit to be in better light.
My denition of a “little bit” is no more than one or two steps from where
they have naturally landed; if I am suggesting a move of more than four or
ve feet then I have made the mistake – not the dancer. Think about it this
way, generally speaking four feet is 10 percent of the dancing width of most
stages; 10 percent seems like I am asking for a lot. I also know that if
a dancer is going to settle in a spot on the stage for a few minutes it is more
comfortable in the shadow zone created by focusing around the legs than it
is in the hot spot of a boom light at 75 percent. Some people always seem
76
to land in the right place. I have heard this expressed as there being two
kinds of performers – moths and roaches, or as a former colleague of mine
and fellow lighting designer Bruce Auerbach liked to say, “Even
a crustacean can nd its light.” The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter
how good my design is if the dancers can’t be seen. I see it as part of my
job to help the dancers be more visible, without changing the choreography,
or changing the lighting, or sometimes both. That can’t happen if they can’t
nd their light.
Beyond the fact that I enjoy talking with dancers, I have often learned
valuable bits of information that make a dierence in how I can support the
piece I am working on – things the choreographer has shared with the dan-
cers that they may not think is of particular use to me because they are
more directly about how to execute a step. On the other hand when
I listened to Donald McKayle talk to the dancers in the Dayton Contempor-
ary Dance Company about Rainbow Round My Shoulder it was eye opening to
me and helped me understand the visual imagery of some of the light cues
we were creating in a way that I had not yet been able to. It wasn’t as
much about the cue as it was about the timing and duration of the cue; it
was subtle and I was probably the only one who saw it, but it improved the
story telling and that benetted the piece. In this case I heard it directly
from the choreographer – but not because he was telling me. If I had not
been there at that moment I would hope that in discussing the work with
the dancers I might have learned that valuable information.
Sometimes what I hear from the dancers is specic imagery they have
learned, but more often it is about the impulse of the movement and the
way they need to use their center of gravity or peripheral energy to get it
right. Even this kind of information is valuable for me. If a piece is grounded
with a lower center of gravity it carries a sense of weight with it that will
inform some of my choices. On the other hand if it is a high center and it
glides across the oor, barely contained by gravity, I can work with that as
well. In my experience dancers appreciate the fact that I can speak to them
in movement ideas and that I sometimes even know the names of the steps
themselves. I talk about my craft as well but I let them ask the questions.
How I answer will depend on how the question is asked. If it is a technical
question then I will answer with technical language. I nd these questions
most often come from dancers who are starting to choreograph their own
pieces. They are starting to think about how they would like them to appear
on the stage and so they are trying to understand why I have set the lights
in the places and at the heights that I have.
I love these conversations. I see it as a service to whoever eventually designs
their pieces for them. It is my hope that these newly minted choreographers will
not go in with specic color requests or a light plot they have sketched on
a napkin. But if they do I know they will be able to explain these choices. It is
the “why” that becomes the opening for the lighting designer to oer their own
77
ideas or to be able to own the suggestions from the choreographer. So I take

the time whenever possible to answer the “why” questions. I have also learned
that the more informed a dancer is about why I do what I do and what its
impact is on what they do, the more respectful they are of my lights and what
they can accomplish. This awareness is also important for helping me with one
of my pet peeves. Dancers who stand in the wings blocking the side light. There
is nothing more distracting to me than the blink of light that happens when
a dancer sneaks past a light in the wings; but there is nothing more infuriating
than the dancer who just stands in front of the light, blocking it, and doesn’t
move. Once I managed to gure out who was blocking the light during a dress
rehearsal. He had what he thought was a very good reason: the warmth from
the beam of light helped his leg muscles relax.
While I am on the subject of booms – the other issue I have is dancers who
use side light positions as ballet barres to warm up. I get it: Booms or box
truss are convenient. You can do a few quick pliés, tendus, or battements right
before you go on and not miss your entrance. You need to get to the front of
the boom in order to enter right on the music, and those warm lights feel
really good on tired calves or thighs. If no one has ever taken the time to
explain that every time you hold on to that pipe and move – the smallest of
wiggles on the boom becomes amplied in the light attached to the boom,
then of course it makes sense to take advantage of it being there. If the dis-
tracting aspect of having your shadow block the light, even for just a moment,
has never been shown to you, the three steps you save from being just behind
the leg instead of behind the boom seems more important. How many dancers
get to see the lighting from the audience’s perspective? Without that informa-
tion it is easy to assume that blocking one light for a few moments before you
enter will not impact the look of that stage at all. It is the very rare company
that takes the time to teach all of this to their dancers. So I try to help, one
dancer at a time, and yes it is a bit self-serving, but most of the time that is not
what I am talking about with the company members.
Sometimes the language barrier is quite literally a language barrier which
has its own sets of problems. As dance companies become more and more inter-
national it is no longer the case that all the dancers will share a native language.
And as dance companies embark on international tours they will work in coun-
tries where a dierent language is spoken. During a Nikolais performance that
I was running in Portugal, the house light board failed to execute the rst three
internal light cues of a piece that we had recorded during tech. Between cues
I explained to my translator that it was critical that the nal cue happen when
I called for it. It was a blackout that was supposed to happen as the dancers
were falling forward and we did not want to see them catch themselves as they
fell. I continued calling cues to the road board as a frantic discussion in Portu-
guese happened over the headsets. With less than a minute to go in the piece
the translator said “OK he understands it must happen, but rst please, what is
blackout?”
78
Working through a translator is always tricky. In another case a friend of

mine was designing in South America, he got to one moment in the piece
and the light cue came up with lots of red light and the artistic sta started
shouting at him. It seems that in the design discussion they had said the
only color they did not want was red, the translation he got was “They said
red.”
Almost 50 years removed from the wide-eyed kid who had never seen
a ballet dancer go on pointe, I still feel as if I am learning about dance on
a daily basis. I enjoy all my conversations with the dancers and I really like
watching dance classes. I do not always have the luxury of watching an
entire class but I will stay in the theatre after my crew leaves to see the
beginning of barre or come to my call early to see the last few minutes of
the class. This does not go unnoticed and helps build connections with the
dancers in a company. Those connections lead to conversations and the con-
versations help me do my job. One of the other things that I get from these
conversations is an understanding of things that are hard for the dancers to
do. Moments in the choreography that may look simple, but for one reason
or another are hard to accomplish. It is good for me to know these things
because then I can be on the lookout for ways to help.
I have also discovered that my eorts to make connections have diused
potentially dicult situations. I had taken the time to meet and have
a conversation with a lead dancer in one of the companies I was designing for.
She was from Latin America. I let her know that I spoke Spanish and had lived
in Central America as a child and we discovered we had worked in one or two
theatres over the years that the other one had been in as well. I was later told that
this particular dancer dealt with stress by nding fault in the work of the designers
and the crew and she frequently zeroed in on the lighting. She would say that it
had to be changed because it was making it impossible for her to perform prop-
erly. This never happened when I was working with the company. Her blow-ups,
when they happened, were directed at her costume or her shoes. She did come to
me once to ask if something might be done about the lighting. She was able to
describe precisely what she felt the problem was and I assured her there was an
adjustment I could make that would not negatively impact the look of the piece.
No argument, no demands, a very pleasant conversation that led to an appropri-
ate solution, none of which would have happened if I hadn’t taken the time to
establish that we were both artists working toward a common goal.
Beyond getting to know some really interesting people, I would say that
this is the primary goal of opening up the lines of communication with the
dancers. Getting to the point that we understand we are all working toward
the same goal is very important. Sometimes I am undoing the negative work
of previous technicians who have enjoyed the clever retort without realizing
the adverse impact their witty insult was making. In the long run there is likely
one other benet to my eort to open communication with the dancers. Some
of these dancers will go on to teach, others will become choreographers, still
79
others will become artistic directors of their own companies. With luck they
will hang on to some of what I have told them about my art form. If they do it
will pay o in better communication with their collaborators, better lighting
for their pieces, and the shared insight from teacher to dancer that will help
a rising artist take advantage of what the lighting can oer. Even if I do not
reap the benet of my eorts, somewhere, some day, someone else will, and
I am ne with that.
80
8
A C O N V E R S AT I ON I W I SH
I H AD
Murray Louis was a dancer for Alwin Nikolais long before I worked with
Nik. By the time I joined the company Murray was a choreographer in
his own right, an artistic director, master teacher, and performer who had
founded the Murray Louis Dance Company which shared studio space
with the Nikolais Dance Theatre. Murray was witty and sarcastic and
loving and caustic and mercurial and in addition to dance he loved to
write. He had a number of his essays published in Dance Magazine and
eventually published two books of his ruminations, Inside Dance and On
Dance. In the rst of those two books, which sits on my oce bookshelf,
there is an essay titled “Light vs. Lighting” which reects Murray’s
thought process as his muscles get cold and his mind wanders while the
crew – his adversary in this essay – goes about arranging the lighting for
a performance that night. It is a fun piece and includes some truisms, but
reading it prompts me now to wish I had been able to have
a conversation with him about it – the sort of conversation I try to have
with dancers when the process gets frustrating.
I learned a great deal from Murray, often without realizing it, and
I enjoyed conversations with him and with Nik at their dinner table in the
Village and out on Long Island. I was never at their “level,” I was too
young and I was a “technician” to their “artist” but I believe they genuinely
liked me and I them. Once after I had left the company they asked me to
come back for a European tour. Nik was unable to travel with the company,
as was his custom, and I knew all of the pieces that were going to be per-
formed on this tour. He had grown to trust my eye and thought I would be
a good person. Murray cut to the chase: “We were trying to think of a good
person and you are a bit of a mensch so we thought you would be perfect.”
Murray was the one who taught me how important it was for a dancer to
be able to see the oor, in one of the aforementioned “lighting sessions.”
While I recognize that Murray was probably taking artistic license when he
wrote, I have chosen to treat it all as an honest expression of how he was
feeling because I believe that if I do I can illustrate what I was discussing in
the last chapter.
81
A CONVERSATION I WISH I HAD
What bothers me the most about Murray’s essay is the overriding sense
of us against them – in his case, him against the crew. There are several
points when he “wonders” if “they” know what he is feeling or what they
are doing. There is really no excuse for that sort of speculation. I have
often taught my stage managers to pay attention to keeping the perform-
ers informed as to what was going on during lighting sessions, as a way to
try and cut back on frustration and impatience. The reality is that lighting
sessions are often mind numbing and bone tiring for performers, dancers
in particular hate them. Being asked to lie around on a cold oor while
lights are raised by seemingly imperceptible percentage points can be very
frustrating, particularly if you don’t really know what is going on. Larger
companies never seem to make the dancers available for these sessions
any more. This can present its own set of frustrations. What is really
gained by taking the time to show a stand-in the exact location of
a special when they will not have the chance to share that information
with the dancer who will be performing the role. Whoever the “stage
walker” is – dancer, stand-in, or stage hand – they all deserve the cour-
tesy of clear communication. Ideally, it should never be the case that the
person on stage does not know what is going on or why they are being
asked to do what they are doing.
In reading Murray’s article I ashed back to a miserable lighting session
in Saratoga Springs where the outdoor auditorium meant lighting had to
happen after the performances and frequently went until 1 or 2 in the morn-
ing. As the temperatures fell past a safe dancing level and dancers tried to
nd blankets that matched the color of their costumes, we all dreaded the
inevitable request that we “run it” to make sure it was right. Did we really
need the dancers there the whole time? Was there a better way to do it? Nik
trusted his eyes much more than his imagination. He had to see it, a new
prop, a new costume, a new slide, a new light cue – all had to be seen in
context to be judged correct. So his practice did require the dancers, in cos-
tume, to be able to set the lighting for a performance.
So what would I say to Murray about his essay? I would have to start with:
You are right. It is no place for a dancer, but the dancers are the only ones
who know where to be on stage at a given point in the dance. It is
a conundrum. So, I would ask, how do we make it work for the dancers and
the designer? I would also set aside Murray’s particular situation here because
Nik was his designer and the lighting happened with slide projectors and
lower intensity side lights so balancing the levels was very critical. Murray did
bring up one terric idea: Flesh colored warm-up clothes. In his article he
credits Betty Young for getting these for the dancers. I worked with
a company once who routinely announced to their dancers that the expect-
ation was that they would arrive for lighting in warm-ups that matched their
costume colors. In the majority of the work I do I pay closer attention to skin
than costumes when I can, but by all means wear something that is close to
82
your costume. There is nothing to be gained from wearing white leg warmers
if your costume has dark brown pants.
I would also say that those slow painstaking lighting sessions that he
claims left him wondering what he could choreograph “with only one light
cue” often made me wonder if we really needed all the cues we had in our
notes. I have been known, during the tedium of a long lighting session, to
start cutting cues. It is during lighting that we have to be so vigilant about
how much time we are taking and how that is aecting our eyes. Cues with
low light levels will seem bright the longer we sit in them and the temptation
to make them darker to recapture the right feel must be resisted. In the per-
forming of the piece our choice to go dimmer will suddenly seem too dark.
I would tell Murray that time moves at two speeds out at the tech table as
opposed to the single speed the performer feels on stage. It seems that we
move from cue to cue far too slowly, that we are wasting time as we go, and
that it is a terrible inconvenience for the dancers. At the same time there is
never enough time to make all the adjustments to a light cue. I nd myself
wondering if I am being too picky, if I should just let it go and come back
to it later when I am the only one in the building. Maybe a dance with one
light cue is not such a bad idea after all.
Murray speaks a great deal in his essay about the dancer’s reliance on
light for safety and I nd it is knowledge that I have gained over the years
in a detached intellectual way. Murray makes it feel immediate and danger-
ous, he brings the ability to see all the way to a discussion of injury, likening
the unease dancers feel to that of the sailors of history who knew the world
was at and risked sailing o the edge on every voyage. He speaks of
a dierent danger as well, that of the are of light, he calls it the “klieg,”
that can not only ll your eyes with spots but can also take you o balance.
I would suggest, as I often have, standing in the light and letting him look at
me. I have learned that when performers know what I am doing and how it
makes them look they frequently have an easier time guring out how to
work with the distractions I have placed all around them. Why should we
assume they don’t need to know? Why shouldn’t we put ourselves in the
“hot” spot and see what it is like to walk straight toward the blinding light
without shielding our eyes?
Certainly Murray respects the nished product and I think we both share
a frustration at how slow it can be to get there. Where we dier is that he
sees the lighting process as a nuisance or a necessary evil and I see it as an
absolute necessity – as the only real chance I have to get it right. I believe
Murray’s frustration comes from the practice of looking at each individual
cue in each and every venue, and it always feels the same. What is impos-
sible to convey in the moment is the nuanced dierences that can be seen
from the audience’s perspective. It should feel the same to the dancer, but it
also needs to look the same for the audience – and that is where it can get
tricky.
83
Nik once said to me that he was convinced that there was such a thing as
visual acoustics. As he explained it, there were certain theatres where light
just seemed to carry and others where it didn’t matter how bright he made
things, it was still hard to see. Some of this related to the color of the audi-
torium but there were a few white or light-colored auditoriums that were no
problem, so it was not just that. In some cases it was an issue of seats start-
ing too far away from the stage, creating the sense of a great chasm between
the audience and the performers. Often it was something intangible, and it
wasn’t that he had his dark glasses on – although that happened from time
to time. We would nd that virtually every light level was about 15 to 20 per-
cent higher and yet the stage looked the same as it usually did. This is what
made these lighting sessions important and it explains my frustration with
those companies who no longer make the dancers available just for lighting.
I understand it, it is pure economics, if you have a limited number of hours
in a day for the dancers to be working you want them to dance, not stand
around to be lit.
I worked with Robert Wilson setting a piece on the Paris Opera Ballet.
In order to get in the contracted number of tech hours we rotated both
crew members and apprentice dancers who were brought in as stand-ins for
the stars and principal dancers. I remember one particularly demanding sec-
tion where a dancer had to run on to stage, hit a mark, raise their st in the
air, and the follow spot had to catch it in a beam of light. I realized, as we
were asking the poor performer to try it yet again, because they had missed
the mark and the spot had missed them, that neither this dancer nor this
follow spot operator would be doing this cue in performance. I whispered
this to the stage manager who then suggested that we go on and see what
happened in the rehearsal later that evening.
More often these days I nd that I am trying to create and rene light
cues while the dancers are doing spacing rehearsals with costume pieces.
This is not much better than the stand-ins in Paris, at least they had the
right wardrobe. This practice is one of the reasons I have learned to work
fast. If I can get basic cues in the board before the rehearsal there is a great
deal I can do during a run, but I don’t get the chance to rene my work.
This is when I have to remind myself that a cue that is on stage for less
than a minute does not need the same level of “crafting” as one which will
be on for ve minutes. It is also when I need to remember the purpose of
each cue and to keep that clearly in mind so that I don’t miss a few trees
while I am busy looking at the forest.
But I digress and Murray has a new complaint. He says he has never
gone on stage expecting the lighting to be right in performance. This is
a big one to deal with. Certainly if he has no trust that the lighting will be
right then of course he has no patience for the lighting session. Some things
have changed and the number of times I have had to deal with a manual
board in the last ve years can literally be counted on one hand. Manual
84
boards were unreliable because the shift of about a quarter of an inch on

the control board could amount to close to a 15 percent change in the inten-
sity of the light on stage. It was for this reason Tom Skelton said you should
only use levels of 25 percent, 50 percent, and full – at least that was how
I was told the story. It is certainly true that there is very little reason to
adjust a fader by 5 percent when it is a manual board. It will never be dupli-
cated. But that is no excuse; certainly if we want to be respected by the per-
formers, our level of accuracy must match or exceed theirs. If I had been
able to have the conversation I would have spent some time on this point
trying to gure out how I could help him feel more condence as he went
on stage.
Murray also talks about Tony, his stage manager, and speaks of his
reassuring presence. The relationship is much more than the artist–techni-
cian one that he seems to dislike. His stage manager is more of a partner,
someone to rely on. He says he looks for Tony in the wings “making sure he
is not alone.” I had another dancer, a solo performer, speak about that need
once. Molissa Fenley was performing a solo version of The Rite of Spring at
the American Dance Festival one year when I was on sta there. It was
a signicant project for her and I think she was feeling a bit alone and vul-
nerable. She asked that the crew not hang out back stage during the per-
formance to avoid distractions but didn’t want to be the only one in the
stage house during the performance. She asked if I could be in the wings to
call my cues – there were not very many – and in particular to be in
a specic wing at a certain moment so she would be able to see me and
know she was not alone. It was about having an anchor, if you will, someone
who could ground her – I think. This experience came rushing back when
I read Murray’s comment about feeling adrift without his stage manager.
Solo performers are unique, they are exposed, stripped naked, and easily
“set adrift.” They have something important to say and they are prepared to
say it on their own, but that vulnerability needs to be managed at times.
A caring face, a person who knows the piece completely, who knows where
the physically demanding and the emotionally draining parts happen – that
goes a long way. In a group piece the dancers can nd that from other dan-
cers, as well as members of the crew or their design and management team,
but the soloist has fewer options.
Murray shares an anecdote, one I have no reason to doubt, despite never
encountering it before, of Margot Fonteyn going on stage and speaking to
the designer – pleading for a little bit of pink light. I don’t doubt it because
I experienced a similar event with Pauline Koner. Pauline was one of the
original dancers in the José Limon Dance Company and I met her when
she was teaching at the North Carolina School of the Arts (NCSA). This
was in the early 1970s and she had joined the faculty of the dance program.
She was still performing but most of her energy went to creating new works
for students and for faculty members. Pauline taught a remarkable course at
85
NCSA called “Elements of Performing” where she shared what she had
learned over her many years of performing. She gave make-up tips, talked
about music choices and costume ideas, and, yes, she talked about lighting.
Pauline had a favorite color – she felt it made her look good, and she
advised her students to pay attention to lighting that made them look good
and learn what colors were being used. Her color was “Special Lavender in
Brigham Gel.” Unfortunately some of my fellow design and production stu-
dents didn’t get it and made jokes about Pauline’s Special Lavender. Our
lighting professor who designed for her understood. Dancers used to know
what made them look good; the longer they last the more they know. They
also knew they needed a security blanket when they went out on that unfor-
giving stage by themselves. I would answer Murray’s story about Ms. Fon-
teyn with mine about Ms. Koner and I would tell him I would listen.
I know that the only way I continue to grow is if I continue to learn, and at
this point the only way I can learn is from others who have been there
before me.
Murray closes his essay with the idea that the dancer is living art. As he
puts it “The body is the only living instrument used to make art.” And
I would add that it is only the dancer who relies completely on the body for
their art. He goes on to muse that we don’t always think about art when we
are making it. I agree, and in my own art – that of lighting the choreog-
rapher’s art – I try to stay as organic to the process as I can. If I think
about it too much I am afraid it will become mechanical. Just as most dan-
cers I have known well seem happiest when they are improvising because
they are free to string together whatever movement ideas come to them,
I prefer the organic, instinctive process. I nd I agree with Murray when he
says that “art always seems to be an end product.” But I also know that art
is rarely nished. Nik complained to me one day about some criticism that
he had heard about his own work. He had revived a piece that the company
had not performed in at least ten years and he tinkered with the choreog-
raphy, adjusted the lighting, and updated the score. He had heard someone
complain that it was not the same and that as far as they were concerned
revivals should be the same. Nik told me that as far he was concerned it was
his piece so he could do what he wanted with it. After all, he mused, he
wasn’t the same as when he created it and to leave it alone would be to
ignore the changes he had been through. If they just wanted the same old
thing, he said, then they shouldn’t have asked him to do it. Nik’s work was
nished but it was never done. The end product would come when he
ended working.
The essay “Light vs. Lighting” appears in Inside Dance: Essays by Murray
Louis, published in 1980 by Saint Martin’s Press.
86
9
LEA RNI N G TH E DA NCE WO RK
There are a number of theories on how to learn a new language, and I have
recently learned there are also a bunch of “apps” for that as well. What
I believed to be fairly settled science is that the most eective way is
a variation on how you learned your rst language. It is akin to the concept
of semiotics, that there is a predictable meaning associated with specic
signs. In language acquisition this is the concept that says we learn a word
by its association with an image. We are shown an object and told a word,
our brain eventually begins to produce that word when the image is seen
and then moves to an understanding that the word can call forth the image.
We see a round bouncing toy, we are told the word “ball.” The next time
we see the object that we associate with “ball” we say the word. Then we
get to the point where we say the word to call forth the object associated
with it. As someone who learned to speak a second language at a point in
my life when I can sort of remember the process I know that I was very
fortunate to learn it in an immersive environment.
At about the age of nine my family moved to Guatemala where we then
lived for three years. We were enrolled in Spanish speaking schools, despite
the presence of a large enough ex-pat community that there was a school
that was run in English. The majority of my vocabulary was learned from
people who could not supply me with the English word. The advantage of
this is that I learned it almost as if it were my rst language, from image
and idea. I did not have to think through something in English and then
translate the words into Spanish, my thoughts triggered Spanish words when
I needed to speak in Spanish. In other words, I moved directly from idea to
sharing the idea, bypassing the need to translate. I wish I could say that this
unique experience made it easier for me to learn choreography, but
I honestly do not think that is the case. I bring this up because there is
a similar process in dance and it is up to us to try and gure out as much of
it as possible.
A dancer is taught a step, a movement, a phrase, and then that physical
process is given a name. Soon a teacher merely has to say the name and the
student can execute the movement. This is true in ballet and modern dance.
87
LEARNING THE DANCE WORK
The main dierence is that the names of movement in ballet are generally
in French while the names in modern are more likely to be in English, or
whatever the native language is of the choreographer or dance instructor.
The process of the basic language takes years for a dancer to master, the
choreography of a new work happens over the space of weeks. If you have
a new movement language coming in with a new piece it can be a very chal-
lenging process. In these cases you will often nd that the choreographer
will use terminology that the dancers may already know and then show
them how the shape or form of the step is dierent. It is a gradual process
and the choreographer needs to gure out how to bring the company along
as quickly as possible. If it is a new piece then the dancers inevitably inu-
ence how the movement comes together and they are part of creating the
new language. If it is a remounting of a piece the process can be a bit more
dicult.
It is harder for the non-dancers among us who have to come in and in
a very short time learn what the dancers have had weeks to absorb.
I don’t want this to sound like I am saying that designers need to spend
more time in rehearsal, although that could help, because I know how
precious time is for us and for the dancers. The time they spend helping
us learn what they are doing is time not spent on improving how they do
it. For the designer there are other pressures. Time in the rehearsal room
is time that you cannot spend doing all the other things you are being
asked to do. In general, design work is freelance. The designer is payed
per piece, or at times per program, but either way the more ecient you
can be with your time the better the rate of pay is for the project. Time
in rehearsal is a luxury that you cannot often aord. So you are not only
having to learn a new “vocabulary” but you are trying to do it in
a limited amount of time.
This brings us to the question of how well you need to learn the dance
piece. No one is expecting you to know the entire piece step for step. You
do not need to remember every step or be able to critique each moment for
each individual dancer. But you have to go beyond the “I’ve seen this
before” level of recognition. In my opinion you need to get to the point you
will with a favorite movie that you want to watch again, even though you
are very familiar with it. You know all the key plot points to the degree that
there are no surprises. You are watching to enjoy the way they are revealed
rather than the surprise itself. By this point you know at least a half-dozen
key lines, and can quote them out of context. A clip from the movie will
bring you directly to the spot where the scene happens. Although you may
not necessarily know exactly what scene precedes it, you do know where you
are in the story. You become that annoying person who says “Wait, wait,
this is the best part” at least four or ve times during the movie. You know
it, but you couldn’t do it. In my opinion, this is where you want to get with
a piece.
88
Over the years I have tried a few dierent methods of learning the dance
and I admit that I do not always do it the same way. One of the things
I look for when rst encountering a new work, and this precedes any eort
at learning the work, is movement quality. What is the choreographer asking
the dancers to do with their bodies? Sometimes there is a quick answer that
comes from the technique they are using. The terms jazz, hip-hop, classical
ballet, modern, postmodern, and so on all mean something in terms of
movement quality. They serve as a short hand into the choreographer’s
intent. They are not always applicable or they often need to be more closely
dened, but I usually listen to those descriptors. I also look at how the dan-
cers deal with weight. Does this piece drive into the oor, does it glide
across its surface, or is it trying to break free of the connes of gravity?
I look for the dierent ways they move through space and how their center
of gravity may shift with that movement. When they cross through the space
is the movement pedestrian or dancerly? Do they ever just walk or run? All
of these things will help me begin to understand the way the choreographer
thinks about movement.
I will look at how the piece uses the space. How much of it is occupied
and is there an attempt to redene the shape or dynamics of the space
through the movement patterns? Is the dance conned by the space or does
it simply exist in the space? Does it feel like the dancers are trying to escape
or break free or is this a place of comfort where they want to stay – is it
a ritual space? How does the choreographer use the entrances? Do people
go on and o stage a lot, are they in for large chunks of time, is there
a permanence or a transient quality to the way the dancers interact with the
space? Not only do the answers to these questions help me understand the
feel of the piece, they help me with certain practical questions about how
I need to light the space to reect this usage pattern. Is there any plan for
decor and will that redene the space? Are there going to be obstacles in the
space, will the dancers have to move around them, or can they push through
them? Will they catch the light and therefore the shadows of the dancers or
are you supposed to avoid light touching them at all?
At some point there will be a discussion of what the dancers are going
to wear. This is always of interest because it will speak to color needs at
some point; but now I look for clues about the story or the movement
from these ideas. Is the body obscured, or revealed? How gender specic
are the costumes or are we going unisex or androgynous? Is there any
sort of hierarchy established by the costumes or do they more closely
resemble dancers normal work clothes? I will also pay attention to what
sound accompanies the dance. There is always sound – even in silence.
That was the lesson of John Cage’s infamous work 4ʹ33'': Silence is never
devoid of sound, particularly in dance. It is virtually impossible to walk in
total silence, especially if you turn as you move through the space. Breath-
ing is not a silent activity and the more eort the movement requires the
89
more sound the dancer will make. Is this piece being performed to
a score that has been commissioned for the piece, or are you listening to
music you have heard before? Does it fall into an easy classication, and
does that match or contrast the movement technique? Are there any clues
to the style of the movement or the performance quality the choreog-
rapher is looking for from the dancers? Is there a lyric, does it have
meaning, or is it incidental? No experienced choreographer picks a song
with lyrics – no matter what language – without considering the possibility
that someone in the audience will be able to understand the words. When
they do, they will look for a connection between the words and the move-
ment and, even if there was none intended, they will create one and be
convinced it is the right one.
One of the things that I have never believed in is relying on a printed
musical score or on a time line when I establish my cue placements. These
two methods have worked well for some of my colleagues and I know many
stage managers that work from a score, but I feel there are drawbacks for
each. The time line relies on a running elapsed time for the piece and the
light cues are placed based on that elapsed time line. The drawback here is
that you negate the variability of the artist in performance and you turn an
artistic process into a mechanical exercise. This does not mean that I am
opposed to creating or using a time line, I am simply not in favor of it being
your only tool. There are too many ways it can go wrong and it makes it
possible for you to design a piece without ever really learning it. I think that
learning the dance is part and parcel of the design process. My objection to
the score is pretty much the same. Anything that allows you to feel as if you
know the sequencing of cues without learning the dance that they t leaves
me with a vague sense of an incomplete process.
I do think that a score can be a good tool for some stage managers and
can help anchor the cues for them; but it is not my preferred method. I am
not in favor of anything that keeps the designer or the stage manager from
using and trusting their eyes. I even have a problem with the stage manager
who would prefer to use a monitor with a front of house camera rather than
look at the stage. When David Parsons set Caught on the Jorey there was
a moment when he was trying to get the stage manager to understand
a subtle cue that the dancer was supposed to give. The stage manager kept
missing it by a beat or two and it was a critically timed cue. Dave came up
onstage to see where the stage manager was standing to see if there was an
adjustment that could x it. What he found was the stage manager at the
calling station ten feet into the rst wing watching on a monitor. Dave
insisted the monitor be turned o and that the stage manager move into the
wing where they could see the dancer clearly. The stage manager did not
want to move because then there was nowhere to put the cue sheets where
they could still be read – the question they asked was: How were they sup-
posed to call the piece without the cue sheets? Dave replied that it was only
90
for this one section and that it was about four or ve cues that needed the
direct line of sight – so memorize them.
I am very sympathetic to stage managers and what they have to do. Like
many lighting designers I had to stage manage some of my own designs
when I was rst getting started. When I worked for the Nikolais Dance The-
atre, the lighting director was also the stage manager. I have called shows
from all sorts of dicult places but what I always tried to have was the most
direct visual contact with the dancers. This meant that I usually called from
onstage with them. Unlike most stage managers in spoken word theatre who
gravitate toward a front of house booth, most dance stage managers I have
worked with call from the stage. There is a challenge that comes from call-
ing the show in the wings. Most of the time we learn the choreography from
the audience’s point of view. This means that in order to stage manage from
the wings we need to turn the choreography 90 degrees. Some people have
no diculty doing this, others nd it a challenge. This is less a matter of
training than it is a one of how we think about three-dimensional space.
The process is referred to as “mental rotation” and was identied in 1971
through a study conducted by cognitive scientists. Later studies have shown
that this is an ability that can be improved, oddly enough through training
in athletic endeavors or in music. This could explain why dancers seem to
be very good at it.
As a result, I try to give my stage managers as much information as I can
to help with the process of calling cues. I make sure they know why the cue
is being created – what it is for, in addition to where it is to be called. I also
make sure they know how long the cue takes. I will give them a timeline –
but only as a reference tool, not to call from. In fact I do not always give
them the time when the cue hits but rather I will give them the time for the
warning or standby for the cue. I also point out when a light cue lines up
with a specic point in the music. As I usually explain it: if there is a sound
cue within spitting distance of a light cue, they should probably go together
because the chances are very good that the dancers are using that same
sound cue to hit the moment I am trying to light. If they choose, and some
have, to move my cues into a score they still have the movement-based cues,
and by placing them in a score they are still learning the piece. But in order
to give them all the information they need to do the job I must know the
piece really well.
This was recently driven home for me when I was asked to recreate the
lighting on a piece for Tulsa Ballet that I had never seen before. Armed
with the designer’s notes and with videos of the piece I set to work getting
as familiar as I could with the choreography. When we got to the rst dress
rehearsal the nal light cue did not work. I assumed the notes were o or
that I had misunderstood them and went back to the notes and adjusted
some of the timing on the cues at the end of the piece. I could see what was
happening and veried with the person setting the dance piece on the
91
company that I was trying for the right ending. The end was better, but still
not right at the second dress and so I went to speak with the stage manager.
I discovered that she was looking at something completely dierent on stage
than I was. The critical movement was happening all the way up stage left
and she was watching someone who was center stage. In other words she
was watching the secondary aspect of the choreography while I was lighting
the primary movement. I left the cues as they were and asked that the stage
manager move to a point where she could see the correct part of the dance.
I realized there was no way the cue would get called correctly if she could
not see the movement it was based on. The movement that the cue was
written for was a sharp drop in a lift; the movement the stage manager was
watching was a slow dissolve to the oor that happened in response to the
quick drop. As a result of calling the cue from the reaction to the moment
instead of the moment itself, the cue couldn’t be right. I should have gone
straight to the stage manager and looked at her cue sheets. What I didn’t
know was that she had never called the piece before and had learned it
from a video instead of sitting in rehearsal.
Video can be a valuable tool but it should never take the place of learn-
ing the piece in person. Video is good for refreshing memory and for double
checking what you have learned. I work with it all the time and have gotten
to the point where I am comfortable with video, no matter the angle from
which it is shot. If you are remounting a work you will generally get very
good videos, shot from the front and with a good clear record of what is
happening on stage, although depending on the light cues you may not see
everyone all the time. These “archival” videos are generally shot in perform-
ance and are the record of the piece that is used to teach the dancers. With
new work it is much more unpredictable and quite dependent on what sort
of rehearsal facility the company has. Rehearsal spaces are generally not
much bigger than the performance space and frequently not quite as big.
The result of this is that the camera often gets placed in the equivalent of
the rst row, or in extreme cases, the edge of the apron. When this is the
case you will not have a record of what is happening down stage right or
left. When faced with this dilemma the camera is often moved to dierent
angles to get a wider perspective. I have been given videos shot from the
equivalent of the rst wing stage left and also from stage right. I have
rehearsal videos that are from directly to the side of the dance (the angle the
stage manager will probably see in performance), but the strangest was one
shot from all the way up stage and focused into the mirror on the front wall
of the studio. This meant that I was seeing everything reversed with a bunch
of slightly out of focus dancers constantly moving in front of the camera.
For me the rst step of learning a piece is to watch it straight through as
a spectator would. I then like to spend the second run I see tracking the
movement and writing down sequence and key moments. This is very fast
and often full of mistakes and so I watch a third time. On this third run
92
I will follow my own notes as I watch the run and x the big errors. By this
time, I am getting to the point where I can remember sequence and I am
beginning to understand the “story” (literal or gurative) and I am usually
starting to “see” light cues that will help me tell the story. Ideally these three
runs will all happen in one day, although with a full evening work that can
be a bit much. The other very valuable step in this process is a break some-
where, preferably between the second and third run, when I get to talk with
the choreographer or artistic director about the piece. There is value in
having my rough notes for this conversation because it helps remind me of
the things that stood out as seeming to be important. It is also a way to
identify the things that the choreographer feels are critical visual moments
where they have a specic idea about light. As I have mentioned, this con-
versation sometimes shows me that the things the choreographer feels are
important are not the ones that stand out to a fresh set of eyes. I nd these
are the moments I have to try the hardest to understand because they are
the ones where I can do the most good. If I know what we are trying to say
or do in these moments I can help the real audience get it.
There are some easy things to do in this tracking process. I have men-
tioned entrances and exits and tracking personnel changes as key, but what
does that mean in practical terms? I am including an image of one of my
pages of early track sheet writing for a piece called Entropy which I designed
for Giordano Dance Chicago.
As you can see in Figure 9.1, by the time I designed Entropy I had begun
to move to principally words with very few diagrams or directional arrows.
This was because I had begun to rene my process while I was with the
Jorey Ballet to the point where I was already beginning to create the stage
manager’s call sheet while I was creating my design paperwork. This excerpt
started as hand-drawn notes but the drawings were not as much use for the
stage manager so I reworked the original notes adding a few more words to
replace the arrows and diagrams. My process has evolved further to the
point where now I will frequently transcribe dances directly onto my com-
puter, saving a step in the process. Ultimately what counts is if it can be
read and if it is enough to remind you of where you are at a given point in
the dance. In the section I have included here you will notice that there is
a reference to the “‘kill’ gesture” and another to “lower into egg in arms.”
These are my notations, the names I gave these particular moments, and
I do not remember if the dancers had a dierent name for them or not.
The images evoked by those names were very clear to me and I could
describe exactly what the dancers were doing at that point. In fact, as
I write this easily ten years after I learned this piece, I can still picture what
those two moments looked like.
I have seen the worksheets used by other designers and I know that we do
not all follow the same pattern. Many stick to special diagrams but others use
a variation on the “French scene diagram” approach that Lawrence Stern
93
(big music change)
US gures move DS 2 wmn cross US and hold facing US

Trio DS
Freeze melting movement, all different

transition to
Duet starts CS with small lifts

others xing walks & weave US
two other couples form up into

3 lifting couples
all couples
all lifting
lower into egg in arms
all ve couples squat with eggs in a line DS, All Stand
(Bird sounds) awakening stretches

2 -5 -3 -1-4 (from SL)
Roll to oor
Figure 9.1 Excerpt from Entropy Tracking Sheet Showing Choreography and Some
Sound Notes
described in his book Stage Management. With this process, every time there is
a new grouping of dancers on the stage a new drawing is made that uses
a series of dots or other marks to indicate where everyone is at that moment
and then arrows indicate where people go. Ultimately how you chart the dance
does not matter, but when you are done you need to be able to gure out the
following basic information throughout the entire piece from your notes:
• Who is on stage at any given moment (not necessarily by name)?

• Where they are going?
• What area of the stage are they occupying?
• What is the energy of the moment?
• What are some key gestures or movement phrases they are doing?
• Where are they when the next dancers enter the space?
• When and where do they exit the stage?
94
In addition to this you need to be able to recall what the music (or other
sound track) was doing. What sort of energy or feeling was being evoked for
you at that point in the dance and how might it have changed from the pre-
ceding moment? You need to know if there was a clear “story” moment
involved and what that may have been, and nally how this particular piece
of the dance t into the overall structure or narrative of the whole work.
This last one is very important and is not one you can necessarily gure out
as the piece is being run for you. Clarity in recording each moment is crit-
ical to this last part of the equation because you need to understand how
each part relates to the one before and the one after in order to be able to
understand the arc. This is why it should be a multi-viewing process. You
need to learn the whole work bit by bit before you can fully understand the
impact of the whole. This is my process for getting started but I did not
always work this way. When I was designing for a company where I had
regular access to the rehearsal process I would spend time visiting during the
creation of the work. I found that hearing how the choreographer spoke to
the dancers about the movement and the sequence of things was very help-
ful. I would come to rehearsal a half a dozen times before the work was n-
ished to see it slowly come together – only then would I begin to notate it.
The dierence was that by this time I had a very good understanding of the
arc and that helped me know which moments were the most important to
record in my notes. I wrote down less because I already knew more.
Once I have a record of the structure of the piece I can begin to really learn
it. Ideally I can go into the rehearsal room and watch the dancers, but this hap-
pens much less frequently now, in part because as a free-lance lighting designer
I cannot spend as much time with any one company and in part because I am
generally designing for companies in cities where I do not live. This is when
I nd video to be very helpful, but only once I already have the feel for the
piece and have been in the room absorbing the texture and the weight of the
dance. The few times I have been forced to learn a new work from video before
I got to rehearsal I have had to rely on someone who has been in the room to
help add the missing elements. Video provides a reasonable record of what the
dancer is physically doing but it is very little help with the subtleties of the
movement. Once I do get into the room I frequently nd that the moments
I felt were the most important on video have much less signicance in person. It
is also much less satisfying. I have talked with other designers who describe the
sweat and the rush of movement in the rehearsal room as being something they
love to be around and I agree it is a privilege to share the work space with the
dancers. The visceral quality of being inches from a dancer as they race across
the space is not the experience the audience will get, at least not after the rst
ve or six rows. Most everyone sees things from a further distance and some-
times what you are trying to do is to capture that shared experience and make
it big enough for the whole room. You can’t capture that quality, even with the
very best videos, and what you are likely to receive is not nearly that good.
95
Armed with the dynamic knowledge from the room and my careful notes
that help me remember sequence, I can now use the video to bring all the
other elements together. The rst several viewings of the recoded image are
about conrming what I remembered. Did I catch all the entrances and
exits in my notes? In my concentration on recording that information, did
I miss a signicant marker in the movement that was happening on stage?
Remembering that I have seen the work right after it was completed, does
the video show me the same relationship between movement and music?
Or, as has happened to me, have the dancers gured out a tricky rhythmic
section and the musical accent now hits three counts later in the movement?
This is particularly tricky on those cues where a choreographer wants
a bump change in the lighting and you want to complement the movement
and respond to the sound. Have the rough edges been so smoothed out that
the impact of certain moments has become muted? This is also when you
take the time to line up how the piece looked from the front with what you
have been given from whatever oblique angle the video was shot.
When my notes fully agree with the video (or subsequent studio run, if
I am lucky enough to get one) I can begin to incorporate more information
and move my track sheet into a cue sheet. This process involves getting my
tracking notes into a table with additional columns on either side of the
“action” column where the movement goes.
In Figure 9.2 you will see two columns marked “Time,” the rst one will be
for the running time in the piece and the second one will be for the duration of
each light cue when the piece is designed.
Figure 9.2 Excerpt from Divided Against Tracking Sheet Showing Movement Notes and
Additional Columns
96
Once I have gotten the information into a table format I can add the
elapsed time information. As much as I do not want the stage manager
calling the cues from a time line, I tend to oer one as a safety net.
I know from my own experience calling a new work that a time line can
help calm a panicked stage manager who suddenly thinks they have
missed a cue, or get them back on track if they actually have. I learned
this when I was calling cues for a performance by Laura Dean Dancers
and Musicians. Laura’s choreography was built on repeated patterns and
motifs and her compositions were of a similar style with the same note
sequence repeated many times with only slight variations. Knowing that
a cue was called on a specic arm gesture that happened at about nine
minutes and forty-ve seconds meant that I did not call the cue when
I rst saw the gesture three minutes into the piece. When I add an
elapsed time I always tie it to the sound track of the piece. If the curtain
opens in silence and the dancers move before the sound begins I do not
add a time for those things, I start the clock with the audio. If the piece
is performed in silence then I will not add a time line.
Now all that is left is to watch the piece as many times as it takes until
I know sequence, key movement phrases, and can see all the moments the
choreographer described when we rst discussed the piece. Once I feel as if
I fully understand the work I can begin to think about the design. I build
my palette of angles and colors, and I think about the arc of the piece and
how I want to respond to that. I begin to tell the story. The whole time
I keep checking back in with the choreography, either in the studio or via
video, to make sure I am not getting o track. I do not believe I have
learned a piece until I can listen to the music and see the choreography or
read through my notes and picture the moments I have notated. Which
brings me to my other tactic. In addition to writing it down multiple times
and watching it repeatedly, I nd that listening to the score is an excellent
way to learn the movement. If a piece has been choreographed to a score
then the movement is generally anchored to the counts and rhythms of that
score. Even if the relationship between them is accidental, it will become
intentional. Dancers have a habit of making the movement t the music.
I believe this comes from class being taught to a sound score and, as
a result, they learn to ride the music with the movement.
One of the things I used to love about watching ballet classes at the
North Carolina School of the Arts was watching the teacher mark out
a combination with hand gestures for the accompanist and then hearing the
results of the conversation in gesture. The weight and ow of the movement
at the barre or the driving energy of the allegro as it takes o across the
oor on the long diagonal all comes through in the music. Dancers are
trained to music and for the most part they dance to it as well. One of the
things that helps distinguish the really great dancers is their musicality. In
order to get that last piece of the dance work rmly in hand, I need to learn
97
the music. If there is a score for the piece I need to know that as well as
I know the dance. I regularly ask for copies of the music when I am design-
ing a new piece. I will listen to it in my car, load it on my computer, and
play it at work while I am working on emails. I make it part of my life’s
soundtrack while I am learning the choreography. Each one reinforces the
other as I am learning the piece. In fact I get so totally connected to the
music that if I am designing a production of The Nutcracker I have been
known to tell my family that we are not allowed to play The Nutcracker Suite
at home around Christmas. Most large companies will open their produc-
tions around Thanksgiving so by December I have been living with that
music for over a month and I am ready to move on.
My next step in this process is to begin to gure out where I want cues
and what I think the overall look of the piece will be. This helps me begin
to identify key moments in the choreography which also brings more clarity
to the story. It is important to gure out these moments and what they
should look like because it will speed the design process once we are in the
theatre. I believe it is important to know where you are going when you
start to design a new work. I am not one of those designers that likes to pre-
write the cues and then adjust them, rather I like to work with the dancers
in the space and jointly create the design. The only way that really works is
if I know what I am looking for. Once, I was having a great deal of trouble
visualizing a new work and I was worried about getting done in the amount
of time we had in the theatre. The choreographer had been very vague
about what they were looking for in our early conversations, and just before
tech had called with some specic images. I allowed myself a few minutes of
focused time with him and mapped out a starting look, and more import-
antly, the end of the piece. Suddenly everything came into focus for me.
The cues practically wrote themselves and the specic moments he had been
looking for fell neatly into place with what I was doing. I know that would
never have happened if I did not have a very clear idea of what I was driving
toward.
I once had the good fortune to work with Christina Telesca, a former stu-
dent, on a world premiere of a play she had written. Siiri Scott, the director,
was trying to gure out the last moment, so she invited me to rehearsal and
asked me to watch the end with her and the playwright. Then while the
stage manager oversaw a line read we went to discuss what we had seen.
I oered my opinion of what was working and how I felt the nal moment
could play and I described the light cue and then said “Fade to black.” The
director seemed to like it then the playwright spoke up: “I always thought
I was writing to a blackout.” In an instant I understood what her concerns
were and why she and the director had been struggling. What I saw in
rehearsal felt like it needed to end in a fade, but what she had imagined
ended in a blackout – the director was working to make those two things t
together. Knowing where you are going makes it certain you will get there.
98
By now my notes have begun to really resemble a cue sheet (as shown in
Figure 9.3). I have begun to take away some of the description of the dan-
cer’s movement, leaving very clear warning and cue points. I have assigned
cue numbers and times and I have it in my computer so I can revise it in
the theatre if anything changes. By this time everything I have written in my
notes calls up an image or a movement phrase and I am fairly condent
I can say I have learned the dance work.
I have developed a few survival tactics over the years for those times
when I am not given enough time to adequately learn a piece. Among these
is guring out the questions that will get the choreographer talking about
what they look for when they watch the piece. I will also jump straight to
asking them what the story is, although sometimes I have to help them
understand what I mean by story. When in doubt I follow the music. I listen
to the instrumentation and the colors of the music. I nd the way it is con-
nected to the piece I am watching. I look for the clues that may be present
in the costume design and, if there is a decor, how it relates to the
Figure 9.3 Excerpt from La Bellaza de Cuba Cue Sheet Based on Tracking Sheets
99
choreography. If I am not given the time I need to learn the piece I tend to
focus on everything that supports it. If I am compatible with all of that,
I will be compatible with the work itself.
I have also discovered that the longer I do this the better I become at the
process of learning a new work. I attribute my increased ability to my expos-
ure to lots of dierent kinds of pieces, and from that a growing knowledge of
dance. I do not discount the value of the several dozen adult dance classes
I took while I was working with Nikolais either. I know what an undercurve
is because I have pushed my body through one repeatedly until I felt the
change of weight and knew where that curve occurred. I still feel that taking
a dance classes was highly benecial to me but I do not feel as if it is some-
thing I would say that a student would need to do to become a dance light-
ing designer. Where it has paid o is in my ability to learn choreography
quickly. With a piece that is 15 or 20 minutes long I can watch and jot
notes as I go and at the end of the run talk through the entirety of the work
with a very clear understanding of where the movement was going and
I will remember a handful of key moments in the work. I also know that
was not something I could do when I started designing.
Ultimately nothing takes the place of doing your homework. How much
time it will take you and what your process will look like is not for me to
say. But believe me when I say there is no worse feeling than heading into
a tech rehearsal without having absolute clarity about what the piece you
are going to light should look like. You don’t want to have to experience
that sinking feeling when you lean over to the dance captain, hoping the
choreographer doesn’t hear you, to ask where the dancers go next. I never
want to face a lighting session not knowing what the dynamic shifts are and
what follows what in the sequence of the work. That kind of experience sup-
plies enough material for quite a few anxiety dreams.
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10
U N D E R S T AN DI NG THE P IE CE
O R H O W T O AP P R O A CH
C UEING
Learning the piece is only scratching the surface of your role as a designer.
It is a critical step in the overall design process because it establishes
a common language. Without this step you will have a hard time communi-
cating with both the choreographer and the stage manager. The more sig-
nicant task, however, is understanding the piece, particularly its structure
and the work’s intent. If you cannot get to that point it is dicult to know if
you are making the right choices for the piece when you create your design.
While the word “right” is relative, in this case I am using it to refer to the
design choices that are made from a point of full understanding of the work
as opposed to those that are more arbitrarily made without a full consider-
ation of the work. This includes all the choices you will make about angle
and color, which are addressed in other chapters, but most signicant in this
discussion are the choices that would arguably fall under the heading of
movement and intensity. This is where your impact as a lighting designer is
most obvious. The changing look of the space that can be created by
manipulating your light plot can be obvious or discreet, and to be honest
both can be appropriate – sometimes in the same piece.
The task is to gure out your role as lighting designer in this new work
that has yet to be placed on a stage. The possibilities that exist in that transi-
tion are limited only by the imagination of the creative artists on the artistic
team. While the team works to nd the best set of answers for the produc-
tion, I would hesitate to say that there can only be one right set of answers.
You simply have to listen to a compelling new performance of a song you
have known for years to understand that many artistic choices can be right.
It is about what is right in this production in this moment in this space. We
face a more complicated version of this idea when older works are revived.
Technology has advanced since the work was created and the options avail-
able in theatres have changed as have the aesthetics of the audience. What
then is our obligation? To faithfully recreate the work exactly as originally
produced, to create a new and viable experience for the audience, or to
attempt to recreate the impact of the piece on its original audience? Some-
thing that I would argue is virtually impossible to do. I oer as an example
101
UNDERSTANDING THE PIECE
The Rite of Spring, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky and performed by the

Ballet Russes in the Champs Elysee Theatre in Paris in 1913. Reports about
the audience’s initial reaction describe near riots with people shouting at the
stage. Millicent Hodson, who spent years assembling evidence in the form of
documents and rst-person accounts in order to recreate the original chore-
ography, shared a story of Nijinsky running back stage during the perform-
ance to shout the counts to the dancers on stage because there was so much
noise from the audience they could not hear the orchestra. I do not know if
this actually happened but I can attest to the complexity of the music and
how the choreography subdivided it.
The only controversy Millicent’s re-creation caused was the debate of
how authentic it was to the original and if she herself should be considered
a choreographer of the work or a historian who faithfully recreated it. To
chase after the audience reaction, “the riot,” that occurred in Paris would
have been futile. That response was to a very unconventional score and
a jarringly dierent style of choreography from what the audience had come
to expect. In 1913 a dancer deliberately moving across the stage with turned
in feet would have been rare indeed. In 1987, when the Jorey Ballet prem-
iered the Hodson re-creation, modern dance had long since dispensed with
the notion that a turned-out foot was the only acceptable line for a dancer.
The irregular rhythms of the Stravinsky score had been over-shadowed by
Schoenberg’s atonality or Cage’s found music scores in terms of disruptive
musical choices. Genuine outrage on the part of the audience would have
been a fabricated reaction in the 1980s while it came naturally to the Paris-
ian audience of 1913. This is without even considering the lighting. In all
likelihood the dance work would have been exclusively lit from the foot
lights, the torm pipes, and the lighting bridge with overhead strip lights and
some instruments from the front of house. Side light was not yet a concept
for lighting dance. If an attempt had been made to recreate the original
lighting the modern-day audience might have had a strong reaction to that
as it would have been very dicult to see what was going on at the back of
the stage. This means that any choice that is made in lighting this contem-
porary revival must by circumstance be dierent than that which was origin-
ally made. This does not mean the original design was wrong or that the
new one should be considered incorrect.
The right design is the one that looks right to the designer and the choreog-
rapher, and perhaps the artistic director, at the time of the performance and
that supports the structure and intent of the piece. Your most important
resource in this process, beyond your own artistic response to the piece, is the
creator of the work. Sometimes choreographers will have very specic ideas
about what they want the piece to look like. At other times they may have virtu-
ally no idea. Part of this is in their training and part of it comes from their own
aesthetic. I have never assumed that a choreographer who tells me that they
trust me and I should do what I “think is right” is abdicating their right to have
102
an opinion about the lighting. Instead I see this as a collaborator who is happy
to see what I, as a fellow creative artist, can nd in their work. It is not a test, at
least it is not a test of me. It is a genuine acknowledgment of the perspective my
training can bring into the process. If it is a test, it is of their own work. Does it
communicate what the choreographer is hoping it will? Do I respond to the
mood, the “story,” the ow, the whatever, in a manner congruent with the
choreographer’s intent?
No matter how much or how little information I get from the choreog-
rapher, it is merely a starting point. Throughout the process of learning the
piece that I outlined in the last chapter, I am searching for meaning within
and connections to the work. I pay attention to the moments that feel dis-
tinct, I listen to the score, I watch for the patterns of movement and of num-
bers of dancers on stage. When is the full cast present, when does it drop
down to a duet or a solo? Does it always use the whole space or are there
moments of smallness, either in movement or in the amount of the stage
that is being used? All of this is part of understanding the fabric of the work,
what makes it unique, what I want to help the audience see. I am not trying
to reimagine the work, rather I am trying to be a critical audience member
and understand what I see in the piece and gure out if I can highlight that
experience.
The process begins with the “rst look,” that run through of a generally
nished, but not necessarily polished, piece where I rst get to see the whole
work. I am trying to be an audience member as well as to take notes on the
piece itself. With a longer work like an evening length piece I do not take
notes the rst time through. I would get too caught up in the notation pro-
cess and would miss out on being an informed audience member. I may
take a few random notes so that I can talk with the choreographer about
specic moments but mostly I am looking for the overall arc as opposed to
the individual beats. This is where my theatre background comes in. I tend
to approach “story ballets” as I would a play, just with permission to make
more changes in the look of the stage and without feeling an obligation to
remain faithful to reality. I believe that full length “story” works, either
ballet or modern, leave room for the lighting designer to elevate the emotion
of moments in a way that we do not often in designs for straight plays. In
this way the design obligations are similar to a musical where the expect-
ation of linear reality and faithfulness to time and place are not always
appropriate. But as with all generalizations this does not apply to all dance
works. This determination about how I need to think about my role in the
completion of the piece is also something I am trying to gure out during
the rst look.
This is one of the places I have learned to rely on my instincts. There is not
a formula that I can oer about determining what the lighting design is being
asked to do, in part because I am also unwilling to assert that there is a single
answer for every piece. I bring my own aesthetics and my background to bear
103
on each and every design I create and I am fairly certain that what I do will not
be the exact same design a dierent lighting designer would create. There are
likely to be similarities, particularly if the choreographer has specic requests to
make, but I would hope there would be dierences as well. I have often said
that the day that I go see a piece of theatre or a dance work and come out
thinking the design was exactly what I would have done is the day I need to
quit designing. I say this because it would mean that I no longer have a unique
perspective to oer a choreographer – there is someone else who sees things the
same way I do. I have not yet had that experience and I have come to believe
that I probably never will because the longer I stay in this business the more
I amass a broad portfolio of designs and experiences and the less likely it
becomes that someone else will have a similar background to draw upon.
But how is this helpful to someone starting out on this path? If I am
implying that my ability to respond to a piece and determine what my role
is in its completion is based on my past experiences, what good is that to
someone else? The truth is that my past experiences are not at all useful.
What I hope is that this is further incentive to take on the assignment
I suggested earlier of watching any dance you can get to. Perhaps it is
a more concrete reason to make it a point to see any live broadcast or
dances lmed in performance. It is very hard to capture the feeling of being
at the performance but at least it is broadening your perspective about
dance. I believe the answer to the question of what are you being asked to
bring to a new work is one that comes from the negotiation that is the rst
conversation you have with the choreographer after you have watched a run
through.
I like to listen at least as much as I speak during this conversation. Some-
times this requires my asking questions and at other times I simply need to
wait. When I was rst starting out I would often make the mistake of jumping
in with all of my ideas, the visual images that I had felt in response to the
choreography. I have come to realize there was a level of insecurity in this
response. That perhaps if I didn’t show that I had ideas to oer that the
assumption would be that I wasn’t up to the job. I wonder how many conver-
sations I short circuited by eagerly oering my ideas. I am certain I changed
the course of at least one or two designs by not letting the choreographer
share early and often in the conversation. I say this because I have learned
that for many dance makers lighting is a mystery. They know they need it but
they do not always know what it can do for them. If a conversation is focused
on something about which one person is assumed to be an expert and the
other one is insecure, and the expert jumps in rst with all their “answers,”
where does that leave the insecure one?
This applies to virtually any topic, not just lighting. If the expert does not
make room for the novice to ask questions or oer their own instinctive ideas
then nothing goes further than where the expert already is. I think many great
new ideas in the sciences and in the arts have come from uninformed questions.
104
The “Have you ever thought about?” sort of questions that come from
a perspective of curiosity as opposed to one of training are, in my humble opin-
ion, incredibly valuable. It is why I enjoy teaching. I am asked on a near daily
basis to consider a dierent way of thinking about the topic at hand than the
one I assumed we would be discussing. My lighting design class often has stu-
dents from other elds beyond theatre and lm. One week it may be an archi-
tect who comes up with a dierent way of looking at what I do and the next it
could be a business major. I recently had the opportunity to develop
a discussion-based seminar for the College of Arts and Letters at Notre Dame.
I simply called it “Light.” While we spent a good portion of the semester dis-
cussing light in theatre, we also spent time with Impressionism and physics.
Some of the most interesting discussions though were about the students’ own
discoveries of how light impacted their day to day existence. Armed with noth-
ing more than the manageable properties of light (intensity, distribution, color,
and movement) and their own observations, they simply talked about what they
saw. It was refreshing.
We lighting designers have no right of ownership over what light can do
when it hits a three-dimensional object. We have simply learned how to cap-
ture the memory of that interaction, been taught how to speak about it with
authority, and have been introduced to the tools that can help us recreate
some version of it on stage. If we are good at our job we can apply those
tools to an image of light that someone else comes up with just as easily as
we can with the image we have imagined. It is the very mystique around the
work that we do that requires us to listen more than we speak in the initial
conversation with the choreographer. I have spent a good chunk of this
chapter talking around the idea of this rst conversation because I think it is
critical. It is probably the only conversation you will have about the piece to
which you bring no preconceptions. After this point you will begin collecting
ideas, images of what moments of the dance could look like. These pictures
will begin to impact your choices about instruments and angles and colors.
They will take the form of snippets of a light plot that will eventually reform
the images into something you can create with the plot you have imagined.
What happens in this rst conversation is the purest response to the shared
process of creation that is the ideal for most designers. If I do not listen care-
fully and do not make sure I have created room for the choreographer to
share their ideas the miscommunication will show up later – in the theatre –
when I hear “This isn’t what I imagined it would look like.”
Try as I might, I am not immune to that experience, despite the many
years I have been doing this. A recent production reminded me of this when
a discussion before the design was submitted centered on the changing aspect
of time of day and the fact that we did not have to be literal about it. We
discussed some points as feeling like dusk or even early evening and others
being very bright. Then in the theatre as I was working to create a look that
was right for a particular moment I heard: “This whole act should feel like
105
a bright sunny afternoon.” I wanted to say: Why are you just telling me this
now? But instead I thanked my lucky stars that I had added a sunny amber to
the plot in a couple of places to highlight the gold trim on many of the act two
costumes. While we had a good conversation, and I listened a great deal,
I know I was the one who asked the question about faithfulness to passage of
time and the need to have it be a single day or not. I think it planted an idea
that was not the real answer.
But if you are really collaborating on a design you need to eventually
bring your own insight to the piece. In order to do this you have to get to
the point where you really know the work. You have to understand its struc-
ture and the various points of interest or accents along the way. This will
help you gure out when and where you can place a light cue to enhance
what the movement is doing. The breakdown and scripting process is
a good rst step. The physical structure will always oer clues as to how you
need to proceed. In many cases it will be a road map to the placement of
cues and may also give a good perspective as to what those cues need to
accomplish. But it is usually not enough to dictate the entire design. For that
we need to take into account the intangibles that you learned from your
conversation with the choreographer and your own observations of the
piece. You are looking for the answers to the why questions.
How do you lead your audience to the point where they either nd their
own answers to those questions, or they understand that the answer is not as
important as the question? The answer to that is: You cannot really do it by
yourself.
Here is where we run face rst into the issue of collaboration. For the
lighting designer in particular, the actual collaborative process varies signi-
cantly on each and every project. In an ideal world you will join in the pro-
cess at the point where the new work is nothing more than an idea and
a group of creative artists trying to bring it to life. There may be a few
movement ideas in place and perhaps an idea about the score, but the piece
has not yet been set on the dancers. The opposite experience is often true as
well; by the time you join the process the piece is nished and has been
rehearsed for several weeks. The costumes are fully designed and the scenery
has been nished. You get pictures of those elements and get invited to
watch a full run of the piece and either get about 15 minutes with the chore-
ographer or sometimes their phone number to call and have a “discussion
about the lighting.” In one experience you will feel like an artistic partner,
in the other you can feel more like a hired hand brought in to make sure
everyone else’s work looks good. It is good to know what you are walking
into, and where it falls on the spectrum between these two extremes.
You will need to take a slightly dierent approach in each of those situations
but your responsibility remains the same. Even if you feel as if every signicant
artistic decision has been made before you get there, you still have
a responsibility to the audience that most of the other members of the design
106
team do not. Your work is the only thing that is as uid as the dancers them-
selves. Costumes and scenery are designed and built well in advance of your
arrival in the theatre and by and large they will not change. If the choreography
is changed it is with the understanding that the scenery and costumes will
remain the same. Lighting, and projections – if they are involved – are the
design element capable of responding to last minute adjustments in what the
dancers are doing. This is one of the challenges the lighting designer is asked to
work with. For me it has always been one of the things I really liked. What I do
is more immediate and much more connected to the dancers’ work and
I appreciate that challenge. There have certainly been times when the changes
have been so signicant that I wish I had been given the chance to rewatch the
piece and adjust the light plot, but usually it only impacts the cueing.
Let’s go back to the beginning. I said that during the rst look “I pay atten-
tion to the moments that feel distinct, I listen to the score, I watch for the pat-
terns of movement and of numbers of dancers on stage.” Why? What is it that
I expect to get from all of those things? While I am designing the whole piece
“the moments that feel distinct” are very useful in getting the full understanding
of how the piece is put together. Just as it is often the exceptions to a rule that
help us understand the rule, those moments that stand apart from the rest of
the choreography provide signicant clues as to its nature. As an example: If all
the dancers cross through and out of the stage space in a relatively similar
manner at comparable speeds with the same physical energy, there is no clear
feeling of the dynamic quality of the piece. If on the other hand, in the midst of
this similarity, a dancer suddenly darts on from the wings and literally runs cir-
cles around the rest of the dancers, the sudden contrast denes the movement
quality we have been seeing from the ensemble and we have learned something
about the piece. The contrast of the “distinct” movement denes the ensemble
and the soloist. I may not yet know what that denition is but I have a piece of
the puzzle, I also have very likely identied a place where I will need a cue.
I “listen to the score” because I know this aural landscape was created for
or chosen by the choreographer. With incredibly few exceptions, this means
that they decided this would add to the work. For the sake of the rest of this
explanation let’s assume the dance is being performed to a piece of music.
Most of what I have to say about this is easier to understand in that context,
but I would argue that audio collages or found sound scores have many of the
same clues, provided they are created for the work and the dancers rehearse
to it. If you are working with someone who is following some of Merce Cun-
ningham or John Cage’s ideas about chance then you can basically ignore
what follows.
Music creates a set of clues for the designer who pays attention. The
musical dynamics need to be listened to, changes in tempo or key can
be meaningful, and certainly shifts between dierent pieces of music or
movements in a larger work should not be ignored. This does not mean
you have to follow exactly what the music is saying but you would miss
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an opportunity if you do not make deliberate choices about how you

are going to respond to it. One of the things that I say to most of the
stage managers I work with is “If there is a change in the music within
spitting distance of a cue placement – go with the music.” The dancers
certainly are – or will be by the second or third performance. I recently
designed a production of The Nutcracker for Ballet West and when I met
with the stage manager to give him cue placements, we did it with
a recording of the music. There are many very clear cues in that score
and in general they signify a change in the choreography and often
a key moment in the story. While this was a new design for the com-
pany, it was not the rst time the stage manager had called the piece
for them. Since I was tying my cues to the music, I made sure that he
understood what I was doing as opposed to what had been done before.
I knew the chances were pretty good that he would have had cues in many
of the same places but his old calling sheets were all movement based.
I wanted my design to dance along with the performers, the only way to get
that was to use the music. The score created the cue points and, for the most
part, determined the speed of the cues. This is important to think about. If the
music shifts to a slower tempo at the point you want to place a cue, then your
count should match the new feel of the music. By the same token if your cue
falls at a point where there is a crash in the percussion accompanied by
a three-note trumpet call, your cue should really be completed by the time the
trumpet is, and maybe even before the trumpet starts. If there is a swell in the
music and the main theme reappears voiced by dierent instruments, then
that is a good place to add a cue that builds intensity of stage; likewise
a dynamic shift to a “pianissimo” section may be where you want to reduce
the amount of space that is being lit or perhaps the intensity with which it is
illuminated. While I cut my teeth on modern dance and much of my early
design work was to avant-garde scores, I try never to ignore what the score is
telling me except on that rare occasion when the choreographer is ignoring it.
In that case the dance piece wins. Another way to think about this is that
there is a dynamic arc to the choreography, and the choreographer has
matched that with a piece of music. If you add a completely dierent arc in
the lighting then it will stand out – most likely as inconsistent, and therefore
presumed wrong. There will be times when the score and the choreography
are in contrast as opposed to synchronous, in that case your lighting belongs
in that area of contrast. I always think it is easier to discuss those sorts of
details using music terminology but it is much more important to be able to
hear it than it is to name it.
I have tried to keep this discussion of music fairly simple and I would say
that if I lost you at any point, you need to read some articles or books on
music appreciation. You need to listen to a wide range of artists and you
need to take the time to break down the music of the next piece you design.
One of the courses I added to my schedule as a supplement to my college
108
training was a music history class. I also worked as a DJ at my college radio

station and learned to edit music with a razor blade and a reel-to-reel tape
recorder. All of these things helped me with my musical understanding.
I also grew up in a family of musicians, even though I never learned to play
an instrument myself. I also remember hearing my father talk about the fact
the he believed no one was really tone deaf and that there wasn’t anyone
who couldn’t be taught how to sing a simple song. So when I have run into
stage managers who tell me they can’t hear what I am talking about in the
music I nd it frustrating but I never give up. I know the score will help the
lighting design perform with the dancers and I want to give it the best
chance for success.
Finally, I said that “I watch for the patterns of movement and of numbers
of dancers on stage.” By patterns of movement I mean two dierent but
related things. The patterns can literally be oor patterns, or the pathways
that the dancers take on stage. As a choreographer Laura Dean was all
about patterns – the majority of which were circles. Any design for her work
had to be able to highlight the circular pattern within the rectangle of the
stage. In other dance works the patterns may rely on lateral lines, up stage
to down stage lines, diagonal lines, and, in at least one piece I worked on,
a spiral into center. The actual request to me as a designer was to fade the
stage to black as the dancers ran in a spiral – but they wanted the light to
contract into the middle as if a stopper had been pulled out of the drain in
a sink and the water was swirling around the sink and into the drain. While
it is not actually possible to drain the light out through the oor it was
a great image and something that helped me create the fade they were look-
ing for. I was ready to respond to this request because I observed that the
piece was full of circular patterns so I had added three or four dierent sets
of instruments to respond to that.
The other pattern concept is the repetition of movement motifs. How
often do they return, are they related to a musical theme, or is it a story
telling device? Are the patterns used for the same impact each time and do
I need to have a comparable lighting motif to support the repeated appear-
ances? I am sure I will have an idea of how I should respond to these but
I also know it is something I would check in with the choreographer about.
Maybe the answer will be the same color of light each time but from
a dierent angle or maybe the same angle in a dierent color. In other
words I need to acknowledge the motif in some way but the overall piece
should tell me what way. These repeated patterns usually have signicance
and I can help convey that to the audience once I fully understand it.
This phrase also relates to discovering how the idea of stage space, or space
in general, impacts the choreographic design of the piece. This is where the
number of dancers on stage is worth noting. When does the piece ll the stage
with bodies and why does it whittle down to only one or two dancers? What
do those choices have to say about the overall stage space and do I need to be
109
prepared to contract and expand the perceived amount of space available to

the dancers? When they isolate their movement to a single wing is that the
only space I light? A single dancer moving in a down light center stage is
a very dierent feeling from that same dancer doing the same movement on
a fully lit stage.
Much of this information becomes apparent when you are charting the
dance as discussed in the last chapter, but that is a mechanical process and
what I am suggesting is needed is a more holistic process. I don’t watch it
once to look for the distinct moments and another time for the patterns and
then just listen to the score. This is a tricky process because all of the elements
need to be absorbed at the same time, they need to be taken together – in
context in order to understand the structure of the piece. I also know full well
that the structure that you discover may indeed need reinforcing through your
design. I remind you of my experience with Creative Force. Despite the kind
words of the ballet masters, I did not change that piece. The structure was
there all along and I was probably able to see and understand it precisely
because I was not focused on the steps as they were. But I also know that
I went into that run-through looking for the structure, determined to nd and
support it. It is this process of supporting that creates dierent designs. I may
see dierent ways of supporting the choreographer than another designer and
that is perfectly ne. The “right design” is a combination of artists and cir-
cumstance and if we change any one of the artists or alter the circumstances
of the premiere the likelihood is that it will result in a dierent but equally
viable design.
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11
WH Y D I D Y OU PU T T H AT
L I GHT T HER E?
One of the manageable properties of light on my list of four was angle, which
I also referred to, almost interchangeably, as distribution. While the rst word is
more specic to the discussion, I think the second is key to an understanding of
how we need to think about light and dimensionality. It is through the use of
multiple angles of light that we create a design for a specic piece of choreog-
raphy. It is rare to rely on a single angle, we almost always think in terms of
complementary angles, so at the very least each singular angle will demand
a second one to be added. This is why “distribution” is a better term in
a design, while “angle” is an easier way to understand what a lighting position
can do for us. I will try to remain consistent in this approach with “angle” being
specic to a light and “distribution” to an overall design. I will also apologize at
the outset for the shift in tone in this section. I simply can’t think of a more con-
versational approach to a fairly technical aspect of lighting design.
There are essentially four angles of light that we work with: front, side, top,
and back. Within each of these general classications there are multiple vari-
ations both in terms of height and, at least for front and back, angle of inci-
dence. In other words, it is not uncommon to use diagonal front light and
diagonal back light. While this alters the impact of the light signicantly it is
still very much from the back or the front and shares many characteristics
with the rest of the light in that category. In order to get the dry stu out of
the way I want to tackle angle rst and then we can discuss distribution.
When I was discussing space we touched very briey on angles. They were
part of Tom Skelton’s dance lighting areas and gured in the approach that
Ward Resur taught me while I was in High School. In addition to the ideas
I will share here about the impact dierent angles have on how we perceive
an object, we need to also keep in mind the ideas of how dancers move
through space and how we can use the angle of light to accentuate the line of
the choreography. These are not incompatible ideas and it is the combination
of multiple considerations about angle that help us land on the appropriate
distribution of light in our nal design. No decision in a design should be
made in a vacuum; in other words the use of space will gure in the decisions
we make about distribution.
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WHY DID YOU PUT THAT LIGHT THERE?
Front light is perhaps the easiest to understand and it is the one that we
most often rely on in life and in spoken word theatre. For me this term
applies to light which originates along the same perspective as the spectator’s
gaze. In a theatre this is typically light that is mounted above the audience’s
heads to provide a attering angle of light that provides maximum visibility
to the faces of the performers as they look at the audience. I refer to it as
“medium front light” and it is this light that I also call “face light.” The
angle that has been described as the most natural is 45° above the horizon
(or eye) line. Why 45°?
This is the angle of light that casts the most realistic shadow. If we go back to
basic math and consider the isosceles right triangle we can begin to understand
what I am saying. By denition an isosceles triangle has two sides and two
angles that are identical. A right triangle has one angle that is 90° and if the
other two angles are identical they must be 45°. As shown in Figure 11.1, if you
imagine that the vertical line represents the object casting a shadow, the hori-
zontal line as the shadow, and the hypotenuse as the angle of light – we have
our explanation. I teach my students that we get more information about the
dimensionality of an object through shadow than highlight. If the shadow is an
accurate representation of the object casting the shadow, in other words they
are equal, then it stands to reason this will give us the most accurate information
about the object.
In a traditional “McCandless” approach to lighting a play, you would rely
on this 45° elevation front light but you would push it out so that it was also
45° o center to either side. In other words, you would light your actor by
using the diagonals in a cube. According to Stanley McCandless you should
Object
45º
Angle of light
90º
45º
Shadow
Figure 11.1 Natural Angle of Light
112
also color these two lights with dierent hues, one warm and one cool. This
combination of angles (and color) to create a front light appropriate for an
actor is what I am calling distribution. In this case a seemingly singular angle
of light that is actually created by two complementary lights of opposite but
similar angles – 45° high but on opposites sides of center. McCandless’s reason
for splitting the front light was to create a greater sense of three-dimensional
plasticity to the actor’s gure, and more signicantly, their face. In dance,
where we are much more likely to include many more angles of light than just
front, it is not as important that we split our front light to either side of center;
a straight on 45° high front is much more common.
This is not, however, the only elevation at which we will use front light.
The lowest angle of front light – which I call “very low front” – is a position
that for years was out of fashion but is now getting used more and more
often. I am referring to foot lights. The advantage of this low angle front
light is that it lifts the gure – something ballet appreciates – and it also soft-
ens the shadows other lights can create – something older performers appre-
ciate. It is also a reasonable angle for lighting painted drops, although it
does introduce multiple shadows of any performer moving between the foots
and the drop. At low levels this position is a very nice ll in light but unless
there is a foot light trough or the instruments can be mounted below the
oor line the xtures can block the view of the dancers feet, and, in modern
dance where they are more likely to spend some time on the oor, the dan-
cers themselves.
Due to the practical limitations of most theatres and the desire to not
have lighting instruments that block the audience view you will likely not be
able to use this very low front light. The next highest angle of front light is
what I would call “low front light” and it is positioned on the balcony rail.
The balcony rail is a lighting position that sits along the front edge of the
balcony seating area, out of view to those in the balcony and generally those
on the main oor as well. In most cases this light hits the performer at
about horizon level or 5° to 10° above it. It is good for certain eects and
for lling in the front of the person, but it is hard for the performer as it
glares in their eyes and casts shadows all over anything up stage. I tend to
classify this as a “special” angle – not one that I rely on for the dancers, but
one that creates a very particular kind of look on stage that can’t be created
any other way.
As you move above the 45° elevation “medium front light” you move into
“high front light.” The advantage of this direction is that it doesn’t light as far
behind the performer as medium front light. The disadvantage is that it casts
more of the face in shadow. In dance this may not be as signicant a problem
and this steeper angle can be very useful. It creates visibility to the front of the
body without lighting up a great deal of the oor. It can introduce a color
wash or a texture in a limited space. The higher you go the more this position
becomes a special light that denes a smaller space and draws attention to one
113
or two gures instead of a swath of the stage. It is also moving very close to
top light and has many of the same characteristics.
Top light is a position that has very specic uses in controlling and den-
ing space on a stage. Because it hangs above the performer it has the ability
to light the gure and cover the least amount of additional oor space –
with the possible exception of shin light, which we will discuss under side
light, it is one of the best angles for isolating the dancer in the space. It has
the disadvantage of placing the face in deep shadow and to a certain degree
foreshortening the gure. On the other hand, these same extreme shadows
will do really nice things for the musculature of the torso. I once saw
a concert of all-male ballet dancers; the program featured (and I use that
word intentionally) about six very athletic men who danced a variety of
ballet variations and contemporary solos that all just happened to be cos-
tumed without shirts or with unbuttoned shirts. It was an evening of pectoral
muscles and washboard abdominals, all lit with a heavy reliance on top
light. It was borderline exhibitionistic, and the lighting made sure all those
men looked like they were in excellent shape.
Top light is ideally from directly overhead, but the restrictions created in
many theatres will mean that a designer may have to put the light slightly in
front or just behind dead center of the area being lit. This is a choice that
should be carefully considered as moving it slightly back creates a bit more
of a sense of mystery with less information about the face and front of the
body being visible, while being slightly forward accentuates the front of the
body and makes it possible to distinguish some features on the face.
As a designer I have often erred on the side of little to no front light and
typically placed my top light directly above or slightly behind the middle of
a pool of light. In fact there was one performance with the Jorey Ballet
that got all the way to bows before I realized that an operator error had
prevented any of the front light from coming on. I do, however, acknow-
ledge that there are times when seeing the dancer’s face can be important
and I know that if the front of the body is kept too dark it feels as if there is
a barrier between the dancer and their audience. The particular piece the
Jorey was performing, Sometimes It Snows in April from the larger piece
Billboards, was one that felt very much like the dancers were dancing with
each other. I realized after the performance that the piece had felt much
more voyeuristic to me as a result of the missing angle of light – it felt like
I was involved in the visual equivalent of eavesdropping.
So where the top light is placed does make a dierence, and as
a designer you need to know what that dierence looks like. Many dance
plots will include a set of top lights that can subdivide the stage into smaller
sections. They can also be used as specials to accent, or draw focus to, cer-
tain areas of the stage. They are clearly visible to the audience in terms of
their shape and color unless an attempt has been made to soften the edges
to allow them to blend into the rest of the light. So while it may not be the
114
most attering angle for the face, it is a very useful tool in controlling and
shaping the space.
Back light is somewhat related because in general you will be working
with high back light. This is again due to the practical considerations. There
is generally masking in place to keep the audience from seeing the lights,
which also limits the angle available to you for back light. Too far up stage
and you will not be able to light the area of the stage you have in mind
because of the masking. As you move to the areas of the stage that are
themselves further up stage then the backdrop becomes an obstacle for the
lights. The result then is that typically back light comes from about 25° to
30° behind vertical. In some cases the angle will vary, with the angle being
slightly deeper downstage and a bit steeper up stage. One of the characteris-
tics of this angle is that it is one of the most visible to the audience. Most
dance surfaces have a slightly reective quality to them and the result is that
the reected light goes toward the audience. This means that back light can
make a very strong visual statement. Generally, this also means that you
want your back light to blend well between instruments and you are more
likely to use a soft edge beam of light. This angle also allows you to make
some very strong color statements using the oor as if it were an additional
backdrop for the dance.
It is possible to use “low back light” but it generally requires doing away
with a backdrop. It also means shooting the light into the audience’s eyes.
This makes it a much less practical angle for lighting dance as it disrupts
our ability to see what is going on on the stage. I have seen it used as
a “special eect” in certain pieces but rarely and only for very short periods
of time. “Very low angle back light,” the inverse of foot light, can also be
used for very particular purposes. It needs to be placed on the oor in front
of the backdrop and is generally focused high enough to miss the audience’s
eyes. Of course, if you are in a theatre where there are several balconies this
becomes harder to accomplish and still have the light make an impact on
the dancer’s gure. This angle of light also falls into the special eect desig-
nation and in most cases makes more of a scenic impact then a real lighting
dierence.
Which brings us to side light, the angle of light most often associated with
dance lighting. There are several reasons why this association exists between
dance and side light. The rst and most obvious is that it was Jean
Rosenthal’s placing of lights on stands in the wings of the opera houses that
broke the mold of traditional theatrical lighting. This was a practical solution
to a very dicult problem; the back half of the stage was lit for scenery and
now it was being occupied by dancers. There was a need for lighting that
covered the entire stage, just as the dancers would cover the entire stage.
The quickest way to get that light was to use a system that could sit on the
ground – side booms – rather than trying to rig something in the air and get
power to it. Then there are the aesthetic reasons. Side light brings out the
115
entire gure and since there is not any direct illumination from the audience
side of the gure the tendency to focus on the face to try to understand the
emotion or the text, as we do in plays, is not as prevalent. In addition,
the use of matched side light from either side results in a thin shadow line
which runs down the front of the body and along each limb. The eect of
this shadow is to create a stick gure rendering of the line and shape of the
particular movement that the dancer is performing. This subliminal simpli-
cation of the dancer’s line gives the viewer a very clear understanding of the
movement.
Side light is less dependent on pre-existing lighting positions than the
other angles of light. Traditionally, vertical pipes are erected as needed in
the location the lighting designer designates. These positions range in height
from a few feet tall to around 20 feet tall. The height depends on the needs
of the design, on the construction method used to create the vertical pos-
ition, and on how much equipment is placed in this position. These mechan-
ical considerations, while important, do not directly relate to this discussion.
As designers we should understand what goes into making our designs work,
but there will be plenty of people who can help work out the mechanics of
the design once it is time to set it up in the theatre. While this exibility
means that side light can quite literally be placed wherever the designer
wants, it is important not to forget that the dancers still need to get on and
o the stage. It is important to keep safe, clear entrances when you are
thinking about where to put the side lights.
Since I mentioned shin light earlier I will start at the bottom, with “very
low angle side light.” This position takes its name from the fact that the
lighting instrument lines up with the dancer’s shins. Its full name is “shin
buster,” referring to the collision that could occur if the dancer did not pay
close attention to the location of the instruments as they exited the stage.
This is arguably the one angle of light that is unique to dance lighting.
While all side light is important and dance does rely heavily on it, this very
low angle is often seen as the most iconic dance lighting position. It is typic-
ally set up so that it either barely streaks the oor or does not even touch it.
It is focused on the dancer and hits the minimum amount of scenery and
oor as possible. The light shoots beyond the dancer and into the wings on
the opposite side of the stage. This lets the designer eectively light just the
dancer and nothing else around them. This ability to control how the audi-
ence sees the performer separate from how the environment is illuminated is
one of the critical dierences between dance lighting and virtually any other
method of lighting a live performance. If this is the only angle of light being
used it eectively allows the performer to appear to be oating just above
the oor – suspended in space.
As a side note, it can be very dicult for a dancer to work in this kind of
light. Absent a visual connection to the oor it is hard to balance and with
no clear indication of up stage or down stage it is easy to get turned around.
116
Despite how magical this angle of light can look it needs to be balanced
with other angles or only used very briey on its own when the dancer is
securely in contact with the oor in order to keep them safe. In addition to
all the considerations about the actual design, a spotting light can help with
issues of balance and facings. This small point of light, generally from the
back of the auditorium, helps the dancers distinguish down stage from up
stage. When there is a black backdrop behind the dancers and the audience
chamber is totally dark, up stage and down stage look the same to someone
who is moving quickly. This xed point can also be used by dancers for bal-
ance as it provides a horizon reference. Once they have that horizon refer-
ence it becomes possible to balance, even if the oor is not visible to them.
I have known dancers to use exit signs when no spotting light was available
but they are almost never in the middle of the audience. This means they
can begin to shift their body positions to the point where they are no longer
square to the audience without even realizing it.
Shin light is so valuable that many repertory dance plots include at least
two units mounted as close to the oor as possible. Alwin Nikolais, along
with his technical sta, even developed a structure that allowed them to
place four lighting instruments under the height of three feet in each wing.
(An illustration of this can be found in Chapter 12.) As these lights begin to
creep up the side light position there is a new consideration. If you continue
to focus the light so that it does not touch the oor you will introduce
a shadow line (or shutter cut) on the dancer’s body further and further from
the oor. In fact, one of the regular debates I have with fellow designers is
how distinct, or sharp, you should make that shutter line and how to avoid
“cutting o” the dancer’s feet when you focus these lights. In addition, as
these lights creep up in height you eventually move into the realm of “low
side light” and need to negotiate how much light can hit the oor. Low side
light will eventually run into “medium side light” as you go up the position.
Low side light is not a position you tend to rely on for visibility, it is more of
a ll light or an accent light. For me, the distinguishing point between low
side and medium side light is when the lighting instrument shoots over the
dancers’ heads.
Until you get high enough on the side light position to shoot over the
dancers’ heads your light will create signicant shadows for dancers who
wind up in line with the instrument. The rst dancer in line gets a great
deal of light but their body casts a shadow that makes it impossible to light
anyone else who is directly in line with them. Dancers learn to cheat their
lines during pieces that rely heavily on low side light, or to set up their line
so that they are on the up stage edge of the beam of light. This helps miti-
gate this one drawback to this position. Once the light is high enough to
shoot over the dancer’s head this is much less of a consideration; it also
means that the dancer’s relationship to the side light has changed. Low side
117
light is the dancer’s light; medium side light now impacts the oor so it is
not as singularly intended for the dancer.
Medium side lights (or mids) light the dancer, but they also light the
oor. If the hot spot (the brightest part of the beam of light) hits the dancer
from slightly above their heads it has to light the oor. A good deal of the
beam of light still runs o into the wings but the oor is now part of the
image. Designers frequently hang a couple of lights at this general height
and they are generically referred to as head highs (or heads) despite the fact
that they actually hang just above head high. Ideally these will not be so
high that a stage hand with a two-step ladder can’t easily reach them to
change color. These instruments and the shins are frequently recolored
during pauses between pieces on a program and in some cases, The Green
Table being one, even during a piece. The development of color changers
that used scrolls of dierent colored gels instead of a color wheel (the earliest
color changing technology) oered a relief from the need to regel by hand.
However the cost, noise, size, and general delicateness of these devices
resulted in them never fully replacing the stage hand and their ladder or
stool. At this height it is also still possible to use a single instrument to light
across the full width of the stage. I have worked with some companies that
have used dierent beam spreads on these “heads” with one of them focused
a bit closer to its point of origin and the other further away, but the beam
still essentially covers the whole stage.
The next category of side light is “high sides.” These instruments are
hung on the side position at a height of anywhere between ten feet and the
top of the position. Generally, these are hung in pairs with one instrument
focused near the hanging position and the other focused further across the
stage. The beam sizes are selected in such a manner as to give the impres-
sion of a single instrument covering the full width of the stage. With light
from this position there is virtually no shadowing of your fellow dancers
unless you are in direct contact with them. The light impacts the oor with
almost equal intensity as the dancer and is intended to illuminate and color
them equally. It is a position that is for the performer and the space, as
opposed to the lower angles that were much more about the performer; in
that regard, as we move up the side light position, these angles of side light
are much more like the other angles we have discussed so far, with the
exception of back light. Back light, you may remember, has its greatest
impact on the oor and so could be considered as principally lighting the
space.
“Very high side light,” which is generally hung on the ends of the over-
head electric positions and is frequently referred to as pipe ends, also has
a very strong impact on the oor. It provides illumination for the gure but
due to the angle it drives into the oor creating a strong visual impact on it.
I will frequently put texture into instruments I hang as pipe ends. This way
I can get a highlight on the dancer without washing out the oor. While it is
118
not the only place I will use texture, because of the way it lights the oor as
well as the dancer it is the one where I feel I can get the most impact from
a set of gobos, thin pieces of metal that can be placed in certain instruments
to project a texture within the beam of light.
These are the basic tools we have to work with when we consider angle.
It is how we combine these that lead us into the discussion of distribution.
When I design for a dance I think of light in terms of a sphere that sur-
rounds the gure. It is not always practical to try and use all of the possible
angles that sphere represents, but if I start out with a self-imposed limitation
I may cut o an option that would be absolutely right for a particular piece.
If I am totally honest the envelope of light is more of a cylinder topped with
a dome because it is not generally possible to bring light from below the
level of the oor; however, imagine a sphere for this exercise. I place an
imaginary dancer inside this sphere and then picture how I want to
see the gure at particular points in the piece I am designing. Most of the
time I am imagining uncolored light at this point, and I am looking for
where I want to see shadows and highlights and then I work backwards to
gure out what angle of light will accomplish that. A particularly clear
example of this came from a production of Shakespeare’s Henry V. Watching
a run-through of Act IV Scene 1 where Harry visits his men’s encampments
on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, there was a particularly moving
speech during which the actor playing King Henry knelt down, clutching his
spear to pray for the lives of his men.
In the moment I envisioned light coming from above and behind the
actor, wrapping around his face, highlighting his upward glance. It was
a sort of light that I remembered from paintings by Caravaggio, perhaps of
a saint, and I was certain it was how I needed to light that moment. I did
not think about the position or angle of the light, just the image of what it
would do for the actor’s face. The angle worked out to be a diagonal back
light, although in that particular moment, because of the blocking, it was
more of a traditional back light position. That diagonal back light became
the statement angle of light for the production. I built the plot starting with
that set of lights and worked around to the rest of the distribution of light
I needed for the whole play.
Do all my inspirations for lighting a piece come from paintings? No, not
at all, but I often visit art museums and look through books on great paint-
ers to see how they use light. I also draw on my mental art gallery of things
I have seen in nature. I always try to break down images I have seen to
gure out where the light is coming from, how it is creating a particular pat-
tern or series of highlights. The goal is not to try and recreate nature but to
learn from all the many ways we encounter light in the world around us and
to gure out what bits and pieces can be translated onto the stage. I also
draw images from movies, television shows, and photography. I look for
things that represent captured images of light that seem to tell more of
119
a story than simply the subject matter of the frame. How does the light hide
or reveal information, what makes me aware of the three-dimensional qual-
ity of the subject matter, what helps me see inside the mind of the person
creating the picture and into their imagined reality? What combinations of
color and angle transport me in an unexpected way? What is the primary
angle of light and what complements it to reveal more information without
disturbing that original impulse?
Once I have that key image of the dancer in light, that primary angle of
light cutting through my imaginary sphere, I look at what the practical
needs are. What angle do I need to add to this to create sucient visibility?
Often it is the complementary angle to the primary – if I am using head
high side light from stage left I will no doubt add head high or shin light
from stage right. If my primary is back light then I will probably comple-
ment it with front light or low side, depending on how isolated I want to
make it. If it is front light then I will probably think about high sides to over
light what is hitting the oor and to provide dimensionality to the gure.
I do not try to avoid shadows but the amount and location of the shadows
will often lead me to my complementary angle. Even if I do not want to
eliminate the shadows I do want to work with what they show me. After all
no dance work I have ever designed exists in a single arrangement of light.
It will change and the shift of light should grow from the original image.
Eventually this process of imagined highlight, analyzed shadow, and comple-
mentary angle gets repeated enough times that I wind up with a light plot.
Then there is the whole issue of whether it is a repertory plot or
a singular plot. In other words, how many dances are going to need to exist
within this single plot? What additional needs will it have to serve? This is
when I begin to seriously consider color. Some positions, or angles of light,
can wait for their color – usually because they are located in a position
where a stage hand can reach them to change the color. At this point in my
career I freely admit that there are angles of light and positions that appear
in a lot of my designs. I try to ght against settling for those tools with
which I am familiar. Not just to keep thing fresh for me, but also for the
dancer and the choreographer. They deserve a fresh approach for their
work. I once was told by an older designer that it was a good idea for
a lighting designer to develop a special look, a combination of color and
angle, that they could work into every design they did as a sort of signature.
Like an artist signing their canvas. I freely admit that I have never tried to
do this. I believe there is a singular assumption embedded in this idea that
all dance can use the same visual idea. I do not agree with that concept.
Each choreographer is an original voice. If they are not then they will be
overtaken by the original voices that are choreographing new work and they
will cease to work. I believe that I owe them the same kind of original think-
ing in the work that I do to bring their piece to life on stage. I can’t do that
by copying things that have been done before, even if I am the one who did
120
them. I also cannot do it by predetermining my approach to the lighting

design before I see their work. That is the lazy approach, relying on a plot
I have tucked away in a drawer or in the recesses of my mind. That is why
I watch each piece looking for the accents in the movement, the dominant
pathways on the stage, the force within the shapes and steps that the dancers
execute, to nd the answer to where the lights should go. On any piece
I design, the answer to my question of “Why did I put that light there?”
must come from the dance itself.
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12
DANCE AND COLOR
At a certain point in my career I learned to stop being afraid of color.

I know that may seem to be an odd statement, because why would anyone
be afraid of color. If I am being entirely honest, I was not so much afraid of
color as cautious about it. My approach to all things design is somewhat
along the lines of a saying that is associated with medicine: “First do no
harm.” If I cannot make things better by my contribution to a project I will
most certainly not make them worse. I believe that my reticence when it
came to color was because I was concerned about creating unintended prob-
lems for a production by virtue of my color choices and so I played it safe.
What I was too inexperienced to realize at the time was that “safe” is never
an approach that leads to a good design.
I think a signicant part of my hesitation to use color traced back to
a production I lit during my BFA training at Carnegie Mellon. For some reason
I was brought onto the project late and, as I later learned, the set and costume
designers had already had signicant and detailed discussions about the use of
color in the production. None of this was shared with me and so I blithely went
ahead and designed a fairly straightforward plot for the set that I was to light. It
did have a heavy reliance on high side and back light in contrasting colors to
the front light, due to the wing and border set with tracking panels on a raked
stage that seemed to demand some sort of side light.
I wrote a series of cues and then we ran a dress rehearsal. I am not com-
pletely clear how we got so far into the process before the issue reared its
ugly head but I was immediately called to task for ruining the design con-
cept for the production. The costumes and the set had been designed in
a series of sepia-like tones of brown and soft amber. I had front light in bas-
tard amber, high sides in steel blue, and a medium blue and amber back
light system. Pretty safe – except the side light was carefully focused o the
wings and borders and the back light really only hit the oor with just
a high light on the costumes. The result was that the carefully calibrated set
and costume design suddenly no longer shared the same color palette. The
oor did not match the sliding panels, neither of them matched the cos-
tumes, and all of it was my fault.
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DANCE AND COLOR
With the advantage of hindsight, I know the fault lay more with the dir-
ector for failing to communicate his ideas to me, and I contributed by not
asking enough questions. I had seen the costumes and was concerned that
the actors would fade into the scenery since everything, including most of
the actors’ skin tones, fell in a very narrow spectrum of color. So I did what
any sensible designer would do, I used side and back light to lift the actors
away from the oor and panels so they would be seen. I was devastated,
I thought I was helping and wound up being accused of destroying the pro-
duction. (Graduate students tend toward hyperbole when upset.)
When I went to speak with my very patient lighting professor, he asked
me if I had considered simply removing all the color and relying on the
angles of light to create the dimensional modeling that I was trying to
accomplish with the color. I had not. I was really pleased that such a simple
solution solved the anguish and didn’t require me to rehang anything.
Unfortunately, the lesson I took away from that was – be careful of color, it
can ruin the overall design intent of the other artists involved in the project.
While it is certainly true that a poor color choice on the part of the lighting
designer can create havoc with the design, that does not mean that the solu-
tion is to eschew color altogether.
For a number of years I designed with what I blithely referred to as
a “German aesthetic.” This idea came from a guest lecturer in a class the
semester after I “ruined” the grad student’s show. He worked in a large
German opera house and spoke eloquently about working with ungelled
light. He described creating all the necessary tones of light through inten-
sities and relying on the amber shift of a dimmed lamp and the colder light
of unconventional sources. He did admit that he had a very large inventory
so he could get the amount of light needed by using many more instruments
at a higher wattage to maintain visibility at very low levels of intensity. This
all sounded great to me.
For the next several years I designed all of my plots concentrating on angle
and distribution to bring the dimensionality I wanted without using much color.
Blue was allowed – it was needed to create the illusion of night, but usually in
a rather pale tint. I even remember arguing with my own father on a play he
directed about not needing any gel because I could make the light a attering
color for skin by dimming. Unfortunately, we were working on a farcical
comedy and dim wasn’t really going to cut it. I was not in Germany so I could
not grab more units from my large inventory to increase the number of avail-
able foot-candles, so I wound up adding a Bastard Amber to the front light.
How did I break away from this habit? I credit one man, Alwin Nikolais.
He gets the credit because as I worked with him I absorbed his ideas. Later
on I learned that some of those ideas came from other designers, Nicola
Cernovitch chief among them, but I learned them from Nik. I am fond of
saying that Nik never met a color he didn’t like. When I nally met the
other Nic, I discovered he had a similar passion for color, although not
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DANCE AND COLOR
perhaps to the degree that Nik had. Nikolais was not trained as a lighting
designer and that untrained eye never learned that there were certain colors
you should shy away from. Cernovitch had more knowledge of color theory,
which came from his early background in painting, and as a result was per-
haps a bit more cautious, but he did not shy away from strong color.
The very rst premiere that I was involved with when I joined the Niko-
lais Dance Theatre set the tone. The piece was Aviary and was built around
bird images, but still within Nik’s unique sensibility. There were fewer slide
projectors used on Aviary than was usual for Nik, the exception being those
on the cyc, so his side light had to provide the color. In retrospect I think
another reason for this was that the process and the premiere were being
lmed by the Public Television station associated with the university where
we were in residence. The lower light levels from the slide projectors did not
provide the necessary foot-candles for clean images.
The Nikolais Dance Theatre light plot used a combination of equipment
provided by the theatre and things the company brought with it. Nik toured
with just over two dozen slide projectors that could be placed in all the
wings and across the apron; he also brought his own shin busters. They
were four stacked units, all three-inch lensed mini-ellipsoidals built into
a special frame that provided a stable base and a way to quickly change the
color of all the units at the same time. A simple drawing of what we called
“the stacks” can be seen in Figure 12.1. Through the use of a spring clip,
Rectangular metal frame

for stability and gel attachment
Color 1
Strip of pre-cut gel
3" ellipsoidals
attached to vertical
frame by T-handle bolts
Color 2
Color 3
Color 4
Small base
Figure 12.1 Nikolais Dance Theatre “Stacks”
124
DANCE AND COLOR
a strip of gels carefully taped together would be hung a couple of inches in

front of the lights. Each square of color would align with one of the units
providing a change of color on all four with each gel strip that was hung in
front of them.
For the lming of Aviary he had the local crew purchase enough sheets of
about 20 or 30 colors of gel to be able to make solid strips that would gel all
four units the same color. As we got to each section Nik would suggest
a color, not by number but by hue; we would grab what we felt was closest
to his description and clip it into place. If he got stuck lighting the section,
he would simply pick another color, often diametrically opposed to the rst
one; we would recolor and he would restart his lighting of the section. Nik
quite literally never met a color he didn’t like.
Whenever he was stuck or felt a piece was not going anywhere, he would
do what I used to refer to as ipping the color. Beyond the “stacks” the house
equipment consisted of overhead pools and boom tops that created two sys-
tems of down and side lights, one set in essentially a primary red and the
other close to a primary blue. There was often a third set of boom lights in
lavender but they were used on a limited basis. There were six areas to the
down lights and they would frequently be used in a checkerboard arrange-
ment with down left and right and up center in one color and the other three
in the opposite color. When he got stuck Nik would, quite literally, ip the
color. If a particular system was blue it became red or vice versa. For Nik this
refreshed his eye, which had grown tired of a particular look, and it often re-
energized the piece for that particular performance. Sometimes these changes
stayed in place for months before he got stuck again and switched back, but
more frequently we would return to the original look the next time we lit the
piece.
Most of us have heard the old adage that there is no easier change to
make in a lighting design than color. There is another one: Wait until you
see it under the lights. It is for this reason that people frequently look to the
lighting design to “x” problems with colors in costumes and scenery.
Repainting scenery or replacing a fabric is likely to be impossible when the
problems appear. There is not enough time. So light – as the last element to
be added – is often blamed, or called upon to help, when the other colors
don’t work as planned, because “you can always change the gel.” Technic-
ally this is true, but it depends on having the new color at hand and the
instruments in locations that are easy to reach. In addition, if a designer has
done their work when picking all the colors in a production, changing one
may impact a host of other decisions. I say this because it is my belief that
no color should be chosen for a production without giving careful consider-
ation to how it works with the other colors you are using.
I sat in on a color lecture with Tom Skelton once and he discussed the
idea of “nding white” for each production. As I understood it his idea was
that everyone reads the base color of a design as white. Our eyes will
125
DANCE AND COLOR
automatically balance the light to make things we expect to be white appear

to be white. So the proper tone of white is important in discovering a color
palette. This is generally not a singular gel color but rather a blended color
that is created by the mixing of two complementary colors in front light, one
warm and one cool, to arrive at the white for the given production. Tom
talked about how complementary colors mix to white; and it is the exact
composition of each of the two colors that determines what that white will
look like. The bottom line is that no color should be chosen in a vacuum –
they will most likely be used at the same time as several other lighting instru-
ments that each have their own colors.
While Tom was discussing this particular idea in the context of lighting
plays and working with the McCandless approach to stage lighting, the idea
carries through into dance lighting as well. One of the places where we see
this most often is in back light. Each individual color has an identity but if
you carefully consider the combination of two, or three, colors you multiply
your options in terms of oor treatment. In other words, while each color
may be used on its own, a careful attention to how the colors interact or
impact one another means that with the right choice two colors will be able
to blend and mix to many more options than two.
Color theory is just that – theory. It is based on scientic fact and it is
also based on pure hues. Understanding a bit about the theory behind color
is useful but it is important to understand that we work in a world of design
that is informed by science. Design does not have the luxury of living in the
world of theory – the reality is that we very rarely use pure hues in the color
lters we use in stage lighting. This is due in part to the fact that they would
cut down on the transmission of light, reducing the foot-candles we have to
work with, and due in part to the fact that there are very few pure hues
produced in color media. In pure color theory, mixing red with cyan will
produce white light. In practical application, mixing red and cyan as front
light in a design creates something akin to a Toulouse-Lautrec painting on
steroids. For these reasons we work with tints or pastels of the primaries,
values that will allow us to hint at a color tone while providing maximum
visibility. This is particularly true for what I will refer to as the primary light-
ing angle for communication.
What, you may wonder, do I mean by primary angle for communication?
It is that angle of light that on a given production provides the audience
member with the most information about the performer’s intention. This is
not going to be the same for every type of production and not even for
every production within a given type. In lighting most spoken word produc-
tions, the primary light that allows the performer to communicate with the
audience is from the front, or from the audience’s perspective. This allows
for clearer visibility of the eyes and mouth, which together with facial
expressions help us understand what is being said to us. The old adage “If
you can’t see them you can’t hear them” turns out to be true.
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DANCE AND COLOR
In World of Wonders, a delightful novel by Robertson Davies, the narrator

shares his experiences touring with a small theatre company. He has learned
many stage gimmicks from the leading actor of the company. I will para-
phrase here one of these tricks that he shares with the reader: At the start of
the play the lighting levels are kept down a certain percentage and then
upon the leading player’s entrance there is a cue that subtly increases the
overall lighting. The result is that audience members routinely congratulate
the leading player on his clarity as an actor and how he elevated the per-
formance so much that they found they understood the other actors on stage
even better than before his entrance.
In my own experience I had the inverse situation happen on
a production of Hamlet. The director and I had discussed a very angular feel
to the lighting, one that played with cast shadow and high contrast – some-
what akin to the look of lm noir. As in many of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet
opens with a signicant amount of exposition which has been given to
a couple of minor characters who are guarding the castle wall. In our set
this placed them toward the rear of the stage. During our rst run-through
a very concerned director suddenly appeared at my side, back at the tech
table, and announced that it was all too dark. “I can’t see their faces and if
the audience can’t see them they will never understand what they are
saying.” Primary angle of communication.
In dance the angle of light that creates primary communication is gener-
ally understood to be from the side. This angle helps dene the gure and
lights the dancer in a separate manner from the scenery, even if that hap-
pens to just be a backdrop and the oor. This means that we can control
how well the gure is seen within the context of the performance space. In
dance it is this light that tends to carry the tints or pastels. Here of course is
the rst generalization in this discussion of color. There will likely be more
to follow. While I have come to believe that there should be no hard and
fast rules in the use of color I freely admit to certain guidelines that I tend
to follow. When I choose to break them, it is for a particular reason that
requires me to revisit my assumptions.
(It is important to understand the impact of each particular angle of light
you use because it helps determine how you want to distribute color. That is
why we covered angle before moving to color.)
A great deal of what we need to do in dance is to light the dancer within
a space while creating a distinct yet compatible dierentiation between the
two. Like my concern with the sepia-toned design at Carnegie Mellon, if
your dancers and your space are the same color it can be harder to dieren-
tiate one from the other. In general, blending into the surroundings is not
something a designer should be trying to accomplish. This dierentiation
can be accomplished with angle or with color, but usually involves both.
Even if you are trying to maintain an overall blue eect you probably want
to consider using two dierent shades of blue.
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DANCE AND COLOR
Another way to think about this is to think about shadows. When you
light an object, or a dancer, with a single lighting instrument you create
a pattern of light and cast shadow. Some of those shadows may be in the
folds of a costume, they may be on the oor, or on the dierent planes of
the face – wherever they are they represent an opportunity to play with
color. Pick an angle that will light those shadows and ll them with color. It
is important that you remember that this new angle of light will often over-
lap with your rst instrument and, when it does, you will suddenly have
a third color. Welcome to the world of additive color mixing.
I really don’t think I can go much further without spending a little time
covering some basics of color, and I do mean basics. Using the color wheel
in Figure 12.2, let’s start with the fact that there are three primary colors in
light – red, blue, and green – along with three secondary colors created by
mixing pairs of the three primaries – cyan (blue + green), magenta (blue +
red), and amber (red + green). These primary and secondary colors can be
arranged on a circle to create a diagram referred to as a color wheel. (As
a side note, while the color names of yellow and amber are used somewhat
interchangeably in discussions of color theory, in lighting they are very dif-
ferent colors, with amber being a bit friendlier to skin tones. In fact, outside
of theatrical lighting design, the combination of red + green light is much
more commonly called yellow.)
What we refer to as “white” in light is in fact the presence of all colors.
True white is created by blending all the colors in the spectrum together –
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet (ROYGBIV). The other
way to create white light is to combine the three primaries (RGB) or to
RED
MAGENTA AMBER
WHITE
BLUE GREEN
CYAN
Figure 12.2 Color Wheel
128
DANCE AND COLOR
combine a primary with a secondary. Since theoretically each secondary rep-

resents the presence of two primaries, the mixing in of the missing primary
will create white – for example amber (R + G) and blue. This mixing or
blending process has to be done with two distinct sources of light (or three if
we are blending the three primaries) and is referred to as additive color
mixing. The use of color lters in front of a white light (i.e. putting a framed
gel into the color holder of a lighting instrument) represents a method of cre-
ating color by ltering out, or removing, certain colors from white. It is
often referred to as subtractive color mixing, as opposed to additive color
mixing, but in fact subtractive method or process is more accurate.
What I am advocating is that any color choices a designer makes on any
light plot should be considered in terms of both the subtractive process and
additive mixing.
The other thing that a designer needs to keep in mind is, if you are work-
ing with conventional lighting xtures, picking a very saturated color means
ltering out – or blocking – a good percentage of the visible light coming
out of the instrument. If we are trying to have a blue light that is very close
to the primary hue we are eectively blocking (actually the color medium is
absorbing) the remainder of the spectrum of visible light (and a portion of
the invisible) that is radiated by the light source. In addition to the signi-
cant reduction in foot-candles from the xture, the color medium takes quite
a beating. In fact, the gel closest to primary green that you can nd in most
color media will burn through or fade out in a matter of minutes because of
this process of absorbing the two ends of the spectrum and only allowing the
green to pass through and illuminate the subject.
The introduction of LED-based color-mixing xtures is changing some of
the foot-candle math and the way we think about color – particularly satur-
ated color. With individual light sources within the LED xture that gener-
ate dierent colors of light it is now possible to have very saturated and also
very strong colors of light. The cost of these xtures is still an issue but that
is rapidly changing. Another factor that is often overlooked is the “digital”
nature of the color in these xtures. Analog color is seen on a color graph as
a soft curve with a very clear peak in the hue that we are looking at. LED
color, on the other hand, appears as narrow spikes on a color graph with
virtually all the other hues missing. This narrow band quality to the color
impacts a host of things we have grown accustomed to, including color
response of the object being illuminated and color blending between multiple
xtures. The option of working with bright, heavily saturated color that will
not fade or change hue over time exists today. I am convinced that in
a relatively short time it will also become aordable and at that point it
really will change a lot of our assumptions about working with color. In fact,
the advent of so much new equipment and how it is changing the way we
design is the subject of its own chapter in this book.
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DANCE AND COLOR
In addition to the classication of certain hues as primary or secondary

colors we also use an even broader distinction as we talk about color –
warm and cool. Warm and cool colors roughly equate to those colors associ-
ated with re and those associated with water and air. This is also where we
begin to t in our tints and pastels, or another way to think about it is the
dierent values of the more saturated colors. This means that a pale pink
color is classied as a warm color since it is a low saturation red. This is
where it starts to get really complicated.
Color is relative and as a result is not always cleanly classied. In a series
of colors picked for a particular design an intermediate color such as laven-
der may wind up with a dierent classication each time it is used. If laven-
der is included with pink, light amber, orange, and red, it is a cool color by
comparison. If on the other hand it is included with steel blue, aquamarine,
medium blue, and indigo it is a warm color. In addition, within a given hue
there can be both warm and cool variations on the color. This is most obvi-
ous in the collection of blues we nd with most manufacturers. If a blue gel
has a bit of green in it, it will come across as a cooler tint than a similar
blue with a bit of red mixed into it. Lavender (or violet) and amber are two
other colors where I routinely play around with warmer or cooler variations
on the main hue.
There are many reasons why I will consider the relative qualities of the
colors when I am working on a design, and in the next chapter on color
I will get into more specics, but there is one more part of color theory that
will help when we get down to examples. The interaction between colored
light and the object(s) that are being illuminated. When visible light strikes
an object it can do one of four dierent things. It can be reected, absorbed,
refracted, or transmitted. Again, this is theory and helps us understand the
world around us, but the world around us is not always as neat and tidy as
scientic theory. In reality when light intersects an object it does at least
a bit of two of these aspects and on some occasions three or four. But one is
dominant. To simplify this a bit, light can get absorbed primarily by an
object like the masking curtain we use in the theatre. A deep pile black
velour curtain blocks the passage of light and reects almost none of it back
toward the observer. In fact we can see the pattern of where the light hits
the curtain because a small amount is reecting. When light hits a polished
piece of metal, it is primarily reected but the fact that the piece of metal
heats up tells us that some of the light is being absorbed. And nally if
a beam of light hits a piece of glass it is refracted (meaning that the linear
path the light is traveling shifts slightly), but we will often see a are on the
surface closest to the light source and the glass will heat up showing there is
some reection and absorption happening as well.
This real-world action of light is most apparent when an object has
a color to it. The way we perceive the color of the object is that some of the
beam of light is reected to us and the rest is absorbed. When something
130
DANCE AND COLOR
has a blue color to it, it reects those visible parts of the beam of light that
we see as blue and absorbs the rest of them. Again in a purely theoretical
world. In reality not everything else is absorbed and it reects a bit more
than just blue. This is an important concept because if the lighting designer
picks a color of gel that does not transmit enough of a specic color of light,
then the object’s color will be muted or dulled. In extreme cases it may not
even be visible. I have seen red costumes that appeared to be black because
of the color choice made by the lighting designer, and I have been asked by
directors and designers if I can alter the apparent color of a set by virtue of
what color light I choose.
The other place this awareness of color reection/absorption becomes
important is with skin tone. There has been a lot of talk about how to light
dierent skin tones and there are a lot of dierent approaches to the task.
I nd that it is much simpler than most people want to make it. If you
remember to take into account the basic reective quality of someone’s skin
based on its apparent color, and make sure you supply that color in the light
you use, then it usually works out well. The other realization I had working
with a mixed race dance company can best be expressed in the words of
William Shakespeare: “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”
As far as I know every person has blood running close below the surface
of their skin. No matter the color of that skin underneath it there is a warm
color tone as a result of this blood. This is precisely why I was taught in my
earliest lighting classes to avoid using green light. Green provides very little
that a warm skin tone can reect back and has the eect of draining that
warmth out of the skin. People under green light look unhealthy. There are
several amber/yellow gels that have a strong amount of green in them, after
all it is one of the two primaries needed to create the color. Knowing this
makes it possible to choose an amber that is skin friendly or one that is less
so – depending on the particular needs of the piece you are designing. This
does not mean that you can completely ignore skin tone when picking color,
nor does it mean that skin tone will prevent you from using certain colors. It
does mean that there is not a magic set of colors you can use to guarantee
success when working with a group of African-American dancers or a group
of Asian-American actors. You have to look at your subject when you con-
sider color. You need to take into account their skin, their costumes, the
oor, and any decor involved in the production. There are many options
and if you want to use an amber – don’t worry, there are over 25 of them
in one manufacturer’s catalogue alone.
With so many to choose from, how do you know which one to use? This
remains a dilemma for me as a designer. It is tempting to work with a small
set of “safe” colors. Gels you have used a number of times already and are
pretty condent with will give you a specic set of results. On some produc-
tions they will be the right choice. But if you stay safe you short change the
process and you cut short your own education. Even now, with every show
131
DANCE AND COLOR
I design I try to pick at least one color of gel that I have never used before.
It forces me to think about color in terms of its component hues and to con-
sider how it will mix with the other colors I am working with. I have an
incandescent light in my oce that is close to the color temperature of the
stage instruments we work with just for the purpose of picking color. This is
critical – if you are going to have a chance at predicting how your color
choices will behave in the theatre, you need a light source – an incandescent
light source – of a similar color temperature.
Color temperature matters now more than ever. There was a time when
you could be fairly certain that every instrument you worked with would
have a color to it that fell in a fairly tight range. Specically, stage lights had
a color temperature of 3200 degrees Kelvin. I will spare you the description
of where and how Kelvin (K) temperature is determined for now, because
all you really need to know is that the higher the number the bluer the light.
Standard household incandescent bulbs are around 2800 K, uorescent is
about 4000 K, and sunlight is 5600 K. As we develop new light sources we
need to be sure what our starting color is so that we can determine how the
gel will impact it. In order to do that you need to have the right sort of light
source when you pick your colors.
Color is complicated but it is also a very useful tool in the design process.
It can express emotion, enhance costumes, create a feeling of place, and
help describe the passage of time. It is really worth the time and energy to
get comfortable with all the options that are out there, and there are a lot of
options. There are seven named colors (or hues) in the spectrum. There are
around four major manufacturers of color mediums. Each one of those com-
panies produces an average of 250 distinct colors. While there is some over-
lap between the companies in terms of their colors, it is safe to say that at
least 25 percent of their colors are unique to their own systems. This means
that there are something like 700 possible color options out there for
a designer to choose from. Most designers I know gravitate toward one or
two manufacturers. Even narrowing down the options in this manner they
must be familiar with around 400 dierent colors in order to make a really
good decision. So maybe my initial approach to design – the “German Aes-
thetic” I mentioned earlier – was not such a bad thing after all.
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13
CO LO R A S A S T OR YT EL L IN G
TOOL
If color is so overwhelming why bother? Why not just pick three or four
colors that make skin look good and don’t kill the costumes and be done
with it? The simple answer is storytelling. Of all the manageable properties
of light I believe color is the one that carries the most weight in storytelling.
This is not to say that there are not some designers out there who use the
same colors over and over. It is also true that in the earliest days of color
medium – back when it was actually made from gelatin – there were only
a limited number of colors available. During that time designers had to
work with the same handful of colors all the time because they had almost
no choice, now the options seem endless. While I really miss Brigham’s spe-
cial “variegated” gels, I have no interest in going back and working with
those limitations.
I will admit to having a mental list of what I would consider “safe”
colors. These are colors that I have used often enough that I know what
they look like at various intensities and I know how they mix with other
colors. I believe there is a distinct danger to getting locked into safe colors
and it can lead to lazy design. I also believe that each piece deserves a fresh
look and if you get stuck with the same colors that gets harder and harder
to accomplish. I also know that if I force myself back to the gel book to pick
colors specically for the piece I am working on I will also think through the
whole piece and what it needs before I nd myself writing light cues. This
also means I will be better prepared to design the pieces and the process will
be smoother. For me the process of picking colors is closely tied into my
choice of angles. As I mentioned before, it is important that you understand
the various angles of light and how they impact the human gure before
you gure out your colors. While I may know going in that I need
a combination of warm and cool colors so that I have more option in color
blending, I also know that the warm and cool color choices will be dierent
based on where the instruments are positioned.
Nicola Cernovitch is probably best know for his work for the Alvin Ailey
company – it was bold, used strong visual images and exciting color combin-
ations. Nic was like Alwin Nikolais in that he did not shy away from strong
133
COLOR AS A STORYTELLING TOOL
color and was known for his bold choices in that area. I was struck by
a phrase in a prole I read about Nic that suggested that when working
with strong colors they should mix “only at the last minute.” As
I understand the concept, the angles of light should be divergent so that the
contrast between the colors could be appreciated before they converge and
mix together and become something dierent from either original color.
This separation between the colors would also allow more of each color to
appear in the folds and creases of a costume or on the contrasting planes of
the face and body. Contrast this to the way backlight is commonly colored
and used. In backlight systems the colors all come from very similar angles
so that they blend in the air as well as on the oor, creating atmosphere as
well as painting the space. I realized as I read about this idea that it was
a very clear way to describe one of the ways angle inuences my choice of
color.
On the other hand, there are designers that are known for their consist-
ent use of color and they have a distinctive look that comes from using the
same palette over and over again, some even gravitate to “no color” as their
favorite color. This works if the choreographer embraces the look and wants
their piece to live in that world. I personally know several very good design-
ers that work with virtually the same color most of the time and they have
choreographers that keep coming back to them to design. On the other
hand, I have also worked with choreographers who have complained to me
about the aesthetic that they feel some designers have imposed on their
work. My best advice is to ask questions and listen to the answers. Push
back if they are not clear. This is part of guring out your role in the story-
telling. I don’t expect the choreographer to sit there and mention specic
color ideas, instead I listen for more abstract concepts that I can reinforce in
the design. Some pieces almost pick their own colors, others could go any
number of directions and you have to gure out which way is right. Without
a clear understanding of the “story” it is very hard to make the right choices
in your design process.
When I am rst starting in on picking color I like to assemble as much
information as I can. These clues will help me nd the right approach. Even
if I am not yet consciously thinking about color I know it starts with the rst
time I watch the piece – my rst read if you will. I want to discover as
much as I can from the primary source, the actual choreography. Then
I like to tell the choreographer what I feel and see. What is the mood or
atmosphere that I feel is being created? I sh a little bit during this conversa-
tion and try to draw out the choreographer about the roots of the piece.
I believe color supports mood and atmosphere while angle is more con-
nected with the movement. I also talk about the music when I am searching
for the answer to color. I do not see music as colors the way some people
describe their experiences, but I do feel that the style of the music, the
instrumental voicing, and the melodic or tonal structure can lead me toward
134
a certain color palette. I need to discuss this with the choreographer because
music is not always chosen because it sustains the intention of the piece;
sometimes it is intended as a way to add a tension to the work. I also want
to see the work of any other designers involved in the project. There will
always be some sort of a costume designer, sometimes it is the choreog-
rapher pulling things from their closet but choices have been made about
what the dancers will wear. Sometimes there will be decor or in some cases
even projections. All of these bring a color vocabulary to the piece and
I need to gure out what impact they will have on my own choices.
So far, I still have not gotten to the storytelling part. That is because
sometimes choreographers are not very forthcoming with this part of the
process. They want their work to speak for itself. I respect that and if I feel
I already have enough information then I let that go. If on the other hand
I am not completely clear I will ask what the piece is trying to say and I will
remind them that what I do with my design will go a long way toward help-
ing the choreography speak. My concern is that I do not want to become
a bad interpreter who assumes they know what the story is and so stops lis-
tening and tells their version as if it was a faithful translation from the ori-
ginal language. While I have the right as a collaborating artist to bring
a contribution into the process, that contribution should never overwhelm
the original intent. There were one or two revivals that I did for Gerald
Arpino where he asked for a redesign. As he put it to me, he was “never
allowed” to light the piece the way he wanted. Working with a strong artistic
director and an equally strong lighting designer he was told to trust them,
they knew what the piece needed. As I listened to this man discussing some-
thing that had happened 20 years earlier with such regret, I promised myself
I would never take over a choreographer’s work unless they specically
invited me to. I will also not do it without rst becoming completely familiar
with the work as it stands.
Story in dance is not always a literal story. This is an important point
that I want to be clear about before we go any further with color. There
are certainly story ballets, and even modern pieces, that tell a specic
story. Some pieces even have a list of characters, instead of simply listing
the dancers, and some of those are from well-known stories. Perhaps the
most famous of all of these is The Nutcracker. Yet even with The Nutcracker
there are many dierent stories. While most of them are variations on
a very common tale and are based on a single text, some are very dier-
ent interpretations of the same music with only a gentle nod to the ori-
ginal. But even if there is no literal story, that does not relieve you of the
responsibility of telling the story. What is the journey, what changes
happen, do any of the dancers seem to transform over the course of the
piece? How are they dierent at the end as compared to the beginning?
Are they simply tired from the exertion, or does their movement say
something dierent about where they are now? If the individuals in the
135
piece don’t seem to have a journey, what about the ensemble? Have the
relationships changed, is the partner work dierent toward the end of
the piece? What does the music do? Does that provide an idea of the
change or journey that occurs during the piece?
Story can also be thought of as the cohesion of the piece. It is the com-
pelling factor that creates a logical sequence of choreography for the audi-
ence. It does not have to be something that can be restated by them in
words after the performance, but it will cause a reaction in them even if
they cannot fully describe it. I would contend that there is story in the works
of Merce Cunningham, even though his process does everything it can to
eliminate that aspect of choreography. Merce was well known for his reli-
ance on “chance” in the creation of works. Music was created independently
of the choreography, designers were asked to design for the dance without
necessarily seeing the choreography, and some works had multiple designs
and scores – how they were used was a “chance” selection at the perform-
ance. Despite all of that there was a quality and a progression to the works
that felt like a story to me in the audience. Sometimes the “story” is a frame
that the observer creates to help them process what they have seen. Ultim-
ately, if the choreographer does not oer a frame for the piece I will create
one for myself. The goal remains not to impose my aesthetic on the piece,
but I need the frame. It gives me a starting point for the cues I will write
and a direction I want to follow to get to the end of the piece.
Only once you have an idea of the story can you gure out how you are
being asked to tell it. If you are very lucky you will have a choreographer
that has given your role some thought, but has no intention of taking it
over. Unfortunately, that is a real delicate balance. Most choreographers
that think about lighting as they are creating their piece settle on very spe-
cic ideas of what they want to see at particular moments in the dance. If
they are more experienced they may have gured out how to share these
images as ideas as opposed to requests. It is just as likely though that their
enthusiasm about the pictures in their heads will lead them to push until it
looks exactly like they imagined. It is really up to the individual designer as
to how they choose to solve this dilemma. I generally do not try to change
their mind but I will oer renements, things that can increase the plasticity
of what they are looking for, or add an additional energy to the moment. As
an example I was once asked to just bring up the red light on the cyclorama
for a silhouette section in a dance piece. I did that and then asked if I could
show the choreographer something. I added some deep blue high side light
that was already in the plot and pointed out this would help us see if the
dancers were facing up stage or down stage. It also helped those folks with
extreme sightlines to see all of the choreography, even those moments when
they would not see the dancer against the red background. We added it to
the cue and he was happy that it basically looked as imagined and I felt as if
I had contributed.
136
I do not need to own all of the lighting but I need to be comfortable with
my name on the design, just as the choreographer wants to feel good about
having their name on the choreography.
One common misconception that I wish we had outgrown by now is the
old trope that dance lighting is all about using “heavy color.” The idea in
this one goes like this: The way to change regular theatrical lighting into
dance lighting is to pick more saturated colors. I found a reference to this
misconception dating back to the 1950s. It showed up in Tom Skelton’s
series of articles on dance production in Dance Magazine. In the rst article,
published in October of 1955, he writes about lighting technicians that
believe the only thing they have to do dierently for dance is to pick “more
and richer colors.” He goes on to refer to the results as something out of “a
nightmare section of an expressionistic German drama of the 1930s.”
I believe this idea stems from the fact that dance lighting relies more heavily
on additive mixing in the design than is common in spoken word theatre. If
I use side lighting in a play, I will typically choose two colors – three if one
of them carries a texture. On the other hand in my dance designs I will pick
between four and eight colors to use in my side light positions, but I am also
counting on mixing two or three of those at a time. There will be certain
pieces where I will use one of the colors on their own but it is much more
common to nd them blending to a new and dierent, and generally less
saturated, color. These singular colors and the blended color they can make
are one of the ways I tell the story. The shifts between colors from similar
angles can show change – transition – while those from divergent angles
show dynamism, energy, and contrast.
Front light is another part of this world of color and while I do not rely
heavily on this angle of light I have learned not to ignore it. Even if I do not
need front light for communicating the ideas of the dance, I have learned
that it has another function. Light that comes from the audience’s perspec-
tive breaks down an intangible barrier that can happen between the dancer
and the audience. If there is no light coming from the house, the side of the
dancer facing the audience is in shadow. While this does not impact how
we see shape and line, it can create a distancing eect or barrier between
the audience and performer. I have learned to include a saturated variation
of the color palette in my front light. This means that I can get light on the
down stage side of the dancer without impacting the sense of light within
the space. By lling the shadows on that side of the body I open up that
connection to the audience.
One of my favorite tools is the ability to paint the gure one way and the
space another. With my shin light or my head highs and mids, I have sev-
eral options for the dancer. My back light and high sides work on the oor
and the color choice on the backdrop impacts the feeling of the entire space.
If I work with dierent colors that are complementary in nature I have
a vibrant dynamic space where the gure stands out as dierent in the space
137
and, depending on the color choices, I can set up a visual “vibration”

between dancer and place. If on the other hand I choose colors that are
close variations of one another and stay rmly in a warm or cool world,
I can create a strong space that speaks of the dancer as being part of the
environment. Finally, if all of the angles use a variation of the same hue –
for example all variations of blue – my performing area is calmer and more
harmonious. I have very rarely used exactly the same color from all of these
angles. When I have the plasticity I look for in my dance lighting it is gener-
ally more a product of intensity and angle than it is of color. All of these are
viable approaches, all are things I have done at one point or another, but
none of them is right if it does not t the piece.
For better or worse there are certain clichés of color that have become so
entrenched that we need to consciously work to overcome them. On the other
hand they can provide a short cut in story that may be useful. Certainly, lean-
ing heavily toward amber in back light color is a quick way to say “afternoon”
or “daytime.” This becomes an even stronger statement when there is
a moment to use blue back light in an eort to say “night.” These are easy
solutions, but that does not make them any less valid – the art lies in how we
choose to use them. I was asked to design Madam Buttery for an opera com-
pany once that was using a Kabuki style for their production. The set was
a polished black wood platform surrounded by a wall of leafy bamboo. That
in turn was surrounded by black velour curtains. It was a very striking and
beautiful set and a great deal of fun to light. The leaves of the bamboo caught
light and ltered texture into the space that I could then reinforce with tem-
plate washes and backlight colors. I didn’t miss having a cyclorama until the
director announced that it was his intention to have Cio-Cio-san (Madam
Buttery) stay on stage during the entr’acte music between the second and
third acts. During this time we understand Cio-Cio-san has stayed awake all
night waiting for Pinkerton to come for her. Now I wanted a cyc, I wanted my
sunset and sunrise gestures with blues, ambers, and pinks to be seen by the
audience. The costume designer came to my rescue: Cio-Cio-san’s “wedding
clothes” became an ornate white kimono – my cyclorama. There was one
part of the stage where the side light did not have to pass through bamboo to
get to the stage. I negotiated to move the singer into this area and had fun
with the music. I actually only used two colors – a deep blue and a rich
amber, but there was enough red in the blue that I was able to produce
a convincing pink for the sunset through careful color mixing. By treating
Cio-Cio-san’s kimono as a cyclorama, I was able to tell the story of the pas-
sage of time and her steadfast waiting.
In story ballets there are similar specic kinds of needs that the lighting
designer must meet. Examples include the Land of Snow in Nutcracker,
a dense forest at night in Sleeping Beauty, La Sylphide, and Swan Lake, to name
a few, a town square in the afternoon in too many to bother naming. But
then there are the abstract works that do not rely on a conventional story.
138
How do we determine the role of color in storytelling in these kinds of

works? I actually consider these to be the most fun, because they aord me
the most freedom. In part this is because there are no preconceptions –
except those the choreographer may arrive with. This is when I get to do
detective work and then rely on my instincts. Remembering my early advice
to ask questions and listen, I go into my rst conversation with the choreog-
rapher with no preconceptions. If I am open and honest in this process
I usually nd the color selection is relatively quick. That doesn’t mean it
happens early in the process, in fact I spend a lot of time with the piece
before I ever get to color. The advantage of taking time to get to the choice
but then choosing quickly is that I feel as if I can trust my instincts.
I learned this approach early in my training while I was still at NCSA. I was
an electrician on a dance concert that was being designed by my teacher,
Ward Resur. As I was putting the gel into the shins I noticed it was a pale
green. One of the informal “rules” we had been oered in class was to try
to avoid green because it tends to make people look unhealthy. When
I asked why he was using green Ward simply said: “Look at the costumes
and then you tell me.”
When the dancers came out for the level session I immediately understood
what he was talking about. The ballerina was wearing a romantic tutu, which
is not the sti sort of tutu that sticks out from the body. The romantic style is
made with layers of tulle, like the more recognizable version, but they are not
as sti and they hang more like a conventional skirt. At rst glance the cos-
tume seemed to be pink. In fact the bodice was pink as was the overskirt of
the tutu, but the underlayers of tulle were a pale green. The impression was of
a ower with a green stem beneath a pink blossom. The problem that Ward
hit upon was that any gel that made the pink look good would kill the green.
His solution was to light the costume primarily with head high lights but to
use his shin light to get under the skirt and light the stem. The choreography
had moments when the dancer lifted the edges of her tutu to oat the pink
layers. When this happened the green caught the shins and came to life.
When I went back to Ward to say I understood, he commented that he had
made that choice at the spur of the moment and was very glad he had. What
he was really saying was, trust your instincts.
Long before Alwin Nikolais and I worked together, Ward Resur got me
started on color. He didn’t really answer questions about color so much as
create an awareness about how complicated color could be. He didn’t do it on
his own. Through a series of class projects in high school at NCSA and then
in college at Carnegie Mellon with Bill Nelson I began my complicated jour-
ney with color. It started with a “word association” exercise in Ward’s class.
He oered a list of places, emotions, times of day – the sorts of things we
always say color can help you create – and asked that we respond with a color
of light. I was fascinated by how many times there was near consensus among
the students. I really thought there was such a thing as a vocabulary of color.
139
For whatever reason, Ward let us go ahead and believe that. The same Ward
Resur who used green on a romantic pas de deux, I should have realized it
then. Instead I carried this youthful condence into an advanced lighting class
with Bill. When given the opportunity to design a research project I suggested
Ward’s color test.
Bill gave me the go ahead and I set out with a close approximation of
Ward’s list of words and began interviewing people on campus. Bill suggested
I go beyond other lighting designers, and I did. And the wheels came o the
project – or so I felt. The answers were all over the place and I learned
a very valuable lesson very quickly. Virtually the only people who actually
think about color in terms of light are lighting designers. I went back to Bill
and asked to try another research project since mine had failed. He pointed
out what any good teacher would: Just because I did not get the results
I thought I would didn’t mean my project failed. I simply had to go back into
the responses and see what ideas about the language of color I had learned.
The rst lesson was how hard it was for people to think about the color of
light, for most people it was even harder to imagine the eect of colored light.
I did learn there were a few clichéd color associations that held up – night
was blue to most people. The biggest lesson I learned was that context can
change everything we might assume to be the right choice in color. Hence the
green shins with, essentially, a pink romantic tutu.
I wish I could say I understood the lesson about context while I was in
college, but I didn’t. I began to understand it with Nik, but not fully. Once
I was on my own and making my own mistakes and learning from them –
that was when that lesson, probably the most important one, began to take
hold. I nally gured out that it wasn’t really possible to pick a wrong color
so long as you picked it within the context of the piece. While this should be
a very liberating lesson to learn – and to a certain degree it was – it does
put the burden on you to get the piece right. If you do not understand the
ideas and intentions of the piece you are lighting you will get the context
wrong and then all bets are o. Even a very safe choice could be wrong.
For example, let’s go back to Laura Dean and Light Rain. If she had not
made the comment to me about the red costumes needing red light but that
she didn’t want it to look like we had gone to hell, I am not sure I would
have picked a medium blue side light for the piece. The more logical choice
would have been another warm color since I already had blue in one of my
boom tops.
Another important lesson that came from the understanding of context
was the realization that I needed to treat the choice to not use color as
a very specic color choice. Early in my career, when I was avoiding color,
I did not think of no color as a color choice. As I began to add color more
freely I began to see that the addition of a no color special in a world of
more saturated color made a very distinctive statement. If I wanted the spe-
cial to blend in and not stand out of the color palette I had to pick a neutral
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color within the range of color in the piece. When I rst served as the light-
ing director for the Jorey Nutcracker I ran right into this one. The plot
included a system of no-color pipe ends and the cues for the snow scene in
Nutcracker leaned very heavily on this system. They were not cued at a very
high level and as a result they came across as amber in quality – not
a strong amber but, in a world of soft blue and fog on the oor with white
fake snow falling through the air, they didn’t look white. Gerald Arpino,
who I had learned hated amber, started to see snow as too bright and asked
that I cut the intensity. This was a legitimate request as the plot had been
switched over to Source 4 lighting instruments and the intensity was dier-
ent, as was the color temperature of the lamp. But as I had learned from
my “German Aesthetic” days, when you lower the intensity the light takes
on an amber cast. So Jerry would ask why snow was amber, yet if we killed
the no-color system he would point out it was too dark. It took us a lot of
xing to get snow looking right again. No color is a color!
The thing that made the most dierence to me in how I relate to color
was when I began to get comfortable with this idea of tonality within a hue.
When I was going through Buttery I mentioned the warmth in the blue and
the rich amber and how those two complementary colors allowed me to
create a pink as well. The idea of a warm blue and a cool blue is an import-
ant one to understand. Just as is the idea that a very pale blue can help
counteract the amber shift in an incandescent lamp when you fade the light
down. There is a beautiful pink that you can get in Roscolux that
I absolutely hated when I used it the rst several times. It wasn’t until I was
resetting a ballet that Tom Skelton had designed for the Jorey that I saw it
work the way I thought it should. I looked at the cue sheets and immediately
understood my mistake. In Tom’s work the channels ran at an intensity of
75 percent or higher, in mine I had been using it at about 40 percent. The
color shift in the source brought out a strong amber undertone to the pink.
When I used it at lower levels it was no longer the clean warm color I had
seen in the swatch book – it was muddy. Most gel has several hues at play
in it and the trick is to begin to see the dierences that can make. That pink
gel must have been transmitting some green that came alive when the la-
ment warmed up.
Some colors even acknowledge this phenomenon in the way they are
named. Colors like surprise pink and bastard amber tell you that there is
something more to the gel than originally meets the eye. In the case of both
surprise pink and bastard amber you will nd a distinct pink quality to the
light that comes from the red in the gel responding to the warm color of the
lament. Alwin Nikolais’s preferred blue for his downlight pools was Rosco
83. This is very saturated blue, almost a primary color. I was constantly
being asked if we could use Rosco 80 as it didn’t burn out as quickly and,
since the theatre had to supply the color, sometimes they made the substitu-
tion without asking. The dierence is incredible. If it was simply a matter of
141
greater transmission and a brighter look it would be easy to work with, but
to my eye it was if they had substituted green for blue. Used to the look of
R83 I was almost unable to see anything other then the predominant green
undertone in the R80 blue.
I believe it is possible to exercise and improve one’s ability to see color.
I have no scientic evidence for this but I know from my own experience I am
better able today to spot the one gel that is the wrong color in a set of 12 that
are supposed to match. In fact, my electrician with the Jorey, C. J. Bart, and
I had a running joke. I would accuse him of planting one wrong gel in a plot of
over 300 instruments just to see if I could pick it out. He, on the other hand,
told me he no longer bothered to check the color because he knew I would just
walk in and point it out anyway. Of course neither were true, color shifts over
time with exposure to heat and light, electricians get in a hurry when they are
striking a show, and even though we would buy new color all the time no one
throws away gel that looks right. Most of the time it was simply an error, but
from time to time it was old color. When we rst started working together he
tried to argue it once or twice but, as I pointed out, it didn’t matter what the
number on the gel was – if the color was wrong it needed to be changed.
I was once focusing for Ohio Ballet when they came through South Bend
on tour. It was a chance to work with Tom Skelton and get paid a bit as
well so I jumped at the opportunity. As I was focusing the back light onto
the maple oor of the theatre (the black dance oor had not yet arrived)
I asked Tom why he used green in his back light system. His assistant on
that tour started laughing and Tom said something like: “See I told you.”
When I asked what was going on, Tom’s assistant explained that Tom had
a theory: designers simply told you the colors they saw and didn’t care what
the number or name of the gel was. The color was a blue but it had
a signicant amount of green in it and the warm wood tones of the oor
jumped under that green. My take away from that was that while it is good
to know what the manufacturer thinks a certain color is, it is just as import-
ant to trust your eyes when you are deciding what color to use.
Which brings us around to the why of picking color. In the preceding
I have tried to work through some of the considerations in using and think-
ing about color and all of that is important to think about, but it doesn’t get
us into the core of it all. What is it that puts us in a cool palette or a warm
one? Why choose no color as one of your colors? What are you responding
to? I can honestly say that my best advice in this is to not over think it. If
you are watching a run through of a piece and between the movement and
the sound you suddenly nd images of a moonlit park with heavy trees and
romantic street lamps appearing in the recesses of your brain, then use it.
Pick a palette of blues, both dark and light steel, for your moonlit night; add
some gobos and then introduce a side light from around eight feet high in
a light amber. If on the other hand you have eeting glimpses of miles of
desert sand, like something out of Star Wars or Lawrence of Arabia, consider
142
a variety of ambers, a thin gaslight green, some no color, and use no color
blue as your contrasting color. Unless you have a dance with a specic story
attached to it, don’t worry about where the images came from. Share them
with the choreographer, talk about what you can make happen with that
kind of an arrangement, see where it leads you.
What do the costumes suggest to you? I have a tendency to light black
costumes with blue light, unless I am lighting them against a black backdrop
in which case I want something in my side light that will make any exposed
skin pop through all that darkness. Are there accent colors on the costumes?
Pick another sidelight color that will lift those colors because a thin line of
color on a garment that is predominantly a dierent color needs some help
to be noticed – so help your costume designer out. The costumer picked
that color in consultation with the choreographer, so it probably belongs in
the piece and therefore in your design. I have gradually come around to the
“What have I got to lose?” frame of mind. If I suggest an idea about color
that hits the choreographer the wrong way I can change it – but at least
I have moved the conversation forward.
This is one of the areas of the conversation with the choreographer that
I think is the trickiest. Choreographers, like my color study subjects at Car-
negie Mellon, are not necessarily trained to think about the color of light. So
it is just as likely that when I say I was thinking of a nice bright blue side
light, they are picturing a table cloth that they consider “bright blue.” This
is not universal and I have worked with many dance makers who had a very
clear understanding of light – it is just not something that I ever assume.
That was why I appreciated it when Rennie Harris asked me if I could send
him a picture. In the performing arts there is a tendency to always act like
you know exactly what everyone is talking about. If there is ever a time to
be totally open and completely honest it is when you are working in collab-
oration with another artist. By the same token, we gain nothing by making
what we do seem mysterious or impenetrable. We owe it to ourselves and to
our collaborators to demystify our process and that is particularly pertinent
when it comes to color in dance, or from the other side, meaning in dance.
We need to nd the right words, collect the appropriate images, study each
other’s craft, yet honor the talents and training of our collaborators. I need to
learn the “story” of the work that is being created, not to rewrite it, but to be
able to support it. If in the way I speak to or question the creator of the work
I make even the slightest hint that I want to change it or take it over, I have
failed. I have learned that when I can build the right kind of trust between
myself and the choreographer I can talk in the world of ideas and do not need
to get into the technical aspects of my craft. I never avoid the conversations
about color but I do not push for it if I think it will make the choreographer
feel like they are at a disadvantage. I do not want to be like the designer my
father dreaded meeting with and only speak about color in ways that I know
my collaborator will not understand. That is not how I dene partnership.
143
14
T H E DE S IG NER A S
S T OR YT EL L ER
“We’re looking for someone with strong storytelling abilities.” This sentence
in an emailed inquiry for an opportunity with a ballet company got me
thinking. The oer was to design several story ballets for the company and
they said that they were excited to have me come back and do more work
with the company. The email went on to say that they had been disap-
pointed in the last mounting of one of the ballets and needed a redesign.
Without any other specics to go on, I had to imagine that the “disappoint-
ment” came from an absence of storytelling. As a designer who crosses back
and forth between the worlds of spoken word theatre and dance, I value
storytelling in my work and feel it is the second most important thing I do
when I design. Visibility – selective visibility – being the most important. Yet
despite that, I found that when I saw the words in that email I wondered at
how I might be able to improve on that rather vague aspect of their lighting,
particularly with a story ballet.
How do you accomplish storytelling in lighting design? I am fairly sure
that asking a group of a dozen lighting designers this question would result
in almost as many answers. I have tried this a few times on a casual basis
and have heard answers like: Creating a sense of place, being clear about
the progression of time, creating character motifs. Clearly there are many
ways to think about telling a story through light. When I think about story
in dance I think about the trajectory of the piece, and for the moment I am
going to concentrate on pieces that wouldn’t be classied as “story ballets.”
Where does it start and where does it end? Has something changed for the
dancers and how they relate to one another? I have always felt that
the work I have done to create “story,” or a journey, in an abstract work is
the most valuable. With a story ballet there is usually a plot or synopsis that
can be printed in the program and that drives some very specic choices
about the light plot. You know where dierent sections occur in terms of
location, time of day, and general atmosphere from the scenario. It would
seem that all you have to do is keep that in mind, as you make sure the
audience is always looking at the most important thing on the stage at any
given moment. Simple. Well, I thought as I looked back over the email,
144
THE DESIGNER AS STORYTELLER
maybe not. This then got me to the next thought: What is it that would be
dened as “storytelling” as opposed to “story” in a story ballet – or any
other dance piece for that matter?
In a follow-up conversation to the email, the artistic director was able to
oer some specic moments where he felt lighting could help with story. He
spoke about the feel of the production as being like a book for him and each
scene was like turning another page – that the successive scenes took on
a greater intimacy until we arrived at a critical point where the whole story
turned in a moment and became something very dierent and we entered
into a place where we did not need to be bound by ideas like the passage of
time. Or that the compression of the increasingly intimate spaces between
the rst scenes forced us into a new place with new rules. Interestingly
enough he didn’t speak about plot points, probably because the whole piece
is well known, but he did use the idea of a monologue or soliloquy to
describe some solos within a group scene. He was thinking in terms of story
structure the same way a playwright might approach the process. It was not
a vocabulary I have heard around dance all that much, but it made sense
and I felt as if I had a good idea of what I was being asked to bring into the
process of putting this production on its feet.
In an eort to get a better denition of “storytelling” as opposed to
“story” I turned to my colleague Anne García-Romero. Anne is both an
artist and a scholar having published a monograph about the legacy of
María Irena Fornés – The Fornés Frame: Contemporary Latina Playwrights and
the Legacy of María Irena Fornés – as well as more than a dozen full length
or one-act plays. Her career is telling stories. I interviewed Anne via
email as she was working outside of the country when I reached out to
her. I found her answers to be very helpful in dening how I was going
to try to explain what I think I do as a storyteller with light. Our conver-
sation went like this:
KEVIN DREYER: Do you as a writer perceive a dierence between story and

storytelling?
A N N E G A R C Í A - R O M E R O : As a playwright, I perceive story as the overall nar-
rative of my play. The storytelling is the way in which I unfold and reveal
the narrative through character, language, and structure.
K D : Have you had occasion to dene that dierence in your work?
A G R : As a playwright, my occasion to dene the dierence relates to some-
what analogous terms. If story correlates to plot and storytelling correlates
to character, language, and structure, the occasion to dene the dierence
in my work relates to the process of playwriting. In my process, I start
with character, then language, then structure, and then plot. Therefore,
to use your terms, I start with storytelling in order to arrive at the story of
the play.
K D : What do you consider to be the key elements for a good story?
145
AGR: The rst key element of a good story is compelling characters: charac-
ters that have depth, complexity, unexpected behavior, idiosyncrasies,
detailed language, well developed biographies, intentional actions, and
interesting obstacles. The second key element of a good story is detailed
dialogue that deeply reects the characters. The third key element of
a good story is well-crafted structure. This structure must arise out of the
characters and language.
K D : If there is a dierence, what are the key elements for good storytelling?
A G R : The rst key element for good storytelling are characters who are
actively pursuing what they desire. The second key element is momentum
or rhythm that keeps the action moving forward. The third key element is
surprise or being open to the unexpected.
K D : Do you approach key plot points dierently than the process of moving
between those key moments in your story process?
A G R : When writing a play, I prefer not to use the term “plot points” as that
seems to grow out of the process of developing plot rst before anything
else, which is not the approach I employ. An alternate paired term might
be “story moments” as that could better reect the idea that a story is
built upon moments between characters that determine the structure and
path of the play. In a rst draft, I generate character, language, then
story. Once I have story moments, which can be synopsized to create
scenes, I begin to see how these scenes add up to create an overall story.
How I move from scene to scene is a consideration that comes later in the
process in writing the rst draft of a play. First, I allow myself a period of
exploration where story can remain frustratingly elusive so that the story
can reveal itself through character. What do my characters want to say?
Where do they want to go? What do they want to achieve? I rarely have
all the answers to these questions when I start a rst draft. Characters
reveal themselves to me and that will determine the story and storytelling.
K D : Does the idea of “good storytelling” prompt other considerations that
I may not have mentioned?
A G R : The idea of good storytelling raises several issues related to aesthetics.
There is classic storytelling structure used in lm, which contains three
acts (set up, journey to climax, resolution). There is the classic storytelling
model of the hero’s journey (hero sets out on quest, hero confronts many
obstacles, hero achieves goal). I often consider these elements after I have
written an early draft of a play. I will consider if either model might assist
in my better crafting the play’s story. However, these two approaches can
often correlate to realism or naturalism in lm, television, or theatre.
There can also be more experimental approaches to good storytelling.
For example, María Irene Fornés, the award-winning Cuban–American
playwright, began her career as a painter and studied with abstract
expressionist Hans Homan. Homan’s push–pull theory, which explores
dierent energies in a painting that push or pull the attention of the
146
viewer, inuenced how Fornés crafts her plays. Fornés considers the con-
struction and collision of character pathways and the energies these gener-
ate as she creates the narratives of her plays. Each of her plays has
a unique structure that is often driven by the energetic push and pull of
her characters.
Lastly, I wonder if there might be other adjectives to describe storytell-
ing rather than the binary good/bad. Other possibilities might include:
compelling/boring, engaging/unappealing, eective/inadequate. To
a classicist who adheres to the three-act structure, a more uid, energetic,
experimental story may seem like “inadequate storytelling” or not even
storytelling at all. To an experimental writer, a more traditional hero’s
journey may seem unappealing and “boring storytelling.” Therefore, the
valuation of the storytelling approach seems in part linked to the aesthetic
interests of the writer and how that writer denes what is good, compel-
ling, engaging, and eective.
Email interview with Anne García-Romero, October, 2018
I found Anne’s answers to be both revealing and challenging. While her

journey to her “story” is not generally one that I thought I could apply to
my own work, I discovered there were direct corollaries to my own process,
and they help underscore how we might think about storytelling in lighting
design. To try to make this clearer I am going to move some of her answers
into a vocabulary that lines up with some of what we have already been
looking at. I would describe what Anne does as being like my idea of creat-
ing a toolbox, a concept I use to talk about getting ready to create a light
plot. While I speak about angles, colors, and qualities of light, Anne discusses
character, language, and structure. Just as she talks about allowing the craft-
ing of the characters and the development of their language as leading her
to the story that needs to be told, I realize that my assembly of design elem-
ents are there to allow me to move in a similar sort of organic process
toward a design. This idea of letting the character lead you to a story is very
interesting to me because the point where I generally enter the process is
long after the story is in place. This means that while I may assemble tools
that I can use to tell the story, I generally know what the story is before
I start. There is no way that knowledge does not inuence the process of
selecting my tools as I assemble my light plot.
As a lighting designer, story is not the only thing I respond to. Many of the
choices in my plots, and by extension my designs, are inuenced by the scenic
and the costume designs. I look for colors and angles that complement those
other elements. If we add projections, as several of my more recent projects
have, the impact on my choices grows. Now I have to be very aware of
bounce light and the unintended air from an instrument placed close to
a projection surface. This is all part of my process, and while I admit there are
147
times when the choices made by the other designers can feel limiting, in gen-
eral that feeling lasts a short moment before it morphs into a puzzle that
I need to unlock so that I can create the right design for this set of parameters.
I equate my “toolbox” to character because the individual elements do
not always lead to good storytelling, rather it is their relationship that creates
that. Just as Anne speaks about letting her characters true voice bring about
the action of story, so the meat of my design is not in any one “tool” but
rather in how I combine them to create a moment on stage. In other words,
any one concept in my design may be able to create visibility but it is gener-
ally not until I combine two or three of these that a compelling cue comes
to life. Take for example a low angle side light in a pale blue. If I turn those
lights on I will see the dancers but I will not see their relationship to the
overall space. Once I add a dark blue back light I dene the space in which
I see the dancers oat. Then, for sake of argument, I can add several well
dened down pools on the down stage right and left quarter lines and
a third slightly brighter pool center stage. The moment I am imagining is
one where there are three couples, one in each pool, and the choreographic
idea is one of theme and variation with the center couple supplying the
theme and the down stage couples the variation. Now I have something
interesting to look at, a nicely dened gure that stands out as “dierent”
from the environment, in a carefully dened portion of the overall stage
space. Any one element – shins, back light, or down light – will show us
the dancers, but we bring the three together at the right intensities and we
have a much more compelling image. A visual dialogue, if you will.
To continue with Anne’s thoughts about good storytelling she mentions
character, momentum, or rhythm and being open to the unexpected as key
elements. If my toolbox of visual concepts for the design is my equivalent of
character then what about these other two elements? Actually, I nd they
are key elements to my work and while I am not sure I would have thought
of them as elements of storytelling I understand them as critical to
a successful design.
I have always believed that cueing a production is where the art happens.
I can do a great deal to prepare, and I do, but if I am not open to the
cueing process the design can become stale or formulaic. I know my tools,
I know the piece, I have pretty good ideas of where I want to take things
but I don’t pre-write my shows. I never have and I really do not nd the
approach attractive. I understand that it is a way to get around the compact
time frame that we work with but I feel it short circuits the artistic conversa-
tion that can happen at the tech table. While it is true that a good number
of the choreographers I work with are perfectly happy to let me light the
piece with little or no input from them I nd that when they’re in the room
watching as the cues come together I can “read” their reactions and respond
to what resonates. There have been some times when I have been halfway
to a cue and they will say something like “That looks great, when are you
148
doing that?” I may choose to let that be the cue or I may pick a dierent
moment in the piece to “do that” but I have learned something about the
aesthetic of the choreographer and that moment would not have happened
if I had pre-written the cues.
I want to step back for a moment to explain “pre-writing.” Now that we
are in a world where virtually all light boards have a computer memory built
into them it is possible to get the same program that runs the light board to
run on a laptop. This means the entire lighting le can be created without
being at the light board, or without the light board being connected to the
lights. There is an increasing push in the industry for designers to arrive at the
theatre with a le already completed. It is understood that it will probably not
be every cue in the piece but at least it will have key moments dened and
a structure for the piece. In an eort to make this easier there are a number
of light boards that have incorporated what are called “pre-visualization”
programs that allow you to create reasonable approximations of what the cues
will look like on a monitor. While I recognize the advantages this process can
provide, I still nd that what happens in the theatre is much more valuable.
I would rather work within the constraints of the available time than lose the
organic process of creating cues in the space. The process of creating the cues
in the space speaks to two of Anne’s ideas – rhythm and spontaneity (or being
open to the unexpected).
But in addition, while I have always felt that one of the key elements
of design is cueing, the aspects of rhythm and timing in cueing is
a critical part of the overall process. I admit I have never thought about
this in terms of language (Anne’s ideas of letting her characters nd their
way of speaking as a part of creating rhythm) but I have frequently used
the idea of punctuation to describe the use of timing in the writing of
cues. A cue can be described as, and in fact is, a change in a variety of
intensities of lighting instruments resulting in a dierent lighting arrange-
ment on stage. The impact of moving from one cue to another is more
about the transition and how it unfolds, but that is not what I am inter-
ested in now; rather it is the speed of the change that is behind my idea
of punctuation. Cues can be set to an almost innite number of durations
ranging from a zero count, which is virtually instantaneous, to a few
seconds, on up to minutes or longer. Contemporary light boards are
designed to be able to accomplish these changes in a linear fashion,
straight up and down fades, or at a variety of dierent speeds in “part”
cues, and with dierent rates for lights that are increasing in intensity as
opposed to those that are fading down, or even out. It is all of these
elements that create the feeling of the rhythm in the lighting.
I once attended a lecture given by Peggy Eisenhauer about cueing and its
relationship to music. Her talk focused on a rock concert she had recently
designed with her partner Jules Fisher. Much of what she shared conrmed
many of the ideas I was already working with, but she introduced a concept
149
that I have shared with my students ever since. She spoke about the idea
that cues can have both an actual “go” and a “perceived go.” (This termin-
ology is derived from the practice of never initiating a light cue until the
stage manager calls for the “go.”) What I found so useful in this lecture was
the reminder that in addition to the lighting designer and the choreographer,
who know where a light cue is going, we need to keep the audience in mind
and recognize that they understand the light cues based on what they see,
rather than what they know about the piece. This becomes important when
we think about how we want to set the time, or duration, of a cue. The
shorter the cue, the closer to the actual “go” we see, or perceive, the change
in the lights. The longer the duration, the further away from the go
we see the change. So as a designer we need to keep in mind the impact of
the change in the lights, the speed with which we are going to make the
change, and when it will be seen by the audience. All of this creates the
rhythm of the cues.
The change created by the cue is important because it shapes the space,
helps the audience focus on the important aspects of the movement, and
leads us forward in the narrative of the piece. But the speed with which the
change is made has an equal – or sometimes greater – impact on the audi-
ence. This is where my punctuation analogy comes into play. A zero-second
fade, or bump cue, has the same sort of impact as an exclamation point. It
is emphatic, there is a sharp change, and we all see when it happens and
there is no room for doubt. Although bump cues can be used to start things
with a sharp visual gesture, most of the time they are used for blackouts. An
ending with an unequivocal point in time: “This ends now!” Used properly
they send a clear signal and punctuate time with a ourish that must be
earned. This was what we were sorting out when Christina and Siiri brought
me in to watch the end of Christina’s play. She told us she had been “writ-
ing to a blackout.” In other words, she felt that the appropriate “punctu-
ation” for the end of the piece was something emphatic and sharp. She went
on to say that if we thought it should end in a fade, then she would have to
rewrite a bit of the last scene for it to work for her. This was what got me
thinking about the idea of “earning a blackout.”
The slow fade has a very dierent dynamic. It brings you along with the
story, it is gentle, it requires time, and tries not to draw attention to itself, it
sneaks up on the audience without being noticed. In punctuation it would be
akin to an ellipsis at the end of a sentence, indicating a trailing or unnished
idea. In this case, maybe more of an unrecognized idea, but the impact is
gentle and about as far away from emphatic as we can get. The kind of move-
ment used in a piece, along with the soundtrack that accompanies the dance,
will establish what a “period” is in a given work. For some pieces this can be
a fade of around four seconds and in others it could be about two seconds.
This sort of fade is one that can generally be seen within the rst half-second
of its start, yet it does not feel abrupt or jarring. Just as we use periods to
150
simply end a statement and allow for the start of a new one, these fades are
moving from one visual idea to another without demanding attention or sig-
naling a signicant change in what is happening on stage. And yes, I have
given this a good deal of thought. It was something that I was never taught
anything about and that I learned by listening to my instincts. When Peggy
Eisenhauer spoke about and named the “apparent go,” it got me thinking
about timing in cues and the rhythm it brings to a piece. It changed the way
I taught both lighting designers and stage managers, and I think it made
me a much better communicator with choreographers. The way I time and
place cues is one of the things that denes who I am as a designer, because
I make those choices by giving in to the needs of a piece instead of making the
lighting a strong statement in the piece.
There are pieces where the concept makes room for very abrupt changes
that create a high contrast in looks; as an example Howell Binkley designed
a piece by David Parsons called Closure. One of the principal design elements
of this work was a set of strip lights at the back of the stage that were
focused toward the audience. When David set this piece on the Jorey I was
serving as the lighting director and was responsible for recreating Howell’s
design. It was interesting to work on because it was not my aesthetic. This
meant I had to work a bit harder to make sure I was doing what Howell
wanted and not what I thought would work – it was his design not mine.
I got to the point where I understood why the design worked the way that it
did and when I had to make adjustments to accommodate the dierent
equipment we were using, I felt as if I was capturing the same aesthetic
as the original design. I also had David with me who made sure things
looked the same to him. I thought during this process that I would not have
been the right designer for that piece, that David was lucky to be working
with Howell, and that clearly they understood one another. With the dis-
tance of time, I now think that I might not have arrived at the same design
choices that Howell did, but I would have been able to create a design that
David would have liked. That said, I am also fairly sure that even if I had
known David better when he started his dance company, he still would have
asked Howell to be his co-artistic director and to design all of his works. It is
about aesthetics and artistic vision, and if you are going to make that sort of
a commitment you need to know that you both see things in compatible and
complementary ways.
While I generally have a very specic idea about the timing of a cue
I have also learned that what may logically appear to be the correct choice
might not work. I had an assistant at the American Dance Festival one year
who designed a piece for one of the international choreographers. He was
having trouble with a particular light cue and asked if I could oer any
advice. I watched the section with him and he was right – it wasn’t working.
He had created a slow fade, which seemed right with the choreography and
the score, but it really pulled focus. He kept slowing it down to no avail.
151
I suggested he try it as a bump cue on the downbeat of the music since he

had already tried everything else. He looked skeptical but tried it anyway.
To our surprise it worked. The lesson I took away from that was, I may not
always know ahead of time but I can usually gure it out if I see it.
Which brings us to Anne’s nal point of being open to the unexpected.
This point is probably the hardest for me to really consider, in part
because I spent a number of years in North Carolina where the “story-
teller” tradition is very strong. I attended a number of storytelling festivals
and have listened to people who made a career as a storyteller. What
I learned is that they work really hard to give the impression of spontan-
eity but virtually every moment is precisely crafted for just the right eect
in the telling of a story. I watched an actor rehearse a classic folk tale for
a touring production and saw the number of hours that went into making
that seem eortless. On the other hand, a well told story does give the
audience the impression that it is being told for the rst time and that
reaction comes from a feeling of spontaneity. So perhaps it is the impres-
sion of being open to and responding to the unexpected that creates the
feeling of good storytelling. Ultimately, I think Anne would agree with the
need to craft the story as she is very careful about rewrites and workshops
when she is crafting a new play. What can I suggest brings the impression
of spontaneity to lighting design? For me I come right back to the idea of
building the look of a work in the theatre with the artistic sta, and at the
very least with the costumes present. If the company can aord to have
the dancers there, so much the better, but frequently the time I am given
to do my work falls outside of the parameters of the dancer’s work day
which means I am on my own. When the dancers are there it is very rare
that the attention is on the lighting; dancers are paid to dance, not stand
around while I adjust the lighting. This is why I have a love/hate relation-
ship with lighting a piece during spacing rehearsals.
I appreciate the presence of the dancers and obviously need to know
where certain moments in a piece will be on stage, but on the other hand
I am almost never lighting the moment they are spacing and if I have to ask
them to go back to a particular point or jump ahead to the moment I am
working on, it slows the whole process. Still – if given the choice between
writing cues with the dancers in costume, although not in the right place all
the time, and writing cues with no dancers and costumes hanging on ladders
and costume racks – I will take the dancers being there every time. While
costumes on ladders or stands will give me something that can catch the side
lights and give me a much better idea of the full picture, they do not have
skin tone nor do they have the three-dimensional quality of the body in the
costume. It is much better than trying to light with nothing on stage, or
a stage hand as a “walker” who is wearing jeans and a dark colored T-shirt,
but it is not the ideal situation. On the other hand, how often do we ever
get to work under ideal conditions?
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Why is all of this important?

It speaks to style, it speaks to artistic vision, to partnering with the dance.
It is about attention to the whole thing, to the opening up of a moment on
stage in a way that brings the audience along at the pace we want. It is
about revealing the dancer at the precise instant in the dance and in the
rhythm of the piece. It is about making the lighting design a partner in the
work. To me it is how I perform; and to the artistic director who was writ-
ing me it is what makes me a storyteller in light. While I hate to try to
narrow down storytelling to simple ideas – as I am convinced there is noth-
ing really simple about it – I do believe it is the space between the moments
that make for good storytelling. If we think of the key points in a story as
being equivalent to the “looks” or cues we create for signicant moments in
a dance, then the story telling is in how we get from one to the other. It is
also about our voice, about the choices we make as we create a light plot,
choices that will shape what we are able to do onstage, the language we
create for ourselves as partners, or fellow characters in the piece. It is about
having the courage to go in with loose ideas and to always remain open to
the discovery that happens in the process. It is what sets one designer apart
from another.
I have been involved in workshops where dierent student designers work
on the same dance piece. They are given the same amount of time to create
a set of cues, and have usually been able to work with a video of the piece
before the workshop begins. If the choreographer is present they will all get
the same amount of time with them to discuss ideas and impulses. I have
never seen the same design emerge from any two designers in these situ-
ations. The dierences range from what the cues look like, to how many
cues there are, to the speed of the transitions, to the colors they choose, and
so on. All of the elements are open to interpretation, to the designers’
impulses and their way of telling the story. Usually the dierent designs are
then critiqued by other lighting designers – presumably with more experi-
ence – and on occasion the choreographer also gets a chance to weigh in.
No one is ever right or wrong in these workshops, that is not the point,
instead we talk about what the design may have contributed or if something
seemed to draw our eyes away from a specic bit of choreography, or
a choice we found surprising. I realize now that what we were trying to do
in these workshops was to help the designers rene their storytelling voice.
To help them develop their artistic point of view and create their language
of design.
Perhaps I should not have been surprised by the wording of the email.
Really when it comes right down to it what caught me o guard was the
vocabulary being used. The idea of storytelling in lighting design sounds
vague, it is not a designer’s term, but it is a designer’s task. When designers
get together they talk about aesthetics, points of view, about aggressive
designs or unassuming designs. They talk about good lighting and bad
153
lighting (we can be very opinionated), but if we dig a little deeper we will
focus on choices that were made and how we might have chosen dierently.
If we are asked to let someone else recreate our work we tend to worry
about protecting our vision or our approach to a piece. I have never had
another designer talk to me about taking care of the storytelling when
I have been in charge of recreating a design of theirs. But if I am honest,
I know that I have not felt as if I was doing a good job as a lighting director
until I gured out what the designer’s point of view was for a piece. And at
the end of the day I think that is just another term for how they wanted to
tell the story.
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15
S H AR I N G YO U R ID EAS F O R
T HE D AN C E
One of the challenges I face when working with a new choreographer or

artistic director is how much I am allowed to contribute. I would like to say
that everyone is always open to artistic input from their collaborators, but
I have learned from past experiences that that is not really the case. After all
the time I have spent working in dance I nd that I no longer just look at
pieces in terms of what lighting can do to support the choreographer’s work.
I am looking at the piece with a critical eye. This is the rst point of contri-
bution that I have to negotiate. While I have never suggested choreographic
changes, I have at times oered what I would call staging ideas. Ways to
consider the entire stage space, and how the choreography will interact with
it. I know some of this comes from frequently being the only designer in the
room – and I will go into that at another point – but it also comes from my
belief that in order for me to do my best work with the lighting I need to
think about the entire piece, not just my part of it.
I also know, however, that not every choreographer is open to that sort
of conversation – particularly the rst time we work together. I have learned
when I can push the boundaries a bit and when it is best to stay quiet.
There is no one approach that will guarantee success and there is no way to
speed up the process. The best tool you have in the early stages are your
ears. You have to listen carefully and wait to share your own ideas. This is
because when you rst work with a new collaborator you have to start by
establishing trust. The more headway you can make in that regard before
you nd yourself at the tech table in the theatre the better. Here is where all
the eort you put into building a common vocabulary and a respectful, trust-
ing, artistic partnership really pays o. I have found that the best place to
begin building that trust is in the rehearsal when I am seeing the work for
the rst time. I have found that the better I can reect what I have just seen
and the clearer I can be about my reactions to it and my thoughts about the
work, the quicker we get to the best level of trust we are going to achieve.
I use that phrase “best level of trust” intentionally because it will not be
the same from collaborative artist to collaborative artist. Some choreograph-
ers guard their artistic vision to the point of suocation for the other artists
155
SHARING YOUR IDEAS FOR THE DANCE
involved. Others are perhaps too generous in turning their work over and
allowing it to be shaped by another artist. While I admit I have worked with
some choreographers who have made me feel as if I was just there to exe-
cute their ideas, there have been others who have oered almost no frame-
work or guidelines. For me the sweet spot is somewhere in between. While it
is incredibly attering when someone I have never met before tells me they
trust me completely and whatever I want to do with their piece will be ne,
I do not need to claim ownership of the work. Without enough input from
the choreographer it would be too easy for me to alter the perception of the
work to the point that it would cause a completely dierent response in the
audience. Before I begin to ll the space with colors and angles of light
I want to know how the choreographer pictures this work in their mind’s
eye.
When I ask a student or a collaborator to picture a moment and then
describe it to me I am asking them to engage their “mind’s eye.” For me
this is a dierent concept than seeing something in your imagination. If
I ask you what you imagined something should look like, it moves it away
from the reality of the performance we are creating. There are no limita-
tions. Your imagination could take you to any conceivable location – inside,
outside, underwater, and so on. This could be a useful exercise but it adds
an extra step. It means that I will then need to work to get back to what we
can accomplish in the theatre. If I ask you how you imagined seeing this
moment or section of a piece then we are usually closer to the event that
will happen in the performance space. The downside to this is that not
everyone is good at describing what they see in terms of light. I touched on
this issue in an earlier chapter; here is where it can become a stumbling
block.
When I teach lighting design I assign a series of writing exercises that I call
light observations. These are short, specic descriptions of clearly identied
lighting environments – interior space, exterior space during the day/at night,
sunrise/sunset. The idea is to use the manageable properties of light as
a starting point, but the real challenge is to create an evocative description of
light that will help someone else picture what you have actually seen. I think
this is an essential part of being a lighting designer, yet I am often surprised at
how hard it is for some of my professional colleagues to do. Technical descrip-
tions of color based on gel numbers or angles based on hanging positions are
pretty easy for them but making it about image and how the gure appears in
a three-dimensional space is not as comfortable.
A similar exercise I have used is to ask people to pay attention to the
lighting they move through over the course of a day or days. How does light
change as you walk from one location to another? Does your path take you
in and out of buildings? Does the amount of visibility remain fairly constant
or do you have abrupt shifts in brightness? I specically tell them to keep
their eyes open for something unexpected. It can be a patch of color in an
156
otherwise neutral setting, an angle of light that may seem out of place,
a shaft of light with dust motes dancing on the heat waves – in other words
something wonderful and out of place. I ask them to rst take the time to
gure out how this moment was created, then I suggest they see if it brought
to mind an emotion, or the memory of – or sense of – a place. As a last step
I suggest they name the moment and create as vivid a mental picture as
they can in the hopes that someday there will be a moment in a piece
where this image resonates.
If that moment happens, it will not be about recreating the reality of
what they remember, although that may be a possibility, but rather nding
a visual statement within the remembered image that can support the par-
ticular moment in the piece. We are not working in the real world, we are
working in a theatrical space and we get to determine the rules. I once
attended a lecture by lighting designer and theatre consultant Roger
Morgan with an accompanying set of slides. Most of the images were pro-
ductions he had designed, which he would use to discuss his process and the
reason for the choices he had made. In a couple of instances he described
how he had created a particular look with specic information about equip-
ment, color, accessories, and so on. An image came up of a glorious sunset,
richly colored clouds, and streaks of sunlight cutting through an almost
violet sky. I felt myself lean in, I was certain he was going to share some
wonderful secret about how to make that incredible sky. He paused for the
briefest of moments as he too looked at the image and then he said “That is
real, don’t do that.”
While it is exciting to create a moment that feels so wonderfully real that
people will wonder how on earth you were able to do it, that is not usually
the best choice. Lighting design is more often about metaphorical space or
evocative place than it is about faithfully recreating reality – particularly in
dance. Even if we base what we do in reality it will never be the same, so
we need to create a manufactured reality that takes us where we need to
go for the piece of choreography we are designing. Sometimes we are forced
to discover that on our own but usually the choreographer becomes our
partner in that search. The problem is that either due to a lack of appropri-
ate vocabulary or an untrained mind’s eye, they may not be able to tell us.
Sometimes I can coach a choreographer into a good description through
the questions I ask. That was what I was trying with Rennie Harris when
I asked if his piece was set in an indoor space or an outdoor space. His
response of “neither” could have been seen as cutting o the conversation,
but I trusted he was being honest and so I took that to mean we were not
trying to create a specic feeling of “place.” It gave me permission to oer
the sort of space that I was seeing in my mind when I watched the rehearsal.
The other big favor Rennie did for me was asking me if I had a picture
I could show him. Since it was our rst time working together I do not
know how comfortable he was describing light, or even how important that
157
was to him. When he asked to see a picture I understood that to be his way
of asking for something concrete that could help him get inside my imagin-
ation. I did not have a specic picture in mind during the conversation, but
the idea of light was so clear to me that I knew I could nd a picture.
I have spent a lot of time over the years working on my mental catalogue
of images of light. In fact I can still picture a lightning storm over a volcanic
lake I watched in Guatemala when I was 14 or 15. I was not yet a lighting
designer but I had already begun to store up my catalogue of images.
I follow the practice I teach my students: Stopping to look at and to really
see what is so striking about a moment of light. I usually take the time to
also think about how I would approach such a moment on stage. I create
a mini-light plot in my imagination to plan out what sorts of instruments
I would need to use, to determine which elements of what I am seeing
I would be able to come close to creating and which ones would have to be
left to the side. I would hate to oer up an image, have the choreographer
get excited about it, and then not be in a position to deliver the very image
I suggested. I have also spent a lot of time in art museums over the years
and taken the time to get to know the works of certain artists or representa-
tive work of certain movements in art. I have my favorites, mostly impres-
sionists, but also some of the Dutch painters, and the Renaissance and
baroque artists that elevated the use of chiaroscuro, but I try to nd new
ones with every museum I visit.
I have a growing collection of postcards from museums that are repro-
ductions of famous paintings. I use these as teaching tools in my classes but
I have also used them as design tools when working through ideas with
choreographers. Some of them are quite literal in their representation of
light, others are more suggestive. I prefer the suggestive ones – they allow
me greater freedom to manipulate the ideas in a way that will support the
choreography. The literal ones are useful but they can tie you to a very spe-
cic approach to light. That is not always a bad thing but more often I have
used them to help a choreographer understand what I am trying to describe
as opposed to using them to oer a solution for the design. Sometimes my
postcards have served to remind my colleagues of a painting they know that
captures a quality they associate with their dance. I don’t hold a patent on
this idea of image sharing. A good internet connection and a quick computer
can usually provide a reasonable image for the purposes of these discussions,
but be careful of color. Try this someday: enter “Picasso’s Old Guitarist”
into your favorite search engine and choose image results. How many dier-
ent hues of blue do you see in the rst page of results? Not to mention how
many of the results aren’t even painted by Picasso.
Recently several of my friends have been using Facebook to share images
of art works. This is not a daily thing but is frequent and regular. One of
them is a lighting designer and the other is a set and costume designer. This
inuences what they choose to share on line but they have become another
158
source of discovery for me and I am always delighted when they show up.
I will also take the time to do on-line image searches with a particular style
or movement as a starting point. What may seem like a waste of time to
others, becomes a way of building up my image bank with both paintings
I can reference and approaches to lighting that I can put to use. I will also
try to put into words what is happening with the light in these paintings. It
helps me improve my vocabulary about light and is a good exercise for then
describing lighting solutions I may be considering for a new dance piece.
This has been a lifelong pursuit that began with natural occurrences (sunsets,
lightning storms, moonlight) when I was a child, and added in a love of
painting when I took an art history course in college. I have gradually added
images from lms and television, though they are sometimes harder to use
to do the controlled image of the camera.
I also pay attention to word pictures about light that occur in books I am
reading. I like the reverse process of using someone else’s words to create an
image in my mind’s eye. I am not a writer by training so to see how some-
one who has a facility with words talks about something about which I have
a clear understanding gives me a better vocabulary to talk about my own
ideas. When I was learning about dance and guring out how to talk to
choreographers and dancers about what they do, I got help from certain
critics and essayists that write about the art form. Unfortunately, I have yet
to read any critical writing about lighting that speaks with a great deal of
intelligence about what we do. I have found that I am on my own there.
The novelist’s poetic notions do not always translate to practical terms that
can help a choreographer picture what I would like to do for their piece,
but the modiers, and the characterization, of light and its impact can.
But again, words have limitations and the poetic is subject to many inter-
pretations so I cannot always count on shared mental images when I rely on
words. When I rst worked with Gerald Arpino I was warned that he would
frequently make grand pronouncements such as “It is too bright” and expect
that the appropriate adjustments to cues would happen. On face this is
a simple request but when there are almost 100 channels on the board at
a variety of dierent levels, there is not a simple solution. One board oper-
ator once oered to bring the grand master down 15 percent and see what
that would do. It didn’t help; ve minutes later he was telling me it was too
bright once again. For whatever reason I thought to ask what was too
bright, and that saved me a great deal of time from that point on. Usually it
turned out that the oor was too bright, but sometimes it was the back-
ground and on occasion the dancers themselves, but he could tell me and it
was almost always a balance issue instead of a brightness issue. My lessons
from that was that I could and should seek to push for greater detail and
I always need to be ready to oer it myself, and that I should never assume
that the other artists at the tech table are looking at the same detail I am.
159
Despite the occasional misstep, we function mostly through words when

we are trying to sort out ideas and artistic impulses so it is important that
we gain sucient mastery of the words we need to use. Precision of language
and accuracy of moment are two very key ideas in discussing design and
dance ideas. How do we get there and what are the obstacles? The obstacles
are almost always due to some assumption. The assumption that
I mentioned above is one of the most common, that we are discussing the
same thing at the same time. In the case of “it is too bright” both the board
operator and I assumed Jerry was talking about the overall level of light,
hence his suggestion that we could lower the grand master. Based on the
simple statement itself, it was a reasonable assumption. Instead, I learned he
was talking about the oor. That required a completely dierent solution.
Another source of obstacles is a lack of precise language which relates dir-
ectly to the third barrier – not talking about the same moment in the dance
while being certain that we are. I have worked with choreographers who are
terric at this process. They may not be able to speak about lighting in the
same terms I do but they are excellent at making sure we are on the same
page. When I discuss a moment they will counter with either additional
details about the moment they think I mean, or they will challenge me to
oer more detail about what I am seeing. As a result it has become my
practice now to never watch a run of a piece I am lighting without a note
pad. Sometimes I will try to chart the entire dance, but at the very least
I need to be ready to write out a description of moments that I know I want
to talk about later.
Even with a work as short as ten minutes in length, there will be more
things to talk about than I will be able to remember in detail from one view-
ing. I have gotten good at writing notes without having to keep my eyes on
the page. More importantly I have learned to decipher what I have written
when I look at it later. I don’t try to use dance terminology – unless I am
certain I am right – instead I concentrate on the more obvious physical attri-
butes of the moment. I start with who is on stage. Even if I do not know
names I make sure I have the number of dancers and their genders. I will
also give an estimation of where they are on stage. If the studio we are in is
approximately the size of the stage, there will likely be marks on the oor to
designate center and quarters across the down stage edge of the space. If
you are lucky, there will also be marks along the middle of the stage, and
center and quarters at the back of the space; occasionally you will nd
marks for the masking legs. If your space is small then you should ask what
they are using for center and quarters and how they are determining how
far up stage or down stage they expect to be for certain sections once they
have their full depth.
It is also a very common practice for understudies and second cast mem-
bers to be in the space, upstage of the dancers, marking parts of the piece to
make sure they have it in their muscles. Don’t be afraid to ask if it is possible
160
to run the piece for you with just the cast on stage. I learned this lesson the
hard way. The rst time I went to a rehearsal for Ballet du Nord it was
a contemporary work and after the run I asked if the dancers who were
echoing the movement that was happening down stage were in a dierent
sort of light or if I was to treat them the same as the dancers in the fore-
ground. Fortunately no one laughed, instead they simply asked all second
and third cast dancers to work on the sides of the space while I was watch-
ing the piece. The majority of my work before then had been with smaller
companies who did not have the luxury of extra dancers or understudies, so
I had never run into this practice before. I never made that assumption
again.
After numbers, gender, and location, I will add words to describe shape,
movement, or physical connection between dancers. I do not try to go into
too much detail, it is not about how good I am at playing “name the step”
but rather about how much information I need to make sure we are talking
about the same moment when I discuss the work with the choreographer.
Any notes you can t in about music and, in particular, when it changes will
also help keep you on track. If the dancers are dancing to a recorded
track – not always a given – then get a copy of the music to listen to as you
review your notes. Dance can move fast and there is often only time for
about half of this information to get recorded before we are on to the next
moment. It is better to keep up with the bare bones of the piece – who is
onstage when – than to try and ll in extra detail. If you can be clear about
where you are in the work then the choreographer will help ll in some of
those details.
For example, I may refer to a moment in the second section (I have
determined sections based on either comments from the choreographer
during the run, or a strong transition in the music with an accompanying
shift in the energy of the piece) where there were two women and one man
down stage right. The choreographer may ask me if the women were hold-
ing the man’s arms; with any luck I will remember that indeed they were,
and I had wondered if they were supposed to be impeding him or he was
supposed to be leading them. This means we are now thinking about the
same moment in the work; we have accomplished one of the necessary
things to talk about the dance. We got there because of precision of descrip-
tion – how many dancers of which genders and where they were on stage –
and a clarifying question. If the moment has signicance as a shift in tone or
meaning the choreographer may actually oer up a name for that section or
phrase and I will write that down for future reference. That “name” for the
moment or the step will let me get back there more quickly the next time
we speak. The name, assuming it is not a standard classical term, may also
provide some clarity about the moment as well.
I often feel as if I am a sort of detective in these early conversations and,
in fact, the more information that ows out of these meetings the better.
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I always prefer the conversations where the ideas behind the piece get
shared in their own time and order. It is a more organic way of getting to
know the work and, personally, I feel a greater sense of ownership about the
process when that happens. If it doesn’t then I prompt it. After I ask my
“stock” question about the genesis of the piece I will oer my own reactions
and responses. I will not go to story unless that has been suggested by other
comments, instead I look for relationship/conict images. I also point to
moments that triggered an emotional response and to those that cause
a kinesthetic response. Sometimes those kinesthetic responses are just about
the physicality of the movement but they can also show me when I felt
invested in a moment.
This involuntary muscular and neurological response that I can have to
movement is a good signal for me. I pay attention to those moments and try
to gure out why I responded there in particular. Often it is a combination of
elements – strong, well-executed movement of a particularly explosive nature
with an accompanying dynamic shift in the music – that creates the
response, but just as often it has been a response to a critical point in the
choreography. In play analysis we are taught to look for the “set piece”
moments, those moments of high theatricality, as a way to chart the key
actions in a script. Similarly, music will have climactic moments that lead
you through the shape of a piece. In much the same way I nd the structure
of a dance is revealed by key movement choices. Invariably if I pay attention
to the things that grabbed my focus and caused me to shift sympathetically
in my seat, I have a good outline for the dance piece I am lighting.
On the other hand, if I discover in my conversation with the choreog-
rapher that I have missed some of those points, I see that as a place where
I can be of greatest help to the work. I look at those moments and ask
myself how I can help this land more clearly with the next audience.
Because in a very real sense that is what I am providing at that early show-
ing – an audience’s perspective. The average audience member may not
have seen as many dierent dance works as I have and more than likely not
spent as much time breaking them down looking for the clues that will allow
me to do my best job with the design, but at this rst viewing I am as close
as the choreographer is going to get to a fresh eye at this point in the pro-
cess. If I am completely honest with myself and the choreographer about
what I have seen (or perhaps noticed is a better word) and we can compare
it to what the choreographer was trying to say, we have a valuable tool for
determining what needs to be worked on. Either I will need to bring some
clarity with the lighting design or the choreographer will need to go back in
and retool that moment.
This is why my rst reactions are so important, both for me and for the
choreographer. I have had the privilege on certain spoken word productions
to work with a dramaturg. One of the most valuable resources they have pro-
vided for the production team was that of fullling the role of the informed
162
outsider. They are privy to the intentions of the production by virtue of their
inclusion in early rehearsals and the research material they are asked to pro-
vide in order to create context for the performers. They are also not present
for all the rehearsals, so when they return they bring a fresh eye that can iden-
tify the moments we were trying to build that still are not clear. Knowing
what we are striving for and not having been part of the process of creation
allows them this valuable perspective. To a certain extent I can provide this
same resource for the choreographer; I do not have the early information or
the background the dramaturg can work from, but I do have experience in
dance and an understanding of how movement can speak to an audience. If
I can share my honest reactions to what I have seen in a clear and non-
judgmental way I can provide two critical services to the creation of this new
work. I can be an informed audience and the artistic partner that will allow
future audiences a better perspective on the work.
This was not always the case. When I started I didn’t realize there was
value in my talking about what I had seen and how I reacted to it. I felt
I needed to speak as if I was a dance specialist with a great deal of experi-
ence in the eld, as opposed to simply an audience member. Learning this
early has made it possible for me to be of greater value to the process now.
I still try to oer simple observations as opposed to analyzing the movement
in a way that ascribes meaning. If I have had an emotional response I will
share that as well but that is not where I start. I do think it is important to
share your emotional responses and your kinesthetic responses, but they
reect what you brought with you when you came to watch the rehearsal.
This does not make them less valuable but it does make them less universal.
If I have felt as if there was a narrative behind the work I will try to get the
choreographer to lead that discussion. I do not want to impose my perceived
story line because it is not a given that there is one. Many works are
responses to stimuli, like music or movement, and are content to remain an
abstraction. It is a mistake to try and assign a story to those works.
On the other hand, if I get the feeling that I am missing something, that
there is a message the choreographer is trying to share, I will try to draw
that out as well. The best way that I know to do that is to share what I have
seen. If I think there is more to it I will often end my response with
a comment along the lines of “I am not sure I am getting all of it.” I think
this is enough of a signal for the choreographer to decide how much more
I should know. Again, I do not want to burden them or their choreography
with ideas or concepts that are only there because of what I brought into
the studio with me. But I also know that I need as much information as
I can learn about the non-movement qualities of the piece as possible to be
able to support the entire work.
When I was designing a new piece for Giordano Dance Chicago, choreo-
graphed by Kiesha Lalama, I remember feeling as if I was missing some-
thing. I had a good handle on the piece and I really liked the music and my
163
overall understanding of the structure and the movement was clear. As

I spoke with the Kiesha I left space for her to oer some subtext for the
piece if it was there. What she shared was a life experience that had inu-
enced her music choice and the choreographic ideas, but she wanted me to
understand it was not the story of the choreography. I remember that when
I went into the level set I had my notation of the piece and my expectation
of where I was going to place light cues, but along the outside margin I had
added some key words: Break-up, discord, reconciliation, and so on. They
were not the names of the sections, which is what the stage manager asked,
nor were they the “story line” of the piece. These words were the emotional
clues I had gleaned from my conversation with Kiesha. I wanted to keep
them in mind as I established the dierent sections and how they were going
to look. I knew I did not have to be fully faithful to them but I also knew
they were the images that had helped generate the choreography, and
I needed to honor them.
There was no hidden message to the work, or a story line I needed to
support, but there was something in the background that helped me support
the full nature of the piece instead of simply what was apparent on stage.
No one picked up on all of that in a concrete manner, they could not have
told you what each subsection was named on my notes, but I am certain my
design more fully supported what the choreographer was trying to say with
the movement and that made me feel as if I had truly done my job.
There are times when this is not as simple as it may sound here. Some-
times the choreographer’s ego gets in the way. Either because they can’t be
bothered to make the time for the conversation or because they don’t feel as
if you have anything of value to oer. They can also be dismissive of what
you are doing and start trying to tell you how to do your job. One of the
things I learned from my Nikolais Dance Theatre days was that most of the
time when those “ego moments” appear, they are masking some sort of inse-
curity. My best tool in dealing with that sort of thing has been to always
treat everyone I deal with as if they have real value. It generally disarms the
situation and problems start to dissolve. I was at a tech table during
a lighting session with a guest designer for the Jorey. One of the artistic
associates was in charge of a particular section of a piece and they were tell-
ing the designer what they thought they should be doing. This was a clash
of two strong egos. The designer turned toward me to yell to Jerry Arpino,
who was on my other side, “Do you hear this crap she is saying?” Probably
not the most useful comment that could have been made at that point.
I try not to be the one with the ego, and it helps to remember that, when
the curtain goes up, it is not generally my name that is going to be on the line.
That is probably why I have also preferred the compliments I have heard
after an opening night that focus on the totality of the production. When
someone says, “Hey, nice lights, I noticed them a lot of the time, you added
a great deal to the piece,” I worry that my work overshadowed everything
164
else. On the other hand, when I hear someone compliment the whole work
and they single out a moment that I know took shape because of the lighting,
I feel pride in that – even if they don’t give me the credit. I do not need to be
the top dog at the tech table. I have always felt my work was in support of
a larger artistic vision to which I have made a signicant contribution. On the
very rare occasion when my work did not feel valued or perhaps
a choreographer spoke about the experience in a way that felt disrespectful,
I have simply made it impossible for us to work together again. Making art
should be fullling and life is too short to work with people who do not treat
you with respect. When I worked with the Nikolais Dance Theatre, there was
a clipping from an ad in a newspaper that had been slightly altered and was
left hanging in the dressing room: “It is hard to soar with the eagles when you
are surrounded by turkeys.”
If there is one signicant thing to take away from all of this it is to speak
up. Learn how to describe what you are seeing. Figure out how to share
your own responses to it. Don’t worry if you are right, because you are not
saying that what you feel or think is in fact what the piece is about; just
what you feel and think. Only you know if what you are saying is right
because no one else knows what is going on inside of you. Even if what you
respond to or say is dierent than the choreographer’s intent, it has value. If
what you oer is not exactly what the choreographer intended then they
either need to change the work or help you understand their perspective. It
is so much better to get those dierent perspectives worked out before you
are in the theatre instead of facing them at tech. Just make sure you are
speaking from a point of respect and that your language does not allow
anyone to feel as if you are denigrating anything they have done. Respect in
this and all communication is critical. Once you both understand what each
of you is seeing and responding to, and have talked through things to the
point that you are on the same page, you will have what you need to be
able to move on to the next step. You will be ready to create a light plot
that contains all the tools you need to design the lighting that will support
the choreographer’s vision.
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16
THE D E S I GNE R ’S TO O L B O X
Over the years I have tried to come up with an analogy that would help me
explain my process to my students. One that stuck for a number of years
was the analogy of an artist’s painting palette. When an artist gets ready to
work on a painting they will prepare a palette with several of the base colors
they intend to work with in the rst layer of the painting. These colors are
applied around the outside edge of the palette. Then they pull either the
pure color or bits of several colors to the middle of the palette and mix
them into the desired hue. They may have to mix in a bit of the neutral
medium to allow the paint to ow properly on the canvas, and they try to
work on all the areas of the painting that will use this color as a base. My
point in using this analogy was that a designer approaching a new work is
well served by guring out what colors they want to use, and to mix, in
order to light the piece. This is where the limitation of this analogy
appeared.
As I explained this idea of getting ready to create a design, the “palette”
analogy pushed many of my students into concentrating on color and they
failed to consider angle – in other words, they didn’t think about where the
color was coming from. This usually meant that I had to explain the idea
again in greater detail and I found myself describing these combinations of
distribution and color as tools they could use to create their design.
I pointed out that to only consider one aspect and not the other was to
short circuit the process. I needed them to stop thinking about the individual
properties of light – a great way to analyze light when trying to describe
something you are seeing – and try to understand that every instrument you
add to a plot has multiple factors that all need to be considered collectively
as one statement of light. So I eventually settled on the idea of stocking
a toolbox.
When you set out to do a job around your house you think about what
you need to work on and collect the kinds of tools you are most likely to
need. If it is a plumbing job you will need a variety of wrenches, pliers,
channel-locks, and perhaps some plumber’s tape or putty. If it is an electrical
repair you are more likely to need screwdrivers, wire strippers, lineman’s
166
THE DESIGNER’S TOOLBOX
pliers, electrician’s tape, or wire nuts. Then there are the things that you
may want on any job such as gloves or knee pads, needle nose pliers, or
ashlight. Similarly, you may have certain combinations of color, instrument
type, and distribution that you nd you come back to over and over again;
but what you add to these will change from piece to piece. Collectively these
ideas or combinations make up what I have come to call the “designer’s
toolbox.”
One of my favorite things to do when I am starting on a new work is to
begin jotting down these color and angle combinations as I am watching the
run-throughs. They may be triggered by comments the choreographer
makes, they may be in response to costume choices, and they may simply
pop into my mind triggered by nothing in particular except a feeling about
the piece. It is not uncommon for this list to become a bit unwieldy before
I ever get to the process of creating the light plot, but I try not to edit my
ideas until I have to deal with the realities of inventories and dimmers and
hanging positions. Only when I sit down to turn images into instruments do
I begin to think about what I might be able to do without.
These early choices generally do not come with particular gel numbers
attached to them, rather I think in terms of names of hues. I will call them
blue green back light, or pale amber front light, or Special Lavender shins.
(That last one is a specic gel color name from a singular manufacturer, but
at this stage of the game I am thinking of the concept of a warm lavender as
opposed to the specic gel itself.) If I know that I want to use one of my
regular color and angle combinations I will use the gel number to signify to
myself that this is a pretty rm idea. Even then I always give myself permis-
sion to adjust anything when I am editing the list as part of the process of
creating the light plot. I do try to be just as clear with myself about angles
or distribution. Side light is too vague. I will specify pipe ends or boom tops
or head highs or shins. Ultimately these will get further rened to reect the
height of the booms that are available and the trim height of the electrics.
The further along I get in the process the more specic I get in dening my
tools.
One of my favorite tools, though it isn’t usually listed among the manage-
able properties of light, is texture. One of the easiest examples of this is the
light that we see in a wooded area. It lters through the branches and leaves
of trees and arrives on the ground as a dappled breakup of light that signals
to us that we are outside in nature. The impressionists were intrigued by this
light, particularly Renoir and Monet. Just take a look at some of Monet’s
late paintings of his gardens at Giverny. Texture is a exible and valuable
tool and appears in many dierent places in many of my light plots. It can
add front light to a stage without washing out the space. It can change loca-
tion more eectively than color alone. It can break up the wide-open canvas
of the oor and create a more interesting surface to look at; it can work
wonders on the look of a wrinkled backdrop.
167
To get an idea of how many options there are with texture, all you have
to do is look at the template catalogue published by one of the companies
that produce templates, or gobos. Gobos are pieces of sheet metal with
a pattern cut out of them that can be placed inside certain lighting instru-
ments. The light can then be focused so that the edge of these pattern
images can be sharply dened, or softened to the point that it is hard to
determine what you are looking at. Each of these companies oers in excess
of 2000 premade patterns and most of them have the ability to create
a custom pattern from a design that you might imagine. And this is only
considering the standard steel, “black-and-white” patterns. Recent develop-
ments in both lighting instruments and gobo technology have introduced
gray scale patterns, color patterns, glass patterns, and there is even a device
that allows you to create designs on your computer, print them directly on
a mylar sheet with special inks, and put them in a lighting instrument. The
options are truly limitless.
I work with gobos so much because I like the textured quality they oer
and the way they can create interest in a at surface like a back drop or the
oor. There is another quality to them that I had not considered when
I started designing, which was pointed out to me by Gerald Arpino when
I was working with the Jorey Ballet. He leaned over during a lighting ses-
sion for Kettentanz and said “I like the gobos, they make my dancers look like
they are going faster.” At rst I wasn’t sure what he meant but then
I watched a section of the piece without the lighting during a notes session
and I saw it. Normally as a dancer crosses the stage they move in and out of
the beams of light coming from about three or four instruments across the
stage. This means they break the edge of the light about a half-dozen times
across the stage. If each of those beams of light have gobos in them then the
dancer breaks the edge of light well over a dozen times in a single beam.
That creates a sort of icker eect on the dancer and they appear to be
moving through space just a bit more quickly than they actually are.
The other use we have for gobos is to create scenery when we have
none. This is more often used in text-based theatre but it will appear in
dance from time to time. We can focus a gobo directly onto a plain back-
drop and create the pattern of a window, or we can project clouds or an
image of light reecting o the water to create an exterior panorama. The
other way we create the idea of scenery is to place a gobo with an architec-
tural element or a clear image of a tree and focus the light from o stage, or
in back light. The result is the impression that light is passing through scen-
ery that is not actually there, and if this is done carefully, we will create an
illusion, strong enough that the audience will understand it as if the scenery
was actually just o stage, out of sight.
The other tool I haven’t covered yet is what we call a rover. A rover is
a lighting instrument (or in some cases two lighting instruments) that are
attached to a short boom on wheels. The most eective of these is generally
168
no more than six feet tall and the base is often a tripod with a wheel bolted
onto each of the three legs. The vertical pipe may be just over three feet tall
but it has a telescoping section that will extend enough to get the lens of the
instrument to just about seven feet o the oor. Rovers are designed to be
repositioned between pieces, or in some cases even during a piece. Tom
Skelton was a big fan of them and I have seen him solve many design prob-
lems with a pair of rovers. The dancers are going further up stage than the
light line? Put a two-instrument rover on either side of the stage behind the
last set of legs and create a highlight path to catch the dancers as they cross
through the area. There are specic images painted into the backdrop that
we need to highlight for the audience? Put a rover in the furthest down
stage wing and set it as high as possible and focus it into the drop. The cyc
is not interesting enough, can’t you do something about it? Put a set of
rovers in front of the cyc with gobos and streak across the drop either with
the top unit and shoot straight across or with the low unit and focus up, on
a diagonal.
There are many more eective ways to use these mobile hanging posi-
tions. You are only limited by your imagination. A close relative to the rover
is the oor plate (or if you have worked in lm or television, the “pigeon
plate”). This is a mounting plate that allows you to put a single lighting
instrument as close to the oor as possible. It is also intended to be mobile,
although sometimes they will get screwed down to the oor to make sure
they don’t move. These can be used to sneak a shin light in somewhere that
a boom will not t and they can create a particularly eective foot light pos-
ition. When combined with gobos these foot lights can ll a drop and also
cast very interesting shadows as the dancers pass through the beams.
The other aspect to be considered when building your toolbox is the
actual instrument itself and what quality of light it produces. There are
a variety of instruments currently available to a designer. While it is true
that the majority of the light plots you will see rely largely on some version
of the ellipsoidal reector spotlight (which used to be called a Leko, a trade
name, and is now more likely to be a Source 4, also a trade name) you
should never assume that is all you are going to need. There are a number
of ways to classify lighting instruments: lensed and unlensed, spot and ood,
soft and harsh, focusing and xed focus, and even direct and indirect. My
recommendation is to go somewhere that has a large variety of instruments
and turn them on. Point them at a wall and see what you think the beam of
light looks like. In general, it is what the beam of light looks like that mat-
ters, not the mechanical process the manufacturer uses to create the beam of
light.
There are four basic instruments that you will nd in most light plots.
The ellipsoidal spot, the Fresnel, the PAR (Parabolic Aluminized Reector),
and the cyc light. These are produced in a variety of instrument sizes and
beam sizes within each type of light. I could spend much more time than
169
you would like me to on each of these but I will give you some very basic
information and why we might choose each of these instruments. The sim-
plest to understand is the cyc light.
Cyc lights are designed to eciently, and in theory evenly, light
a backdrop. Your drop may be an unpainted piece of fabric or plastic, in
which case it is generally referred to as a cyc, or it may be painted. In either
case the best way to light this will be with a front light wash with as soft
a beam of light as is possible. You want these lights to blend together in
a way that hides the edges of each instrument and you want to be as far
away as you can to avoid creating shadows from any wrinkles in the drop,
but not so far away that you begin to cast shadows of the masking curtains
or the dancers onto the drop. Usually these instruments do not have lenses
and they have a single color in them. As a result you usually will nd them
in clusters of two, three, or four instruments to allow you to blend several
colors together to create the look you want. Some theatres use strip lights to
do this but they are not as good at creating an even wash of light. There are
also some LED versions of cyc lights now that allow you to create any color
you want from one instrument. Depending on how far away you are from
the drop these clusters of units (or singles if they are LEDs) are spaced about
four to six feet apart to cover the whole drop.
Moving from least dened beam of light toward the most, we next come
to the PAR. These instruments were originally named after the lamp that
went into the instrument. There were several lamps that fell into this classi-
cation and each one of these had a dierent design to the glass on the front
of the lamp that dened how big the beam of light would be. Originally
designed for use in automobiles the beam of light from these lamps is typic-
ally oval in shape as they were designed to light the road and stay out of the
eyes of oncoming cars. There are now PARs on the market that allow you
to change the lenses on the instrument without having to replace the lamp.
They still have the characteristic oval shaped beam. Each beam of light is
static with a size and shape that can’t be changed without physically chan-
ging either the lens or the lamp itself. The beam, while more dened than
the cyc light, is very soft and it can be hard to actually see where the edge
of the beam is. It blends well and has a punchy light that can create a soft
highlight that is apparent but not sharply dened.
Which brings us to the Fresnel, which takes its name from the lens
used in the instrument and is less common in most lighting designs now
than it used to be. Once considered the most useful light in short distance
positions, larger theatres have gradually discarded these instruments
replacing them with PARs or specialty instruments. The Fresnel instru-
ment is physically larger than the PAR, the beam has a soft edge, and is
round in shape. It is proportionally adjustable with the ability to make the
circular beam larger or smaller as the need arises. When the beam size is
increased the amount of visible light reduces in intensity as it is spread
170
across a larger area. There is not a great deal of precision available in the
adjustments, but it blends beautifully between instruments. The downside
to the soft edge beam of both the Fresnel and the PAR is that there is
a great deal of “spill” light associated with these units. Spill light is that
light over which you have very little control. The softness of these beams
is created by introducing some diusive quality to the lens design. This in
turn means that you lose control over the light – hence “spill.” It is pos-
sible to add back a bit of control through the use of top hats or barn
doors. These devices are added to the front of the instrument to create
a bae of sorts to reduce the amount of spill. A top hat is an extending
tube that blocks some of the widest spill and the barn door is a series of
two or four metal leaves that can be adjusted to block more (or less) spill
along the specic plane where they are mounted.
The last instrument on our list of “conventional” instruments is the ellips-
oidal reector spotlight. The ERS (or ellipsoidal) has become the workhorse
of the industry and the bench mark against which the decision is made to
use other instruments. It has a round beam and a set of adjustable lenses
that allow you to focus the beam. Each unit has a specic beam size, unless
you opt for the “zoom” version. The zoom has some serious downsides so it
tends not to be chosen as often as you might think. It is not as bright and
because it is designed to be adjusted it is frequently out of alignment which
makes it harder to predict exactly what you will get from the instrument
when you turn it on. The xed diameter beam units are available in
between six and ten dierent sizes – depending on manufacturer – so it is
generally possible to nd what you need in a xed beam as long as you are
willing to do a little math. In addition to the xed round beam these instru-
ments have built-in “shutters” which can be used to shape the beam of light
or to control the edges so that light does not hit places you do not want to
light. They can also be tted with an iris, which allows you to reduce the
size of the beam but retain its round shape, and these are the units that
accept the gobos we were discussing. The ability to focus the beam means
that you can make the gobos, iris, shutters, or simply the beam itself very
sharp and dened, or soft and out of focus. You can further soften the
instrument through the use of diusion material which is placed in front of
the light in the same way we add color.
All of these lights can use color medium, or gels, which are placed in
a frame and slipped into the slot or brackets on the front of the light that
are there for this purpose. As LED technology has improved manufacturers
have designed dierent instruments that have the optical characteristics of
each of these instrument types but with built-in color changing capabilities.
As with any new technology, it has taken a while for the designs to become
reliable and the color changing instruments cost more than the conventional
lights by almost a factor of ten. This is changing, but the quality instruments
still cost much more than most dance companies can aord to pay. Since
171
I am going to spend another chapter on new technologies and their impact

on designing dance I will leave this for now.
My point in discussing all the specics of each of these instruments is that
the choices we need to make when building our toolbox need to include the
quality of light in addition to the angle and color. In most side light and
front light applications the control factor provided by the ellipsoidal make it
the only real choice, but with the range of diusion material available to the
designer we do not need to be stuck with the harshness of the beam pro-
duced by this instrument. While the decision about quality of light is gener-
ally a choice of instrument, it can also be in terms of the focus of these lights
or the diusion material we choose to add to the lights.
These are the basic options we have to work with when we assemble our
tools. But how does this process work? As with everything it starts with the
dance.
As I am watching, learning, absorbing the piece I am pulling together all
the important bits of information to determine what tools I need to be able
to use to help tell this story. The most obvious things will be the specic
needs of the ballet in question. I will look at what I need to convey to the
audience, such as time of day – or more importantly passage of time. Are
we inside or outside? Is this a specic location that scenery is not showing
us? Do we change locations and how much of that do I need to convey?
The answers to these questions come from my watching a run of the piece,
my review of the scenery, and a conversation with the choreographer or the
person setting the piece. This last one is often the most valuable because
there may well be conceptual ideas that are not obvious to me. A good
example of this is the John Cranko version of Romeo and Juliet which I have
been fortunate enough to set for three dierent companies. The ballet
begins not with the confrontation between the young men of the houses of
Capulet and Montague but rather a meeting between Romeo and Rosaline
who throws him a love token just as dawn is breaking. We then watch as
the town comes to life with the rising of the sun and then nally we get to
the confrontation that opens Shakespeare’s play.
I am pretty sure I would have gured out the whole “beginning of
the day” idea based on the choreography, but I would not have known that
the rst exchange is before daybreak. I would also have missed that the car-
nival scene, played out in the same town square set in two separate scenes
in act 2, is intended to also show a signicant passage of time. It is midday
at the beginning and moving into evening for the second carnival scene.
Without the information I received from the choreographer’s representatives
I would not have been in a position to accomplish those changes in time
of day – I would have been unprepared. Most of the rest of it was clear to
me, although there were specic notes about when the sun should rise and
what the nal moment of act 2 should look like that the plot needed to be
ready for but that I really needed to specify in the cues.
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In addition to the specic storytelling needs I am also considering how

I want to light the dance itself. How many dierent shifts in mood and loca-
tion do I want to convey? What do the costumes look like and what do
I need to do to make them look good? How many drops are there and
where are they located? And do I need to light them from the front or from
both the front and the back? These begin to make up my wish list in my
toolbox. For the passage of time in the carnival, I want to give the impres-
sion that the sun has moved from overhead to lower in the sky. This means
an amber back light and another set of amber lights in the side light, along
with a back wash on the drop from the oor so I can make the bottom of
the drop look like the sun is setting (or rising, we are not always literal about
these things) on the painted landscape behind the dancers. At some point
I will need to gure out if I can use the amber in the side light for other
moments in the ballet or if I need this color to be in an instrument the stage
hands can reach so it can be in a dierent color during another act.
As I was working through all of this I was pleased to discover that the
true night-time scenes, the balcony, Juliet’s bed chamber (where the sun
comes up as well), her burial, and the crypt were all in acts 1 and 3, mean-
ing that extra amber for the afternoon sun was only needed in act 2, so it
was something that could potentially be changed for other parts of the
ballet. I was also faced with the fact that there were two full stage drops that
were hanging in a very dierent place on the stage than the rest of the back
drops. Both Friar Lawrence’s cell and Juliet’s garden appeared in the down-
stage third of the space and as such would require a complete set of drop
lighting in a completely dierent area of the stage. For at least one of the
companies I worked with, this was a signicant issue as there wasn’t enough
room to add in an additional electric pipe for these drops. I had to come up
with another solution beyond the usual “cyc instruments.” The compromises
that you will need to make moving from the early “wish list” form of your
toolbox on to the light plot should not all wait until you get to the light plot.
There are certain practicalities that you should know early in the process,
and only when you nd you cannot complete the design without something
extra do you add them back in.
Let’s consider, as an example, back light for a Nutcracker light plot. Act 2
really needs a warm and a cool back light in order to respond to the stylistic
dierences between the many dance variations. This will work for most of
the rst act as well, with the exception of the magical transformation and
the battle of the toy soldiers and the mice. The particular warm and cool
choices need to be negotiated between the style of the party scene and the
classical ballet language of the grand pas de deux; but it is possible. The trans-
formation and the battle need some other sort of back light to make them
feel otherworldly and magical. In many productions this winds up being
a green or blue green back light. But can you aord a full back light system?
One of the solutions I have used in the past was to switch to a diagonal
173
back light which uses fewer instruments while still covering the full stage.
The result is both an economical solution and it introduces a dierent angle
of light to set the moment apart from what precedes it.
Once we have considered the needs of the dance then I get to think
about what I might want to add to the process. These are the systems that
I like working with and they follow me around from light plot to light plot.
They are not something I impose on every design, rather they are tools that
to me feel appropriate, and if they are not I discard them. I once attended
a seminar on dance lighting at an American College Dance Festival. One of
the panelists spoke about the need for a designer to create a “signature
look,” a combination of color and angle, that went into every plot they did
to identify it as their work. I thought about that one a lot. At rst it was an
appealing idea – a sort of virtual signature on my work, but as I spent more
time with the idea I realized that with very little eort the idea became
something I was not comfortable with. The other way of looking at this was
that all dance, no matter what genre or who the choreographer was, would
benet from the same design idea. I don’t agree with that concept and as
such have never embraced this idea. Certainly there are colors I know well
and can safely predict how they will work in a design, but I do not use them
all the time. In fact, as I have gotten further into my career I have made
a conscious eort to pick at least one new color in every plot I do.
A challenge, if you will, to never stop learning new ideas.
So what does my list look like? In general I will consider each primary
system of light in my plot in terms of both warm and cool colors. This is
both to have a contrast but also to have the ability to blend the two to dif-
ferent hues or tints as the piece may require. I will base these colors on sev-
eral factors as I work through those systems including story needs, costume
colors, and scenery while keeping the dancers in mind as well. My basic sys-
tems are high sides, boom tops, head highs, and shins from the sides. Then
from overhead I will look at back light, and if the piece calls for it and there
is room in the plot, some variety of top light. While it is lowest on my list
when I am writing cues, I do look at front light systems from front of house,
box booms, and overhead electrics. These are there both for faces and to
invite the audience to come across the gulf between the house and the stage
(generally accentuated by an orchestra pit).
I always start from the point of view that I can have everything I want.
Then, once I have my list, I will begin to gure out what I am able to get.
The limitations imposed on my list come from a variety of obstacles. The
rst and most obvious is: How much equipment is available and do we have
enough dimmers to operate it all? Assuming the inventory is all there, then
the next two considerations are ones I have to be really honest about with
myself. Do I have enough time to focus all of these instruments and get
them looking right and, if the answer is yes, will I have enough time, while
writing cues, to use all of these options? These are my questions. The
174
electrician will look at what I have suggested to see if it is possible and ask
the question: Do we have enough time to get all of this hung and working
before it is time to start the focus? There is no more frustrating discovery
than to nd that you have either taken the time to get everything in the air
and now have to skip huge portions of it because you do not have enough
time to focus. Unless perhaps it is to nally get focused and then have no
time to write the cues properly so much of the plot goes unused. Fortu-
nately, the few times I have run into either of these situations have been
when circumstances beyond my control have interfered and prevented us
from having all the time we had planned on to get our work done. Trucks
not showing up on time, crew being cut, equipment failing to work, and in
one extreme case power going out in the theatre for most of the load-in day.
One of my rules has always been to know what each light is doing before
I begin to focus. I also try to know how often and in combination with
which other units I will use any given light. This is important for any
number of reasons but here, as I am putting together my toolbox, I need to
know how much time it will add to my hang and focus and if it will make
enough of a dierence in the design to justify that time. There are many
dierent combinations of angle, color, texture, and quality of light – all of
them oer something unique and valuable, but are they all going to be
equally valuable in every plot? The answer there is clearly no. So before
I nalize my list and begin to work on the light plot, I need to be very sure
that I have the right tools picked out, that they are properly organized, and
that I have considered not only the individual tools but all the various com-
binations that can be made with my tools. Only then am I ready to move
on to the next step in the process.
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17
T H E D A N C E L I G HT P L O T
As a lighting designer who has to depend on light plots for a signicant

amount of communication, I nd it surprising that they are still wrapped
up in so much anxiety for me. I am not sure if I am alone in this – I don’t
generally go up to my colleagues and ask them if light plots make them
anxious, but I know why I feel the way I do. A light plot is the ultimate
record of how you want to design a production. It contains artistic con-
cepts, it reects a point of view, it has mechanical details needed to get the
show in the air, and it will be the most signicant record of your work that
remains once the production closes. A simple drawing mistake can get per-
manently recorded, often leaving people who come across your plot
scratching their heads wondering what you were thinking. As I said, I may
be alone in this among my colleagues, but I can attest to the stress light
plots create in my students’ lives. It starts with what I like to call “the tyranny
of the empty page.”
All of the time spent in rehearsals and in conversation with the choreog-
rapher is, as far as I am concerned, fun. I enjoy this aspect tremendously
and if I could then go straight to a theatre and hang out with a crew for
a bit and then begin to organically decide where to put lights I think
I would be thrilled. I do have to admit that it would be an incredibly ine-
cient way to do things – unless perhaps you are French. Sometime in the
late 1980s, after I had designed several productions for Ballet du Nord,
Alfonso Cata, their artistic director, reached out to me for help on a US
tour. I was unable to travel with the company but I did a good deal of the
advance work and redrafted their light plot to US graphic standards, making
equipment substitutions based on the lights they would encounter on the
tour. One of the larger venues, and as is usual one of the tightest schedules,
was for the Annenberg Center for the Arts in Philadelphia. I called Alfonso
while they were still performing in Philly to see how things were working
out. He said good, but a bit of a culture shock, and he shared a story about
his lighting director for the tour.
He had talked with him after the load-in in Philadelphia, and after the
usual small talk his lighting director told him he really didn’t like the way
176
THE DANCE LIGHT PLOT
the Americans did theatre. Alfonso asked him to explain what he meant and
he said that while he appreciated the work that I had done and it had been
good to arrive in the theatre to nd all of the lights already hung and ready
for him to focus he always felt rushed. He said he was more comfortable
with how they did things in France. He said he liked showing up at the the-
atre and sitting around with the electricians “having a coee” and talking
about sports or the weather while everyone gathered. Then they would talk
about the show a little bit and go out on the stage to see the dierent aspects
of the space and he would tell them where he wanted the lights. Eventually
they would get out a piece of paper and draw some circles for the lights and
write out the numbers for the channels and then they would focus a few
hours later.
I laughed and told Alfonso that when I was touring in France that was
often the most frustrating part of the load-in. No one wanted to start work-
ing right away and they certainly didn’t want to look at my plot until
I discussed the show with them and looked at the theatre. I found it fascinat-
ing that his French technician had so clearly identied the dierent working
styles between the USA and much of France, but from his rather Franco-
centric perspective. To be honest, when I was not feeling the pressure of
time, I actually liked the French approach. The fact that every theatre had
a great little cafe attached to it, and if it didn’t one of the crew heads had
an espresso machine set up in some oce to supply the morning brew, was
something I grew to love. I also like the idea that you can’t really place
a show in a theatre until you get to know the space as the audience sees it.
I still prefer to work in a theatre after I have had a chance to walk the
stage, look at the lighting positions, and stand in the house and look back at
the deck from the audience’s perspective. I don’t always get that chance, but
I never turn it down if it is oered. Before I took the Jorey Ballet into the
Roosevelt Theatre in Chicago for the rst time I made an appointment to
see the space. Les Mis was playing in the theatre and so I had to look past
the scenery and imagine the empty space. Things were going pretty well
until the turntable took o and the “barricade” was deployed. I decided my
tour of the space was over.
It is interesting to me about how certain I can be about where the lights
should go when I am standing in the space, yet when I am standing at my
drafting table or staring at my computer screen I almost never know where
to begin. This is the tyranny of the empty page. It doesn’t matter that you
draft in pencil and can erase or that in a CAD program it is always easy to
replace a light or move it with a mouse click. Getting across the threshold
and actually putting symbols for lighting instruments onto the plot is some-
thing I still have to push through. Then there is the stasis at the other end
of the process where I nd myself reluctant to print out the CAD drawing,
or peel the drafting tape o the hand drawing. That symbolic gesture of “It
is nished!” seems so nal. And it almost never fails that the moment I hit
177
send on the email with the drawing attached to it or drop the envelope in
the mail, I remember one more detail I could have/should have included on
the drawing.
This is because the light plot has to speak for me. It has to answer any
and all questions the electrician might have about putting my show in the
air. Even if I will be in the theatre as the equipment is getting set up, by
that time it is often too late to supply the missing answer. But I should stop
here for a moment and make sure we all know what we are talking about.
For the sake of this discussion, I am treating the “light plot” as
a combination of things. It is the essential drawing which is referred to as
a light plot and it is the associated paperwork that accompanies the plot.
This includes, but is not always limited to, an instrument schedule,
a channel hook-up, an equipment list, a color list, a gobo list, and in many
cases a section drawing. The light plot itself, like a ground plan, is a drawing
of the stage from directly above the performing space. The main dierence
is that a ground plan is generally thought of as a view from about three to
six inches above the oor with anything above that level represented by
dotted lines, while a light plot is more like 20 to 30 feet above the oor. The
other key dierence is that the primary information we want from a light
plot concerns the instruments and how they are being used, so anything that
does not directly relate to the instruments is often left out of the drawing or
very lightly drawn so it doesn’t distract from the lights.
A good way to think about a light plot drawing is to use the analogy of
a street map. Each of the electrics, or hanging positions, is like a dierent
street in a town and each instrument that is hung on that position has
a number, like a house number. The result is that you can nd any instru-
ment in a hurry as it has a unique identier in the position name and instru-
ment number. After that you add the technical information of what kind of
instrument it is, what color it has, if it has a gobo or some other accessory,
and how it is controlled – and then you have the basics of a light plot. It is
essentially a graphical representation of a fairly technical process, the foun-
dation of the art but not in itself artistic. Throughout my career I have had
occasions to study light plots created by (or for) some well-known designers.
These have included hand-drafted plots from Jean Rosenthal, Tom Skelton,
Jennifer Tipton, and Peggy Clark, as well as computer drawn plots from
Ken Billington, John McKernon, and Howell Binkley, along with rep plots
from American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, and other companies.
I have realized in the process that there is a lot to be found beyond the
required information. I believe it is possible to see how systems work and
how they were combined with other systems. It is possible to see what the
general look of the design was like even though it is impossible to gure out
specic cues. A good plot is much more than the technical drawing it
appears to be at a quick glance, but you have to know what you are looking
for and you have to take the time to gure it out.
178
The rst time I found myself faced with excavating a design from pieces
of paper in a le I got nowhere very quickly. I am not really sure what
I thought I was going to nd. Most designers do not pepper their drawings
with notes about how they intend to use the various elements of their plot.
That information is in their heads or occasionally in notes they keep for
themselves. The reason for this is simple. Light plots are used to communi-
cate to the technicians who will be setting up the equipment for the designer
and as a result any design information is something you need to intuit – it is
not laid out for you in these documents. It wasn’t until I started working
with the Jorey Ballet as their lighting director that I began to gure out
how to dig out more information than simply technical details. What kinds
of instruments were used in dierent positions? What would their particular
beam characteristics do with a particular color in them? Looking beyond the
paper and imagining the impact of the choices is important to guring out
the design.
I am convinced that I was able to gure this out because I was working
with drawings that were created by Tom Skelton or his assistants. Earlier in
my career I had been able to watch Tom focus a light plot and cue a couple
of pieces while I was working as a stage hand at City Center 55th
St. Theatre for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre’s 1982 New York City
season. Over ten years later I was designing for Dayton Contemporary
Dance Theatre and I was asked to set one of the pieces I watched Tom
design from a set of notes that included his design ideas and cueing informa-
tion. Just over three years after that I was digging through old les in the
Jorey archives, trying to gure out what Tom was looking for, with a plot
I found for one of the pieces the company was reviving. This was the rst
time I felt like I could get inside a designer’s head just from a light plot.
Then I discovered that I could use what I had learned on this journey
with Tom Skelton’s designs to unlock the information in other designers’
light plots. I freely admit that I have no way to verify that my instincts are
right, but I know that when I get into the theatre to recreate their work
I have had success. I also nd that I learn something from virtually every
plot I dissect. Something that I used to dread has become a source of inspir-
ation in my own work and something I take pride in getting right. I have
a responsibility to the original designer as much as I do to the original
choreographer and to the company that has hired me. This awareness of
what can be found in a light plot has also pushed me to improve my own
plots. I always have to remember that no matter how much thought I have
put into it, my plot is only as good as the amount of information someone
else can get from it.
I drafted my rst light plot in 1971. Working with a T-square, several
triangles, a scale ruler, and pencils and pens, I created a light plot. I was
taught a particular way of representing each individual light and how to
indicate where they were hung and controlled. When I went to Carnegie
179
Mellon I was taught a slightly dierent way of communicating and I realized

that at that point in time light plots were a rather personal process, each
designer had a slightly dierent way of doing things. This was not a serious
problem because one of the things we were always taught to include in
a drawing was a “key” to each symbol used on the plot. This provided
a context for the drawing and allowed someone who was not familiar with
this particular designer’s symbol library to understand the drawing. Over the
years there have been various eorts put into creating a codied “graphic
standard” for light plots. In 1974 William Warfel published his Handbook of
Stage Lighting Graphics in an eort to create a standardized approach. Later,
in 1985, the United States Institute of Theatre Technology published its
own graphic standards, updating them in 1991 to add generic moving light
symbols. These have been updated numerous times with the last published
document in 2006 and an ongoing process in 2019 to update the graphic
standards. There were certainly light plots that preceded these “standards”
and people always managed to gure them out. What the standards did was
to create a generally accepted approach to light plots so that some of the
detective work was taken care of for you when you rst looked at a new
light plot.
There still is no specic right or wrong way to draft a plot (merely
“common practice” standards) and I still nd drawings where designers have
chosen to use symbols that do not match anything I have seen before. When
I started drafting you worked with a piece of plastic called a lighting tem-
plate that allowed you to trace the outline of a lighting instrument onto your
drafting. These were supposed to be accurately scaled (a quarter inch to
a foot or a half inch to a foot were the standards) representations of the
instruments in use at the time, but as there were more than one manufac-
turer building instruments they were a sort of “average” instrument and did
not always accurately represent how much space the instrument really occu-
pied. Major designers developed a particular graphical style – right down to
the lettering – and you could frequently tell who a new lighting designer had
trained with based on the look of their drawings.
As we have moved into the era of computer aided design (or drafting),
also known as CAD, the majority of all light plots are being created on
a computer. As a result they have become much more standardized. There
are basically three programs in use, with one being signicantly more
common than the others. Each program comes with standard lighting
symbol libraries with very specic representations of the instruments manu-
factured by dierent companies. Many of these symbols are created by using
information from the manufacturer’s technical information sheets and the
symbols are a more accurate representation of the instrument in scale.
There are still stylistic approaches to the plots that can be traced to certain
designers or training programs, and not all the symbols match between pro-
grams, but plots have become much more homogeneous. Personally, I am
180
not sure this is all to the good – it makes it harder to get a read on the
designer’s personality. On the other hand, the purpose of a plot is to com-
municate certain very specic pieces of information. From that standpoint
the clarity of the information is much more important than being able to get
to know the designer.
One of the things that you will notice rst about a dance light plot as
compared to a more traditional theatre light plot is where the lights have
been placed. In a spoken word piece the lighting is largely dictated by two
main considerations. We want to make sure we can see people’s faces clearly
(because as the saying goes – if you can’t see them you can’t hear them).
Remember my story about Hamlet and the director who needed more face
light to hear his actors? This is something that I have run into in spoken
word designs on a regular basis. By the same token I have found that if
I am able to isolate the actor who is speaking in such a way that everyone
knows who they should be looking at, I can get away with partial light on
their face, but I usually ask the actor to help by being aware of the location
and direction of the light so they can “play” the light and maintain sucient
visibility. I am, in eect, asking them to treat the light as if it were a scene
partner. We also need to respond to what the scenery is doing. This is fairly
obvious: If the set cuts out part of the available stage space, there is no need
to light it. By the same token if the set is placed on a strong diagonal in the
space it would be foolish to ignore the dramatic line created by the scenery.
As a result, it is not uncommon to nd symmetrical light plots that are
closely related to the lines of the set.
One of the “unwritten rules” you learn as you do more work in dance is
that it is important to think about symmetry when creating a light plot for
dance. It is not that all dance is symmetrical – in fact that is far from the
case, but it is true that it is very hard to create symmetry in lighting if there
is not already symmetry in the plot. The opposite does not hold. As long as
your channeling (or control over the lights) allows sucient exibility it is
very easy to create asymmetry. I believe symmetry is so important in
a dance plot because often light is the main tool used to describe space and
to create location. If I have a set of nine down pools that line up on center
and quarter lines, the instruments themselves should have the same spacing
on the electric. If seven of the lights are centered on their target point and
two of them are two feet o center it is noticeable. The light looks dierent
on the dancers and it looks dierent in the air. It calls attention to itself for
the wrong reason.
The challenge is to be aware of the design choice you make while you
are writing cues. Don’t let the symmetry you have created in your plot over-
take your cues. I learned this lesson from none other than Ming Cho Lee.
We were working on a new piece that Jerry Arpino had created, IDNA, and
Ming had designed the set. Sitting in a dark auditorium working on my
cues, I almost forgot he was in the room. Then quietly – although loud
181
enough to carry – I hear: “Why is it that dance lighting designers are so

insistent on symmetry?” He was right. I had spent the last three or four min-
utes trying to balance the intensities of a set of templated down pools so that
they would all match. His comment stopped me cold and we chatted about
it from his perspective for a moment or two. I went back later and, in sev-
eral sections, I deliberately created a more asymmetrical stage picture. The
change was striking and I later thanked Ming for his help. He seemed sur-
prised and told me he had only been asking a question, I was the one who
came up with the answer.
When light is the main thing sharing the space with the performer, it is
important that you not only get the placement of the lights right but that
you include all of the information necessary for the electrician to give you
all the tools in your toolbox. Which brings us to what that information is. In
addition to the location information that I mentioned earlier we need to
identify which particular instrument type is to be hung at each of the
“addresses” we have identied. This is where the symbols come in to play.
They are, in general, an outline of what the instrument would look like
when viewed from above. To be sure there is some simplication of this
symbol and we really only have the option of drawing what it looks like
when it hangs on a parallel plane to the batten (or pipe) it is attached to. In
reality all of these instruments will be inclined toward the oor to light the
performers so they will be foreshortened in the process. While it is possible
to create these instruments as three-dimensional symbols in some drafting
programs and show what that foreshortening would look like it is not really
practical as we will be attaching additional labels and information to the
symbol and will need as much area in and around the symbol as possible.
After we have added the right symbol for the instrument type we are
using, we need to add the color information to the symbol. By this time we
should have moved past the “name” of the color we used while lling our
toolbox and have settled on the specic gel that we want to use. All of the
color manufacturers use a dierent numbering system and as they have
added colors to meet the demands of designers they have moved from two-
digit numbers to three and four digits within the same color medium. The
days of knowing from the integer in the hundreds place what brand of color
we were specifying are long gone; we now have to add a letter to designate
the manufacturer of the gel. As an example of why this is important we can
look at the number 119. In Lee lters this is a very dark blue while in Roscolux
it is a diusion with no color to it at all. Sometimes we need to add more than
one piece of color medium to the instrument – the specic hue you want may
be the result of combining two gels or you may want to add a diusion to the
color to alter the quality of the beam. All of these numbers are treated as the
color information for the instrument.
The next thing we may be adding to the instrument is an accessory and/
or a gobo. Accessories may be as simple as a top hat or barn door to serve
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as a bae on the front of the instrument. They could also be something like
a color scroller or a gobo rotator that require an electrical connection and
so need their own circuit. These require adding a graphical representation
to the instrument symbol. Even the simple gobo gets an additional marker
as a visual reminder. When I was taught to draft, this was all we did – the
information of the actual gobo was found in the other paperwork, on the
instrument schedule, or the hook-up. More and more I am nding electri-
cians asking for that detail on the light plot. This is another specic change
that has come about with the transition to CAD drawings.
The light plot is also where we let the electrician know how we want to
control the various systems. We should not, however, try to determine for
the electrician how they will connect all of this into an electrical system. We
need them to know what lights come on together and which ones need to
be separate and then they can gure out the most ecient way to make that
happen. We do this by adding a channel number to each instrument. At this
point it feels like we should be done with the drawing. For the most part we
are, at least in terms of most of the specic information the electricians
need. For light plots that hang only on the overhead battens we are done,
but with dance plots a signicant number of instruments wind up elsewhere.
In talking through the various angles of light we spent a good deal of
time talking about side light. These instruments will mount on a vertical
hanging position. We also identied a very low option for front and back
light that, if used, is likely sitting on the oor. Between these two elements
we have to deal with a bunch of instruments that, when viewed from above,
as a light plot is, obscure one another; and we need to be able to specically
identify the location of everything that sits on the oor. Battens only hang in
one place, so once we identify the specic batten for an electric its location
is set. Everything else needs a specically measurable location so that the
instruments wind up exactly where you want them to be. The solution to
these problems is another place where the individuality of drawings comes
through.
One of the most common solutions to the side light issue is to draw the
side positions as if they were lying on the oor. This solves the problem of
clearly seeing all of the instruments, but it does not necessarily solve the
problem of clearly indicating the location of the booms. I bring this up not
because I intend to fully explain how to draft a light plot – this is not that
kind of book – I bring it up both to point out how specic the information
has to be but also to discuss for a moment where you actually want to place
your side light positions.
About the only thing that might be assumed about boom placement is
that you want the instruments out of the audience’s sightlines. I say “might
be assumed” because there are venues where masking isn’t part of the aes-
thetic, and I have designed a few pieces where the masking was all removed,
but by and large we tend to hide the lights. The next big question that has
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to be examined is: What else are we comfortable lighting with our side
light? We will light the dancers and we have no choice but to light the oor,
but how do we feel about hitting the legs on the far side of the stage? When
we focus our low sides, the shins, do we feel OK about lighting the borders?
These are questions that primarily impact the focus of the side light but they
also impact our decisions about the placement of the side light. Many of the
companies I work with prefer not to have light hitting the front of the legs,
even light from the booms. In addition to pulling the eye away from the
dancers, if there is light on the legs then once someone passes through that
light you also have a ickering shadow. If your eye has become accustomed
to the extra light on the wings, the moment it starts blinking it will once
again pull your attention away from the dancers.
If we have placed the boom in the down stage part of the wing opening
and we have decided that we do not want to hit the front of the masking on
the far side of the stage, it means we need to take a fairly signicant shutter
cut on the up stage side of the beam of light. It also means we are losing
a good deal of light. As a general rule once you shutter o more than 10 per-
cent of the beam of light coming out of an instrument you begin to notice-
ably diminish the total amount of light coming out. This is why we take the
time to gure out what beam size we want out of our instruments based on
the distance they are shooting. The challenge with side light and staying o
masking is that we are essentially asking a round beam of light to illuminate
a rectangular space. We go into this process knowing that we will be cutting
o close to that 10 percent on the up stage and the down stage sides of the
beam of light. We hope that is all it is going to be, but frequently it winds
up being more. We can mitigate this issue by centering the beam of light on
the area being lit. If you can equalize the amount of the beam you are cut-
ting o on either side, you allow more of the hot center of the light to hit
your subject.
The other consideration is that the light coming from an instrument is
shaped like a cone. If we center the instrument in the wing then we are losing
equal amounts of oor space in terms of what we can light. There is no way
to change the amount of space we can cover and stay o the legs on the far
side; however, we can try to gain an advantage in where the light hits.
In Figure 17.1 “dancers” A and B are in the same relationship to the
masking wings, and C and D also mirror each other’s relationship to the
masking. If we assume the audience is toward the bottom of the illustration
that means in one case the “boom” is placed in the down stage part of the
wing while the other one is in the up stage part of the wing. The down
stage dancers (A and B) fair better with the down stage placement while the
up stage dancers do better with the other.
In addition to this consideration we also have to take into account the
realities of people, scenery, and props getting on and o stage. If these issues
did not exist, I would always place my furthest down stage boom in the
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Boom placement up stage in the wing
Boom placement down stage in the wing
Figure 17.1 Dierent Boom Position Coverage
down stage portion of the wing with my furthest up stage boom as far up
stage in the wing as I can get. All other booms would be centered in the
middle of the wing. I would also try to keep the spacing between the booms
to no more than six feet so that I could have a good overlap between the
beams of light coming from the sides. In reality, with four booms per side
they usually wind up getting placed about eight feet apart. On the other
hand, if I am placing my last boom upstage in the wing then I also wind up
having to move the booms a bit further o stage. This can help with the
overlap of the beams but it also introduces the possibility of streaking the
masking nearest to the boom itself. Once you introduce large scenery, bulky
props, or an ensemble of 20 dancers that have to come in from the same
wing, you wind up needing to have a very careful negotiation about what
area of the wing you are allowed to occupy.
But this is the time to have that negotiation. It is also the time to point
out that you need two electrics pipes in the up stage three or four wings to
manage back light and your overhead side light. It is also important to know
where the scenery is going to be placed so that you can get additional elec-
trics pipes to hold the instruments that will light it. Making room for all of
those things is important and not something you can do on your own. In
many cases I will be given a line set schedule by the master carpenter. This
is their best estimate of where everything is going to hang in the theatre.
Most of the time I will have some say in the matter, but every now and
then I get the information with the notation that this is the only way it will
t in the theatre. In those cases I tread very lightly if I make any suggestions
for changes, but I would not be doing my job if I did not stop to think
about exactly what I am trying to light from each electrics pipe.
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It is my preference to have the carpenter and set designer do their rst

assignment of battens to the scenery before I get into my design. It helps me
to know where everything is in order to begin to understand where I need
to put lights. While it is true that the vast majority of what I put on my plot
has nothing to do with the scenery – I am lighting the dance space – there
is a signicant portion that relates directly to the scenery. If I do not know
how many battens the scenery will hang on I cannot make any logical sug-
gestions about the electrics pipes. The carpenter and the set designer have
an obligation to making the stage and the scenery look good. They also
know that if they do not give me a place where I can hang lights for the
scenery, what they do will not matter much. So this is not a hard negoti-
ation, we all want things to look good, and we all know if the lights can’t hit
the full set it will look uneven. This is also where the determination is made,
often by the lighting designer, if there needs to be a section drawing as part
of the light plot submission.
The section drawing is a drawing of the stage, and frequently the auditor-
ium as well, that imagines the building has been sliced open along the
center line. It is valuable for the set designer to make sure the audience can
see as much of the set as they want them to see and to ensure the o stage
area and the y system is fully masked. For the lighting designer it is import-
ant because it helps determine that the electrics are masked and that the
lights can hit the areas of the stage or scenery that you are hoping to light.
Even if I do not complete a fully drafted section that I am willing to share
with anyone else, I will create a rough section when I am determining
where I want my electrics pipes to be placed. It would be good to be sure
that the lights for a drop are up stage of the masking piece in front of the
drop so that the light can reach all the way up without a shadow line from
the masking. Or that the backlight special for the bed is not behind the scen-
ery piece that ies in up stage of the bed.
The other paperwork that I have mentioned so far is simply a record of
the information already contained on the light plot. It is reorganized in
slightly dierent ways to aid the process of setting up the light plot in the
theatre. The plot itself is usually printed on a sheet of paper that is at least
three feet by two feet in size, frequently larger. The paperwork is printed on
standard letter size paper. One provides full context and the other aords
operational convenience. The simplest way to understand the paperwork is
to think in terms of a data management program. Each lighting instrument
is a data set. It contains the location of the instrument, its type and wattage,
what color, gobo, or accessory it has and how it is controlled. It may well
also include the full electrical path from the control board to the instrument
in terms of dimmers, multi-cables, and circuits. The dierent types of paper-
work then are reports based on the data sets. The instrument schedule
organizes the lights rst by location (position and number) then by purpose,
type and wattage, color and gobos, dimmers and channels. The channel
186
hook-up organizes the same information by channel assignments rst, then

dimmer, location, purpose, color, and gobos.
Each designer is free to create their own report, although there are things
that tend to remain the same. All the instrument schedules I have ever seen
start with position, then instrument number, then instrument type. All chan-
nel hook-ups start with the channel number. I have seen lots of them that
sort dimmer as the next piece of information, and I have seen others that
sort either instrument location or purpose as the next eld. Just as there are
CAD programs that more and more designers are working with, there are
paperwork management systems as well. Lightwright has emerged as the
most widespread paperwork program, which makes sense to me because it
was designed and developed by a working lighting designer. The leading
CAD program is a bit harder to narrow down, although Vectorworks has
created a CAD program with a specic lighting design environment called
Spotlight built into the program. Since the release of Vectorworks 2009 and
Lightwright 5 there has been a built-in automated system for data exchange
between the two programs, making them close to an industry standard.
Ultimately the light plot is your way of making sure the electrician under-
stands what you are trying to do. What standards you wind up using are
unimportant as long as your electrician uses the same ones. As I have
worked with more and dierent dance companies I have had to make
adjustments to how I create my light plot. What Ballet West is used to
seeing is not the same as Tulsa Ballet or Jorey Ballet. The information is
the same, it is simply a matter of how it is organized. I am willing to adjust
to their style because I am generally in for one production out of the four to
eight they will mount during a season. Besides, if I show that I am exible
and willing to work with their approach to paperwork maybe I will get
invited back for another design.
187
18
C H A N G I N G T ECH N O L O G IE S
A N D W H A T THEY M EAN
When I was teaching the summer interns for the American Dance Festival
in the early 1990s, I was still working with ellipsoidals built by Altman Light-
ing, mixing standard incandescent and tungsten light sources, and I was as
likely to get to use a computer board as I was a multi-scene preset board.
Source 4 lighting instruments had just been introduced and we were still
trying to gure out why the gel frame was smaller – didn’t they realize we
would have to stock yet another size frame and an additional stock of cut
color? The issues with soft edges and uneven focus across a gobo were not
yet solved and the unit was stilled viewed with skepticism. The Source 4 rep-
resented “changing technologies” I could understand and work with.
Moving lights, on the other hand, seemed alien – even though I had seen
a dance piece in Paris in 1985 that was presented as “the rst dance ever
choreographed around and designed by moving lights,” I was certain they
would never make it into the low budget of the dance world. They were
largely a gimmick in the piece I saw and hardly constituted “dance lighting”
as I understood it – the whole piece was lit with nine moving lights hung on
overhead pipes. Nothing I needed to pay attention to.
In 1991, the year before the Source 4 was released, I attended the
national United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) conference
on behalf of my new employer, The University of Notre Dame, to look at
equipment we might want to have in our new building – a building that
took another 15 years to materialize. Those of us in attendance at that con-
ference had no idea the Source 4 was about to alter the course of stage light-
ing. The LED was still barely a reliable technology in calculators and clocks,
no one was thinking about using it for stage lighting. Within a half-dozen
years LED as a light source was all the buzz and the Source 4 was the
industry standard. Yet even as we heard about early experimentation, testing
the possibility of using LED technology as a light source, the idea of an
LED light that could work with a gobo was inconceivable.
Yet here we are in 2019, LED ellipsoidals are readily available, and LED
cyc lights and ood luminaires are all over the place. Intelligent lighting x-
tures – the new name for moving lights – are available with virtually silent
188
CHANGING TECHNOLOGIES AND WHAT THEY MEAN
fans and extremely quiet motors. Projection is a common place design tool
and the projectors themselves are getting brighter and brighter. Engineers
refer to “disruptive technology” when they talk about something that will
change the way we do our jobs. I have been disrupted so many times since
I started designing that I hardly pay attention any more, I simply try to
gure out the best way to incorporate the newest tool, and wish my budgets
changed as quickly as the technology.
What does adaptation look like and what do we need to think about
when we adopt new tools for our toolbox? How will new technology change
what we do?
In reality it does not change what we do. We design light to support
a creative endeavor. The manageable properties of light do not change,
no matter what lighting instruments we use for our design. The new tech-
nologies are simply new tools. They present some considerations as we
add them into our process but they do not fundamentally change that
process. I think that I learned this approach to design and technology
while I was working at the Guthrie Theatre. I remember that our new
lighting designer, Ronald Bundt, was looking for a way to create
a magical eect for one of the plays of the season. I had tried all of the
things that I was aware of and nothing was quite working. Then
I remember nding a pile of old instrument parts and in particular
a reector that had been removed from one of the lights. For some
reason it reminded me of a lamp that my uncle had brought back from
Egypt. This traditional lamp housing had originally been designed to work
as an oil lamp but it had been retted with an electric light bulb and it
projected patterns of light all over the room when it was turned on.
A very simple eect that I realized I could adapt for our needs.
I increased the wattage, used the reector to create a bit more directional-
ity, and made a tighter smaller pattern of holes. I showed it to Ron and
he said that he thought it looked good and that it reminded him of
a Linnebach projector with an opaque slide.
As soon as he said that I remembered reading about them in my college
stagecraft book. He then went on to say that it reminded him of some of the
things that Alwin Nikolais did with slide projectors, only brighter, and that
he thought it would work for what he had been looking for. (This was my
earliest introduction to Nik and the work that he did and it would, within
the year, lead to my working for him.) After getting over the mild disap-
pointment that I had not invented anything new I set about making a more
reliable and repeatable version of my experiment. Once I started working
with the Nikolais Dance Theatre I experienced this sort of experimentation
on a regular basis. Nik frequently did not know what he was looking for
when he was creating new work and new lighting eects. During my time
with the company I became a regular visitor to Canal Street in Lower Man-
hattan where I would browse the plastics stores, the lighting stores, the
189
electronics stores, and even the novelties stores looking for things that
I could recombine to create something new for Nik’s latest piece.
When Nik got stuck he would wander into our work space to see what
new things we had found on our excursions. One of the running jokes in the
company was the “white rope.” The white rope was a soft cotton structure
that was held together by a woven sheath of a synthetic ber that we found
in one of the surplus stores. I am sure it was intended as an insulating
material for lling crevices in construction. We had purchased a 25-foot
piece of it for a project that went a dierent direction and whenever Nik
couldn’t seem to think of what to do next, one of the dancers would call out
“Get the white rope.” During my time at the Nikolais Dance Theatre
I worked on a very early prototype of the same sort of technology that
would become a color scroller. I played around with an early digital multi-
plexing prototype – long before DMX became an industry standard.
I helped build a new design of a compact SCR dimmer. I joined Nik in
making hundreds of dierent slides and rebuilt countless slide projectors to
work as theatrical lighting instruments instead of standard Kodak Ekto-
graphic projectors. (My six plus months spent in Walt Disney World as
a technician for convention shows in the hotels payed o.) Behind all of this
was the understanding that these were all simply tools to solve an existing
problem or to create a particular eect or a moment in a piece, not a new
way of doing anything.
For me, the most important reason to incorporate new technology is that
it either allows you to do something you cannot accomplish by any other
means, or it is a new way of doing what you like to do – only more e-
ciently. I want to start with the second idea rst. Before you commit to
a new technology there are a few things you need to be clear about. Has the
technology reached a point where it is stable and reliable? Has it reached
a point where you can aord to use it? Do you know, and are you willing to
work with, the down sides of this new technology? The best example I can
use to explain these questions and the possible pitfalls is LED technology.
LEDs are at the virtual tipping point. Many of the negative issues have been
solved and the price point is starting to approach manageable. But it took us
a while to get here.
When LED instruments were rst being introduced the technology was
still not in place to blend the multiple light sources, and most of the instru-
ments on the market produced multiple shadows within a single beam of
light. Since each LED emitter was in eect its own light source and the
color produced by the instrument generally required more than one LED to
be emitting light, these clusters of individual LEDs that mixed to give us the
right color each cast their own shadow. So not only were there multiple
shadows, they were multicolored shadows. If the unit was being used to light
a drop or some other scenic unit then the shadow issue could be controlled
through focus and cueing. This issue did limit their practicality in some
190
applications. Eventually manufacturers gured out how to create what we

refer to as a homogeneous beam of light. All the emitters blended into
a single beam that created a single shadow that could be tted into an ellips-
oidal to allow us to use shutters and gobos with our LEDs. But there was
still another issue to be faced, something we began to learn from the units
that had been in service for a while.
The earliest LEDs suered from a lack of consistency in color. This was
due to the manufacturing process of LEDs. It is important to remember that
LEDs were not invented as a light source, they were developed as a part of
an electronics system that could serve as an indicator light. In that situation
any red was acceptable as was any blue or green. When we appropriated
the technology for stage use, designers expected the reds to be the same. It
took a while to gure that one out, and as soon as the manufacturers got it
right a new problem emerged. While they could build all the units so the
colors would match, there was no guarantee that a replacement part would
match. Beyond that they discovered over time that while the LEDs had
a remarkably long life, they showed their age through color drift. To make
matters worse the drift was inconsistent. These problems are being worked
on and improved constantly and I have no doubt will get better, but in the
meantime I would share the advice I got when I began purchasing LED
units for Notre Dame. Don’t buy them until you can replace a system. For
example, your cyc lights or a set of back lights. And try to buy a spare or
two so that you have a unit that matches those that were manufactured
together – there is always the possibility that a new one will drift dierently
than the ones you already have.
I would add my own rule – do not be an early adopter. It is sort of like
the advice my father gave me on buying cars: Don’t buy new because the
moment you drive it o the lot it has lost about 20 percent of its value; let
some other person take the hit. If you wait for other people to buy, use, and
break new technology you will benet from the hit they took, because the
manufacturer is going to gure out how to solve those problems and your
purchase will be more valuable. For example, consider the Source 4 LED
ellipsoidals. Their rst model was good and many people were happy with
it, but soon came reports of color rendering issues. Scenery, and in some
cases, skin tones were not reacting the way designers expected. Eventually,
with a great deal of fanfare, the Source 4 Lustr 2 came on the market. It
was brighter and the LED array had been tweaked for better color render-
ing as well. The answer, we were told, was adding a lime green emitter. The
Source 4 LED 1s are still good units, the 2s are simply a bit better.
Sometimes the technology is so dierent that while there is still no funda-
mental change in what we are doing, we may need to think of new ways of
approaching what we do. The biggest mistake we can make is to allow the
new tools to change who we are and what we do. When I have seen design-
ers oundering with new equipment it is most often because of these kinds
191
of situations. A good example of this is the designer that switches an entire

system of lights in their toolbox to LED sources. This aords them incred-
ible exibility in color choice and so they decide they will nally get to do
what they have always wanted to do which is to pick the color in the space,
and in the moment of the cue. When they get to that moment they suddenly
discover they have no control over the process. The lack of a concrete color
choice, or of a language that allows them to direct a board operator toward
the color they are looking for, adds countless minutes to an already short
cueing session and they fall behind. Often the result is that they will pick
one, or maybe two, color options when they would have been much better
o saving the money on the LED unit, getting three conventional ellipsoi-
dals – and probably still have money left over.
There are strategies for dealing with this issue of nding the right
color. In an educational or non-union theatre, the designer can simply
take over the light board and nd the color they are looking for. Another
solution I heard from a fellow designer was that he brings his iPad to the
tech sessions and has a remote focus app installed. When it is time to
pick the color, he takes over control of those functions just long enough
to get the right color and then lets the board operator take over again.
This is of course something you need to have the crew agree to.
I recently learned of another similar situation where a designer with
a focus remote stayed in the theatre over dinner break and continued
writing cues. The company he was working for suddenly found itself with
overtime charges at the end of the day and a meal penalty added to the
bill. When the crew discovered they had been circumvented they charged
the company what they would have been paid if they had stayed and
worked through with the designer.
Another solution for this would be to negotiate for more time to set levels
for the cues. I think this is the best solution because then the designer can
use some of the time for solving the color issue and perhaps gain some add-
itional valuable time for other cueing problems. Sometimes it is possible for
the designer to get access to the same control board before they go to the
theatre and create their own color palettes that they can then load into the
board and use as they are designing the show. The trick to this one is that
you really need at least one of every light you are using in your light plot
connected to a control board that you will be working from. It is easy
enough then to make each instrument the right color and save that as a set
of parameters that you can apply to any unit of the instrument type when
you are writing cues. The nal solution is to limit yourself to the palettes
that are pre-recorded on the light board you are using. Most boards will
oer you their approximation of the gel colors from most major color manu-
facturers already stored in the memory. I can say from experience that they
do not always match the color that gel will produce on a Source 4, but they
are repeatable and quick to nd.
192
Clifton Taylor spoke about this issue in an LDI presentation on the inclu-
sion of LED lights in the Fall for Dance series he helps curate at City
Center in New York. He collects the gel numbers from all of the companies
coming to the festival and then his team sets up a work space with a Source
4, gelled in the appropriate color, focused on a white wall. They then take
the time to individually match the color on one of every LED xture they
have in the plot. That way they can preload their palettes so that when
a company’s designer is setting levels, all of the colors match. It is a seamless
way of incorporating LEDs into a mixed plot, but it requires a great deal of
time. On the other hand, in several years he will have an excellent collection
of color palettes that work with a broad range of instrument types.
All that being said, as long as you keep your eyes wide open to the com-
plications, LEDs are here to stay and we need to learn how to work with
them. In an article titled “What’s Trending: The LED Revolution” pub-
lished January 24, 2019 in the LiveDesign online journal, Clifton Taylor
declares “LEDs are not only trending, they have won.” With legislation
being developed in European countries outlawing tungsten light, they are
likely our next best option. This transition to xtures that do not alter inten-
sity based on a uctuation in the electricity going to the unit, but rather
because of a control signal sent along a DMX signal line, will lead to other
bigger changes in how we plan for and outt theatre spaces. At the Univer-
sity of Notre Dame, three recently opened buildings which include cabaret,
recital, and informal concert spaces have opened without any theatrical dim-
mers in them. Tools which were once out of the reach for most dance com-
panies because of cost are showing up in light plots today. It is no longer
a question of if we will begin to use them but rather of how we will incorp-
orate them.
I have similar feelings about moving lights, although had I written this
even ve years ago, I probably would not have said the same thing. Movers
are a good tool if we decide how to use them instead of letting them dictate
what we do. One of my pet peeves, which I have hinted at elsewhere, is
when the lighting overtakes the piece being lit. This is a real danger with
moving lights. They are designed to introduce motion into a design, and the
medium in which they were developed – rock music – has plenty of room
for motion. Dance, on the other hand, is already about movement and we
need to be very sure that any motion we add into the design complements
what the dancer is doing instead of competing with it. The other reason
these instruments grew up in the rock music world is that they were, and
some still are, noisy. They have fans and motors and at rst no one really
tried to make them that quiet. They were concentrating their energy on
making them work – quiet came later.
But quiet is here now, and to a certain extent so is cost eectiveness. But
I still only see them on a limited basis in dance plots. Where they work well
is as innitely refocusable specials or systems. Several strategically placed
193
units that can be repositioned, shuttered, zoomed, recolored, and textured

from a lighting console can make a huge dierence in a plot that has to
serve a large number of dance works. I have also seen some cases where the
motion has been used to enhance the moment in the choreography without
distracting from the work of the dancers. I wish I could go back and relight
Dark Elegies with the fade out that was supposed to look like the plug had
been pulled out of the drain. I can only imagine how much more eective it
would have been if the instruments could have moved to concentrate the
light into an ever shrinking spot as they faded out.
But for all the wonderful things they can do you are stuck with many of
the issues we discussed with LEDs. On top of that, equipment failure is not
only a more troublesome issue, repairs are more complicated, and absent
the option of spares that can be kept on hand, it can jeopardize
a performance. Your crew is not likely to know how to x all of the dierent
kinds of movers on the market and, in fact, if you are renting, they may not
be allowed to x them. The cost is very high and you will nd yourself
having to factor in the many ways they can save money to get even close to
justifying their use – they take a long time to break even in the cost vs. sav-
ings debate. One of the places they become a very eective addition to your
toolbox is in dealing with painted drops. A set of lights from the balcony rail
that can focus to the top of drops coupled with some from a near electric to
ll in the lower third can give you excellent coverage that hides the wrinkles
and yet eliminates the potential of shadows from the dancers along the
bottom of the goods.
If you have the option of considering intelligent lighting xtures in your
plot you need to do a lot of research. There are so many dierent manufac-
turers out there, and the range of what they can do and how they accom-
plish it is hard to keep track of. Some units have color wheels that only
allow a set of preselected colors to be used, others will use LEDs or dichroic
lters to allow innite options in color mixing. Some will allow you to rotate
gobos and others will have a prism eect to allow you to split your gobo
into multiple images that can rotate around themselves. Their movement
capabilities impact how many lights you can hang in the same location as
the path of the mover (i.e. how much clear space do they need so they do
not hit other instruments?), and their weight can be a factor. If they are
hung on a regular batten then the movement of the xture can cause the
pipe to sway if the move is too big or too fast. But all of these things fall
much more under the heading of considerations as opposed to obstacles.
What they do all add up to is that there is no clear-cut answer about
whether you should use intelligent xtures in your design or not. Each light
plot will lead you to a dierent answer.
The other contributor to the overall level of light on the stage is the
inclusion of projection design in the world of dance. Let me just say at
the outset that I believe that even if you have been trained as
194
a projection designer, you should never attempt to be both the projection

and the lighting designer on a production. I have a lot of years and a lot
of productions behind this statement and I am certain that it is important
to hold rm on this.
My experience in working with projections in theatre dates back to the
mid-1970s when I was in college at Carnegie Mellon and Buhl Optical was
close enough to campus that they came to demonstrate equipment. I got
involved with a short project and got to work with some of their special high
output slide projectors. For a variety of reasons, I worked with the Audio
Visual team at Disney for some convention shows and had to sort out pro-
jections vs. stage lighting issues on a couple of shows while I was there.
Then I worked with Nik where we had anywhere between 12 and 25 slide
projectors on each show. They were used to light the backdrop, the oor,
and as a primary light source for the dancers. After that projects that
involved projections seemed to come my way. At a certain point the com-
plexity of the technology and the increasing size of my light plots caused me
to say I couldn’t do both, and lighting won out. But what I did take away
from my early journey was a respect for what projections can do and what
lighting had to do to help.
In most cases that is still the conversation we have. How can I control
bounce light and air to keep the projections bright and clear? What other
angles of light do I need to rely on to keep o the projections? Most of what
I learned with Nik still applies but projectors are getting brighter and the
clarity of the images is getting better, so it is not identical. The latest gener-
ation of projectors work with laser technology to deliver even brighter and
higher contrast images. I am more convinced than ever that I made the
right choice in sticking with lighting. That does not mean I can ignore pro-
jectors and projection design. This is an emerging tool and in the hands of
a good designer it is a great help with storytelling. I may not have to do
quite as much to take care of the projected images but I need to keep the
lines of communication wide open because it is really easy to get to the
point where the projections and the lighting look like they belong in com-
pletely dierent productions.
The other advantage to a projection designer is that you have another set
of eyes in the room. Eyes that belong to a designer who, while they may not
understand lighting design, does understand design and the balancing of
elements in the stage picture. The several times I have worked on projects
that included projection design, I have found these collaborators to be par-
ticularly valuable and generous colleagues. Unless the projections are bound
by a specic projection surface, there is a real interest in working toward
a cohesive look on stage. That means that we are both working on
a singular image to which we have both contributed. This is a great situation
to suddenly nd yourself in after many years of being alone at the tech table
during level sets.
195
Another interesting issue in the world of projections is video walls and

video enhanced scenery. When our audience is looking directly at a light
source – which is what these video displays are – how much harder do I, as
the lighting designer, need to work to make sure the dancers can be seen
against this overwhelming display. My problem is no longer how dim I can
make things so that the projections stand out. Now I need to worry if I can
get bright enough to be able to see the people in front of the projections. In
early 2012, I saw Spiderman on Broadway. I had already heard about Ghost
which was in production in London and Dirty Dancing which had opened in
Australia and had been a big success in the West End, but here I actually
saw scenery that generated a signicant amount of light. It didn’t just reect
light as most projection screens did, it generated light from video screens.
The scenery had become a light source and it was pointed at the audience.
The likelihood of this becoming a signicant issue in the dance world is
slim but I bring it up because it is an example of unanticipated conse-
quences. I was part of a brief conversation with a couple of friends who are
lighting designers when one of them raised it. It was interesting that after
years of working with more ecient lighting instruments that allowed us to
do more with lower wattages, here they were talking about how many foot-
candles they needed, just like the early days of lm and television when the
cameras were not yet able to work at lower light levels, in order for the per-
formers to be visible against the video walls. In some ways it felt as if the
new technology had driven us backwards in our approach to lighting.
Almost all of these new technologies share a common issue that we as
lighting designers need to take into account. As we add in more and dier-
ent light sources we are also introducing new and dierent denitions of
white. The color temperature of the source is not as likely to match the con-
ventional instruments that make up the majority of your light plot. When
I rst started adding Source 4 units to my light plot I was cautious. Even
though the color temperature on the lamps was well within the acceptable
range in terms of matching the rest of the tungsten/halogen lamps that
made up the majority of the plot, I was convinced that they looked dierent
enough that they could become a distraction. Imagine now that instead of
dealing with a shift of 50 to a 100 degrees Kelvin (K), we are looking at
a shift of closer to 10,000 K. What does that actually mean?
The Kelvin scale is a way of precisely identifying the base color of an
instrument relative to other unltered lamps that are being measured. The
color itself is determined by heating a block of carbon until it glows
a particular color. The lower the number the more amber the light emitted
and the higher the number the bluer the light. In average terms tungsten
light is 3200 K, incandescent household bulbs are around 2800 K, and day-
light ranges between 5000 K and 6500 K depending on cloud cover. Every
gel manufacturer has a series of gels that are referred to as color correction
gels. They were originally designed for lm or television work where the
196
issue of white balance was much more critical. The reason for this is very
simple: The human eye is exible and it relies on the brain to make sense of
what it is seeing. If you know something is supposed to be white then,
within reason, you will see it as white, no matter the color of the light.
A television camera or lm camera needs to be adjusted to the light in
which it is lming in order to see something white as white. If you were
lming in a room that had incandescent lighting and daylight was coming
through the window you could adjust to the daylight and the bulbs would
look yellow or you could adjust to the bulbs and the light through the
window would look blue. Hence the need for color correction lters.
While I know that the human eye is exible, it is also highly perceptive.
If you have two dierent color sources side by side there is no disguising the
dierence in color. If you pay careful attention to this factor you can use it
to your advantage. Ignore it and it will be detrimental. Many moving light
xtures rely on lamps other than tungsten and, while you can “tune” your
white in an LED, a white LED emitter is not the same as an incandescent
lamp. As you mix in new technologies you should never lose sight of the
base line color temperature of each source. Use it to your advantage but
consider color correction so that they match. Be sure you pay attention to it;
I always try to add the color correction lter to the brighter light source. No
matter how pale a gel may appear to your eye, it is reducing the amount of
light that hits the subject being lit. On a recent production I was feeling as if
the projections were not blending in with the light cue I had written. I asked
the designer if he felt it was working and he said he thought something was
a bit o. I told him I felt like his white was too blue and so he made a slight
adjustment and suddenly it all fell into place.
One of the realities about working in theatre design, and even more so
in dance design, is that generally we acquire all of our best new technolo-
gies from some other eld. Theatre and dance do not have a track record
of research and development, except among some of the manufacturers.
Even with USITT funding studies of LED technology, the majority of the
information that came out of those studies identied the problems with
LED technology, not the solutions. They were helpful because they identi-
ed issues which manufacturers had to solve and they provided cautionary
information for early adopters. It was from these early studies that we
learned about the color response problems with LEDs. Unlike incandes-
cent light that charts out as a soft curve in terms of color, LEDs are digi-
tal devices and their color response looks like a series of spikes along the
spectrum. This is why some scenery and skin tones seem to go at under
colors that used to work well for us. Many gel colors worked because they
had so much more to oer than the principal hue they appeared to be.
A color like Special Lavender had a signicant amount of pink in it
which made it so much friendlier to skin tones, and it is simply one of
the more obvious examples.
197
Manufacturers of theatrical lighting equipment have been working with

combinations of light emitters and are getting better and better at dealing
with the digital color response. There are very few theatrical lighting units
that simply use red, blue, and green emitters any more. At the least we are
seeing RGB+W or RGB+A which include a white or amber as a fourth
color. The Source 4 second generation LED ellipsoidal uses a combination
of seven emitters: red, lime, amber, green, cyan, blue, and indigo in an
eort to increase the range of color it can create as well as the secondary
responses that we have grown accustomed to working with. Make no mis-
take, the tools are changing and I would not be surprised if at some point in
the next 20 years it will be the incandescent xtures that are seen as the
problem. We will probably have issues getting dimmable power for them
and we will probably have a rather limited amount of choice in terms of
color. But light, not the lighting instruments, remain as our design medium.
None of that has changed, or will change; it is the tools we use to manipu-
late light that are changing.
198
19
S IM PL E RULES
I usually hate the idea of rules, but as long as they are considered and then
used only as needed I can make my peace with them. It was Gus Solomons
Jr. that introduced me to the idea that rules could be a creative tool.
I wish I could claim credit for that insight but what I can do is to lay
claim to my own set of rules that I think must be part of the thought pro-
cess for, if not actually a part of, a good design. I don’t really know where
these rules came from, and that is one of the wonderful mysteries of art:
We do not generally know where our best ideas come from. I think some
of these came from sitting through poorly lit concerts and some of them
came from my trying to make sense of what I do. My one fear is that in
writing these down they will seem so obvious that no one will see this as
anything worth reading.
Know What You Are Lighting and Focus

Your Light on It
This rule applies to every light in your plot. Before you ever get to the the-
atre you should be able to look at any light on your drawing and know why
it is there, what you need it to do, and hopefully when and how you plan to
use it. (And yes, you can look at your notes to be sure but the “clue” should
be one or two words long.) If you can’t answer those questions then there is
a good chance you either aren’t ready to go to the theatre or it will become
clear that you don’t really need that light. This probably seems obvious and
so begs the question: Why bother including this rule on this list? For a few
reasons – one of them is the lesson of being prepared so you do not waste
time in the theatre. Another is to make sure you have covered all the needs
you have outlined for yourself when you set out to create the design: Do
you have all the tools you need in your toolbox? But my biggest reason is
that I have seen way too many concerts where I couldn’t really gure out
why I was having trouble seeing the dancers.
The lights were in the logical places, they were on at good intensities, but
the dancers looked like they were slogging through mud in a dust storm.
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Nothing about the lighting seemed to support their eorts and on top of
that I had to struggle to just see where they were and what the choreog-
raphy looked like. When I rst ran into this I managed to get backstage and
take a look at things from that perspective. After doing that a couple of
times I gured out what I was looking for and could determine the problem
from the house. The biggest culprit was poorly focused booms. Somehow
people would get the notion that just hanging lights on the side booms was
enough to create good dance light.
Sometimes the lights were not all facing in the same direction. Some
were pointing a bit more up stage and others were a bit more down stage
and, on occasion, a few of them would be pointing straight across the stage.
This was part of the problem. If you simply point every light on a boom
straight across the stage, you will likely only have one instrument properly
focused. The lights that are lower on the boom should be pointing slightly
up and across the stage, while the lights toward the top of the position
should be pointing slightly down and across the stage. It all depends on
what you are lighting and how you want it to be seen. It is more than likely
that your side lights are for the dancers and so it should be obvious that
they are focused on the dancers. This is when Jean Rosenthal’s idea of
dance being “uid and never static” raises its ugly head. Dancers do not
stand in one place on the stage, yet the lights aren’t moving, so they need to
be focused on one spot. You need to decide where that spot is before you
start to focus the lights.
There are a couple conicting needs from your side lights. One is to light
the dancer as close to the lighting instrument as possible and the other is
that you need to light the full gure for as much of the stage as possible.
There is one other consideration in deciding how you are going to focus
your side lights. The higher your unit is on the boom and the closer
a dancer is to the boom when you focus it the less of the stage it will cover.
This leads us to a very general rule of thumb. The further up on the side
light position, the further across the stage is your focus point. This needs to
be balanced against how much of the oor you want to have impacted by
the instrument you are focusing. If you look at the discussion of instrument
angles and the impact on the subject being lit, then the higher up the boom
you go with your side light the more visible it is on the oor, particularly
the closer the subject is to the boom.
Another way to think about this is that you are not only focusing the
light on the dancer but you are also making choices about where the light
goes after it hits the dancer or where the center of the beam of light is when
it lights the dancer. You could also say that you need to think about where
the light goes once it is done lighting the dancer. I often joke in my lighting
design class that if I could defy physics and invent a device that I call the
“dial-a-beam,” I would retire a millionaire. A dial-a-beam lets you determine
where the beam of light stops. If I am lighting a dancer that is standing 25
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SIMPLE RULES
feet from a lighting instrument and I set the beam length at 27 feet then
I don’t have to worry about hitting the scenery or the masking, and I will
greatly reduce the problems of bounce. But until someone gures out how
to bend the rules of physics, we all need to keep thinking about where the
rest of the light goes once it lights our primary target.
The other part of this rule is to pay attention to what the light is hitting
that you do not want to see. In practice this means you put someone (some-
times yourself) on the area of the stage where you want to light the dancer.
You center up the light on the dancer with the brightest spot in the beam of
light (the hot spot) on the upper half of the body. Some people use the head
and shoulders as the target and others prefer the chest or between the shoul-
der blades but either way you need to make sure you take into account the
average height of the dancers you are working with. It is also important to
keep in mind the extremes, although they should not dictate the general
focus. At a few inches over six feet myself I had to constantly remember not
to gauge a focus on my own head and shoulders. During my last few years
with the Jorey Ballet I overlapped with a dancer who was a shade over six
feet six inches, while the average for the company was much closer to ve
feet nine inches – but that was a very unique situation.
Once the overall beam is in the right place you need to decide what you
are not lighting. Some side light that hangs low on the boom may not want
to light the oor. Almost all of it will want to be kept o the legs on the
near side while you may feel OK about hitting the legs on the far side of
the stage. Do you need to keep the light o the borders? Is there a scrim in
that wing that you need to steer clear of? There are many factors that go
into the focus of a single light, but the most important one is to decide them
before you start, it is the best way to get a consistent looking focus.
Don’t Add a Cue Just Because You Are Bored. Or, Make
Sure that Every Cue You Write Is Something that Advances
the Storytelling of the Dance Piece
I have seen the work of designers who I felt must have had a built-in stop-
watch and if more than 45 seconds passed without a change in the lights
they would add a cue. I fully recognize that is not really a fair statement to
make and I have never said it to a designer, but I have thought it more
times than I would like to admit. I rmly believe that if you listen to the
choreographer, pay close attention to the movement, and allow yourself to
be guided by the score, it is virtually impossible to put a light cue in the
wrong place. It doesn’t mean you will not be tempted, particularly in slower
moving works, but if you do something that draws attention to the lighting
I believe you are betraying the dance.
If things are looking too much the same and you feel there could be
a visual fatigue setting in then add a slow cue. Do something that will
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change the picture without calling attention to it. An adjustment in the over-
all intensity, or a shift of the brightest area of the stage from one location to
another, or a change in the color temperature of the atmosphere – all could
create a fresh stage without demanding attention. Find a shift in the music
or a point where the manner in which the dancers are relating to each other
is dierent. They have been partnering with lifts and turns and then move
apart from one another so there is no longer physical contact – that could
be a cue. To be clear – I am not advocating for a static stage, nor am
I saying that all dance works follow the same formula. What I am saying is
that if you are going to shift the space around the dancers you need to make
sure you are doing it for a reason that exists in the choreography, not
because you think you should or because you are tired of looking at the
stage. And with that I will contradict myself. If you are looking at the stage
and you nd you are getting tired of what you are seeing you need to gure
out why. It probably means you missed a point a bit earlier in the choreog-
raphy where there was supposed to be a cue. You can make the change but
just make sure you put the cue where it belongs which is often not the same
place as where you decided it was time for a change.
The inverse to this rule is also important to keep in mind. You have to
be willing to let go of an idea for a cue if there is no real need for a change.
Part of my homework on a piece is guring out where to place the cues
in a piece before I am in the theatre. The only way to get my work done in
the time that I generally have available is to make as many decisions as pos-
sible before I am sitting in the theatre. Once I have fully tracked a work and
I have my script in place I will have a conversation with the choreographer
about where to place the cues. Sometimes they are not interested in that
conversation. They care that I “get” the piece and understand what they are
trying to say with it. But for them the details of how I intend to support the
piece are of less interest. If they do join in the conversation I will describe in
general terms what I am planning on doing with the cues. If I have very
specic changes in mind I will make sure they understand those, but fre-
quently my cues are about the change of energy, mood, or spacing in the
piece and so my comments will be more generalized. I will say things like
“This is a build” or “I want to contract the space.” I might suggest a shift in
color or that I want to build with the energy of the choreography.
As clear as all these ideas are on paper, once I get to the theatre I may
nd that because of the equipment available to me, or choices I have to
make in earlier cues, the idea I had in mind for a particular cue is no longer
possible. This leaves me with basically two options: Try something else or
give up on the idea. What I have learned over the years is that the best
choice is to let go of the idea and drop the cue. If I was right and there is
a need for a change I have to trust that once I watch the piece run with the
cues that I have so far, I will be able to see the answer. More often than
not, if the cue has been a build or a shift in focus or a pull in, I do not nd
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SIMPLE RULES
that I miss it, and since I know where the cue was supposed to go, if anyone
is going to be able to tell that it is missing it would be me. So I need to let
go of my idea.
In general, most lighting designers could do less and be just as eective.
I include myself with those lighting designers and I have to constantly
remind myself of the wonderful old adage that “less is more.”
Begin with the End in Mind

Okay, I have to admit I stole that one from Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of
Highly Eective People, but I don’t think I apply it the same way he wrote it.
I have learned that it is incredibly important to both fully know your
material before you get into the theatre and to have a really good idea of
where you are going with a piece before you start to write cues. When
I have been able to do that kind of homework I have been pleased with my
work and have generally found that the choreographers are both pleased
with the lighting and how quickly things have gone. When I have failed to
properly prepare then I have gone over the time allotted, felt like I missed
something in the cueing, and frequently have a conversation with the chore-
ographer that day or the next where they will be asking if we can get a little
more time to rework one or two moments in the piece.
The real value of this saying was driven home once when we were really
tight on time. I had spent the time talking with the choreographer before
the lighting session and we knew what we were trying to do. I said I had an
idea I would like to try right away for the nal look of the piece. We did, it
worked, and I went back to the start of the piece. The choreographer was
drawn into the spacing process with the dancers and I didn’t have the time
to wait so I continued writing cues. A couple of times I called out and asked
if the dancers could move to a particular spot in the piece and at least once
or twice the question came from the stage “Is this the lighting for this part?”
When it became clear that we were not going through the dance at the
same speed the questions stopped and I nished and asked if we could run
it. The choreographer and the artistic director were very happy, as was
I. When they commented on how I had been able to do that on my own
I said, quite truthfully, that because we had agreed on the ending and we
had worked together on the rst few cues, I had no doubt what needed to
happen next at every point in the piece.
This will not always happen with every piece you light, but it will never
happen if you don’t know where you are going with a work. With the des-
tination in mind you are always working toward a goal and that will keep
a logic in your work that you might otherwise lose sight of. The same
approach can be used on major story ballets, although here you may well
have multiple arcs. Let’s use the perennial favorite The Nutcracker as an
example. Many ballet companies mount an annual production of Nutcracker.
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It is part of many family’s holiday tradition and it is probably responsible for

many, many little girls deciding they want to be a ballerina; it has also been
responsible for getting many boys over the fear of dancing – who wouldn’t
want to soar through the air to the Russian variation in act 2. Almost all the
versions follow some variation of the E. T. A. Homan story on which the
tale is based, or the libretto created by Marius Petipa for the original Rus-
sian production, but each company tries to bring its own distinct approach
to the piece to set it apart from all the others.
The music is so well known and has so many specic moments in it that
you generally know the story before the piece begins. It starts as the guest
arrives at a Christmas season party at a grand home where Clara is the pre-
cocious daughter and Fritz the obnoxious son. The children at the party all
receive presents and Clara is presented with a wonderful nutcracker by her
“odd” Uncle Drosselmeyer. Fritz (usually) breaks her prized possession and
after consoling the young Clara, the damaged gift is left in the living room
as the guest leaves and the family goes to bed. Later that night Clara comes
back for her nutcracker and falls asleep. She then either dreams, or wakes to
see, her whole world transformed and the room overrun by an army of mice
who are all as big as she is – or she is as small as they are. The toy soldiers
come to life under the command of the nutcracker; they battle the mice and
triumph at the very end with Clara’s help. The nutcracker is revealed to be
a handsome young prince as the room dissolves leaving them in a world of
snow where the Snow Queen and her King call upon the snowakes to
entertain Clara and her companion. At the end of the rst act the two con-
tinue on their journey.
In act 2 they arrive at the land of sweets and are welcomed by the Sugar
Plum Fairy who gives them treats and bids the inhabitants of her land to
entertain the guests. There follows a variety of dances that either carry the
names of dierent countries or dierent treats, depending on the version.
The entertainment gets bigger and bigger leading to the Waltz of the
Flowers and nally the grand pas for the Sugar Plum and her Cavalier. At
the conclusion of the grand pas all of the various dancers re-enter the stage to
snippets of their earlier music; Clara and her nutcracker come down from
their seats of honor and re-enter their sleigh (or some other mode of trans-
portation) and take o, presumably taking Clara back home before anyone
realizes she is gone.
In all there are at least four “ends” that you have to keep in mind as you
approach this piece, and there can be as many as ve or six. There is the end
of the party, the end of the battle, the end of snow, and the end of the land of
sweets. In some productions there is an ending after the Waltz of the Flowers
and/or one after the grand pas in addition to the end of the act. Not all of these
endings relate to the story line, but they are about the visual storytelling that is
going on. How much of a transformation happens with each of the sections of
the overall tale? I can see a case being made for a production that drives the
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entire rst act to look at snow as the “end” of the act, but the scenery and
costumes have to tell that story as much as the lighting and the choreography.
This is part of why I picked The Nutcracker as my example of a story ballet. It
has very elaborate sets and they dictate a great deal of the storytelling. Some
versions start at the party, many try to introduce Uncle Drosselmeyer in his
toy/watch shop. Most have him bring life-sized wind-up dolls who dance at
the party, much to the delight of the children. Others set the scene with
a “cross-over” section with an exterior drop of a street scene or the outside of
the family home that then transitions into the last-minute preparations for the
party.
As a lighting designer I need to know what story I am telling and
where it is going. I do not need the entire audience to understand the
story the exact same way. (Does it really matter if Clara shrinks or every-
thing else grows?) But I do want them all to understand the basic shape
of the journey and the critical stops along the way in as much the same
way as possible. So I have my points of the story mapped out and where
I need to arrive. In addition to the “ends” I also keep the arrivals points
in mind. The party has a specic feel I want to communicate; the trans-
formation builds from that and distorts it to make the moment magical
and disorienting. The land of snow has a specic look and it ends with
a change that tells us this part is over but we are just beginning the jour-
ney. The land of sweets has an arrival image and then each of the dance
“oerings” impact that image in very specic ways. Then the Waltz, or in
some productions the grand pas, should set us up for the idea that the
story is coming to an end. Which leads us to the grand farewell which is
both bittersweet because so many are left behind and joyous because
Clara has had her grand adventure and is going home.
The Nutcracker is something almost every dance lighting designer has to
come to terms with at some point in their career. It is easy to be cynical
about it and it is often the target of self-righteous scorn. Alwin Nikolais has
been quoted as saying: “Nutcracker is not a dance it is a disease and every
company should be inoculated against it.” It is also magical and challenging
and has some very beautiful choreography and a score that most people can
recognize, even if they do not know what it is from. For many people it rep-
resents the holidays just as much as Dickens’s A Christmas Carol or Clement
Moore’s poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” If you take the time to make
a few critical decisions before you start to light a production you can easily
bring it under control. This oversized spectacle can become a simple and
beautiful dance if you are careful about keeping all of the “ends” in mind. It
can be a lot of work; it can also be very rewarding; but you need to know
what you and the producing company are looking for before you start or
you will get swamped. I have designed this piece for several companies but
I have not taken on every Nutcracker I have been oered, which leads me to
my next simple rule.
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SIMPLE RULES
Know Your Limits and Turn Them to

Your Advantage
When I think about the work of which I am the proudest, it is not always
the large projects in the famous venues that come to mind rst. They are in
there but not usually because of the venue but rather because of the work
we did in the theatre. Some of them have actually been in very small places
with limited equipment. I have always found that when I am forced to care-
fully consider each and every aspect of a design I do much better work. Not
so much so that I ask for smaller budgets, but enough that I only have to
remind myself once that the lack of whatever it is that I feel I need could
actually help me with the design. To be sure there is a point of diminishing
returns with that approach, but it helps to keep in mind that the additional
units – particularly intelligent xtures – add time to the hang, the focus, and
to the cueing.
Once you introduce advanced xtures you are now in the realm of mix-
and-match color temperatures. You are also mixing dimmers and data con-
nections, not to mention the cost associated with the units themselves. More
variables to pay attention to on a single xture means more time required to
write the cues and, if you really want to be ecient, you are adding
a programmer into the crew list. I have discovered that I am perfectly able
to design with moving lights, I am just horribly slow at getting them to do
what I imagine they are capable of doing. All of this added time that is dedi-
cated to the mechanics of the process cut into the time I am allotted for the
art. Ultimately it is a question of economics – both of time and equipment.
For the cost of one moving light you can get more than 18 conventional
instruments. This is of course a generalization because there are so many
dierent intelligent xtures to choose from, just as there are a range of dif-
ferent conventionals, all with dierent prices. For sake of argument, let’s
reduce that ratio to 10 to 1. I shared more ideas on the evolution of xtures
and their impact on designs in the last chapter so I do not want to get too
far into the weeds. Suce to say that the cost of an intelligent xture does
not end with the rental or purchase price.
I am not shy about complaining, and I do, when my budget is cut or the
inventory is reduced. I complain when I am asked to remember that this
piece that I am designing has to tour and that means that I will not always
have as many lights in the front of house. On the other hand, I can say that
I will most likely not miss the system of side lights that was cut in exchange
for the specials I asked for instead. I would certainly have noticed if the spe-
cials were not there and they used half as many instruments and half as
many dimmers. I make sure that anything I ask for on a plot has a specic
purpose, and usually more than one. My personal challenge is to not add an
instrument to a plot that can only be used once. It is this kind of thinking –
What will I miss most? Can I use that more than once? Is this the best use
206
SIMPLE RULES
of my resources? – that forces me to look at each and every light and be

sure I both know what it is doing (see rule # 1) and that I absolutely need
it.
The other advantage to this process is that I think through every moment
of the piece and consider what I want to do with it. I do not pre-write cues,
I work much more in the moment than that, but I give them thought.
I visualize the moments and make sure I have the tools I need to execute
them. The result is that I cue with condence, knowing that I have already
worked through the arc of the piece, that I know where I am going (see rule
# 3), and that I can quickly and eciently use each and every one of the
elements in my plot to its maximum advantage.
Never Do This Job for Money. Or More Accurately Don’t

Only Do It for Money
You will never get rich lighting dance. The companies don’t have enough
money, the jobs are too spread out, the overall income – even from the
giants in the business – will never be enough to bring you wealth. This is
a job you do because you care deeply about the art form and you have to
be part of it. Small companies can barely pay you enough to make it worth
not doing something else you might get paid for. Larger companies can oer
you better contracts but they are per production and they cannot mount
very many of those in a year. They need the time to rehearse the dancers,
to create new choreography, to have enough material to present a full even-
ing of dance. You will work hard for the amount of money you get paid,
and if this is going to be your career you will frequently have to travel to ply
your trade. Very few cities have enough dance companies to keep even one
lighting designer well paid for an entire year. Above all else – never divide
the amount of money you get paid by the number of hours you put in on
the production.
Negotiate your best fee, gure out if it is enough so you can aord to
take the time away from anything else you might want to do, then forget
about the money. The worst thing you can do when things are tough on
a production is gure out how much you are getting paid for the time you
feel like you are wasting. In those moments when you are tired and frus-
trated and there is no way you can get where you want with this project in
the time that is left for you, thinking about the money will only make it
worse. Of course, the ip side of that is that when things are going well and
you are creating a magical world on the stage that supports the choreog-
raphy and, to quote Jean Rosenthal again, your lighting is “supporting (the
dancers) ashing buoyance or their arrested sculptural bodies” it really won’t
matter how much you are being paid.
One of the hard realities about the dance world is that the economics of
dance all but require that companies revive works they have already created.
207
SIMPLE RULES
Depending on the company and the contract you have signed you may be
entitled to some pay for these remounts, but there are a lot of companies
that consider your design their property and they do not always come to
you to help set it up again. This is particularly true of smaller companies
who likely do not oer union contracts to their designers, but there are even
some major companies out there that add a rider to the union contract that
states the rights to the design revert to the company and not the designer.
Many companies also rely on acquiring works from other companies and
producing them in their own seasons. This means that the piece arrives with
a complete design attached to it and does not always have a designer. Cos-
tumes have to be adjusted and scenery may have to be touched up but those
are basically mechanical functions. Executing the lighting is a very dierent
process.
I have been in the position of lighting a piece from another designer’s
notes and I have also had a slightly uncomfortable conversation with
a designer I had not previously worked with when they denied me the
chance to recreate their work. It was not a dicult conversation because
they put it in terms of a larger concern: The principle of the circumstances
and not a value judgment on my work. This was not something they were
willing to risk losing, so they held rm in their right to assign a designer for
the re-creation. I am also the person who has been given the trust of
remounting a couple of very important works; it is a job I do not take
lightly. When I was starting out as a designer I was told that I should nd
a young, rising choreographer and design several pieces for them at what-
ever rate I could get. Then, the advice went, “When they hit it big and are
working with major companies, they will bring you along and that is when
you will really get paid.” I was never in a position to do that but I have
known designers who did and it seems to be a formula for getting and keep-
ing work, but not necessarily for earning a great deal of money.
All of the work I remember fondly is work where I have been proud of
the company or the choreographer just as much as my own work. Many of
those pieces have faded from memory and are no longer part of an active
repertory, none of them made me wealthy and, while I am sure they made
me a better artist, the work itself was ultimately forgettable. On the other
hand, some of the work I look back on with the greatest pride is what
I have done in helping preserve great pieces of choreography for years, dec-
ades, and in a few cases almost a century after they were created. It is not
that I believe they are more worthy than new work, but rather that I feel
they have something of value for today’s audience in the way they either
look at movement or the world around them. That has nothing to do with
money, no matter how well you may get paid.
208
20
L I M I T AT IO NS A S D ESI G N
IDEAS
Suddenly discovering that your side light will be blocked turns out to be
a much more common occurrence than you might expect. I have had scen-
ery, dancers, props, and musicians get in the way of the lights. When I was
young and self-important I occasionally suggested that things could be
moved so that I had a better chance at lighting the dancers. Then when
I was faced with the rst instance of the dancers being the ones who blocked
the light, I came to realize that it was my job to alter the lights to work with
the dance – not the other way around. This meant that I had to be willing
to abandon my preconceived notions of how to light dance and replace
them with ideas about how to light this dance piece.
When I was working for the Jorey Ballet the company mounted
a revival of Balanchine’s Square Dance, complete with caller. In this produc-
tion the string players were on a platform, on stage, up stage right. This
platform fully blocked all of the fourth and part of the third wing. The result
was that I could not use the fourth boom on either side of the stage while
the third (with the help of some shutter cuts) could be carefully used. Any-
thing below about eight feet on the boom had the potential to interfere with
the musicians’ ability to read and play their music. Of course, as luck would
have it, my design aesthetic places greater importance on the instruments
below eight feet on the boom. For the most part, the choreography stayed
below the line of the musicians’ platform and there was an intermission
before and after the piece, so I had time to adjust the focus on some of the
lights so as to be able to light the dancers and not distract the musicians.
There was one point, however, when a dancer entered from the fourth wing
on the opposite side of the stage from the musicians to cross on a shallow
diagonal into the dance.
I could use some of the higher lighting instruments from the stage right
side since they would go over the musicians’ heads, but in order to properly
light the dancer from both sides I had to come up with a dierent solution.
The entrance was set out a bit from the piece so a slightly dierent look to
the lighting of this moment was justied, but it still had to feel like the same
piece. In order to solve this dilemma I added a “rover” to the fourth wing
209
LIMITATIONS AS DESIGN IDEAS
on stage left. The focus created a diagonal side light that described a path
that led the dancer into the space. I used the same color that was in a set of
lights hung at about eight feet above the ground so that it would blend in
with the overall design. Because it was focused on a diagonal it became
a visual invitation to join the proceedings and brought the dancer to their
place in the formation. To me it had a better feeling of joining in because it
broke the regular lateral pattern of the lighting, just as the dancer’s entrance
broke free of that lateral pattern in the movement. The nice thing was this
diagonal special later became a very nice highlight for a dierent moment of
the piece when one of the lead dancers had a series of repeated steps that
fell along the same diagonal. Until necessity dictated I add a unit to bring
the dancer in from the fourth wing, I had not planned on a special accent
for the diagonal section. My design idea that resulted from the limitation
became a nice addition to the plot.
Sometimes the limitations are built into the very fabric of the theatre in
which you are working. Early in my freelance days I was invited to design
an evening length piece for Claudia Gittleman. The venue was the 14th St
Y where a gymnasium had been equipped to be a performance space. This
was a relatively small venue with some signicant limitations. One of them
was the low ceiling height and very little masking. As a result I was faced
with a choice: Focus my shin light o the majority of the ceiling with the
resulting loss of side coverage once the dancer got closer to the wings than
the quarter line, or light the ceiling. I have always believed that you need to
start with lighting the primary subject rst then worry about the spill and
secondary impact of the beam of light second. I opted to light the ceiling
and get better coverage on the dancers. I didn’t think too much more about
that until the piece was being remounted a year later. I wasn’t able to reset
the piece so Peter Koletski, a colleague of mine who had worked with Clau-
dia before, took on the task. Halfway through the week I got a phone call
from him. “Claudia remembered a particular shadow eect you had in one
of the sections that I can’t seem to reproduce from your notes.” I listened
for a bit to Claudia’s description and realized she was describing the dan-
cer’s shadows on the ceiling at the 14th St Y. I told Peter what I had
decided to do with the focus in the original theatre and he immediately
understood; we also both realized that he was not going to be able to recre-
ate the look in his theatre. I had not really paid attention to the dancer’s
shadows on the ceiling, I simply hoped they would not be too distracting –
instead the choreographer saw it as a great new addition to her vision.
Together Peter and I came up with an alternative that didn’t require too
much additional equipment.
I learned a couple of things from this. One was to be careful about rely-
ing on the peculiarities of a venue to create the look of a piece that was
going to perform in other locations. Another was to remember that even if
I could ignore light spill on the ceiling (or wherever other unintended light
210
spill happened to land) I shouldn’t expect my audience to do the same.

I also learned that I had to remember to pay attention to shadows. This was
the real lesson that stuck with me. The awareness of shadows and the real-
ization that I could use them in very deliberate ways helped me through
some tricky spots. I will go into greater detail about a production of Shake-
speare’s Tempest in another chapter, but the control of shadow became a key
element in that one. There was a great deal of movement in the show and
the director specically asked about side (or as he put it “dance”) light. The
set design eventually consisted of a very large decaying boat that blocked all
of the stage left wings and made it all the way to center stage along the up
stage line. All of the side light from stage right had the distinct potential to
cast light squarely onto the boat. By deciding when, and how dened,
I wanted the shadows on the boat, I turned that obstacle into an asset.
Sets – and by extension their designers – have at times forced me into
new approaches to design. I was recently asked to design a production of
Othello, The Moor of Venice for the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival. It was
an interesting process as the parameters changed several times over the
design development phase. In the rst images I saw there was a prominent
portal mid-stage that was echoed by a header piece halfway between the
portal and the proscenium arch. This was signicant because its presence
blocked any light from the rst electric that was directed up stage and
limited the second electric to only top light or high sides. I have often joked
with Marcus Stephens, the set’s designer and my colleague at the University
of Notre Dame, that he routinely oers me signicant challenges, just to see
how far he can push me. I used to half-heartedly complain about it until
I realized that, on more than one production, the result of the restrictions
imposed by his set was a much more interesting lighting design than I had
originally anticipated.
I didn’t initially bring up the restrictions created by these two large head-
ers. Instead I started guring out what I could do with the options left to
me. I began to get excited about the ideas I was getting and when I shared
them the director sounded very interested in what I was describing. I was,
I felt, discovering the design opportunities that were inherent in the limita-
tions. But we were not done. By the time the set reached the model phase
the down stage header had been cut due to budgetary restrictions. I made
the mistake of rethinking the early lighting ideas I had been working with
and reconsidering what I could do with the rst and second electrics now
that the large “obstacle” was gone. This second version of the design had
some of the early ideas, but in retrospect it was not as strong as the original
idea. It was also not the last adjustment I wound up making.
The next one happened when I found out the ground plan I was rst
sent was not complete – the masking was not yet on the drawing. While my
plot was not nished when the masking nally got added, I was feeling
pretty settled into my approach. Once all the legs and borders were added
211
and the sightlines adjusted, I had many of the same restrictions on the rst
electric as I had initially anticipated. The second electric was a bit less
encumbered than the rst, but the height necessary to hide the instruments
created other problems. The biggest problem was the wings were now too
narrow to accommodate the actors’ and the intended side light positions. In
other words, I had to cut the booms. In some ways I was once again being
pushed toward the earliest concept; then risk management got involved.
The set had a full stage turntable which meant that the deck was not
going to be able to support our self-driving personnel lift. We do not have
a focus track and bosun’s chair, so suspending our electrician next to the
electric for focus was not an option either. The solution was to use scaold-
ing. New rules at the University of Notre Dame limited not only how high
we could go, but who could use it. The need for an “outside contractor”
and when they would be available to us became the next hurdle we had to
clear. The resulting changes to the schedule and the contingency planning it
forced me to do caused some signicant redesigns on the plot. By this time
I was essentially on my third light plot for the production and, needless to
say, by this time I was complaining – not that it would change anything –
and feeling very put-upon.
Hang and focus was a chaotic process (at least in my opinion) with hang
only getting about 75 percent done before we had to start focus. In addition,
we had to focus over half the plot before I had yet to see a full run of the
production. The order of focus was dictated by the scaold rigger and not
by what made sense to me. The result of this was a rather uneven looking
focus that somehow fell into place as a design. When we began writing the
cues the results were striking. I was working with a set of tools that were not
my usual ones and the result was that I had to carefully look at each
moment with a fresh set of eyes. Several of my assumptions were discarded
but the central driving concept of the design was clearly present. The result
of this process was a design that looked very dierent from virtually every-
thing I have done in this particular theatre. It also looked singularly like
a Shakespearean tragedy, something that honestly I had not been striving
for. I was happy with the end result because it grew organically out of
a awed process and the result was exactly what the show needed. I had
paid close attention to the lighting and what it was doing for the actors and,
as a result, wound up with exactly the right choice for each moment in this
production.
If I am perfectly honest with myself I know that the basic decisions
that drove this design came in response to the limitations the original set
design presented. Many of the usual approaches to lighting the piece were
either eliminated or signicantly restricted. As a result, I had to look to
what options remained in terms of placement of lighting instruments.
After reecting on the impact of these dierent angles I began to see the
limitations as a great opportunity to experiment with a design aesthetic
212
that was not a common one for me – at front light. This created a very
specic and aggressive approach that I felt was entirely appropriate to
a major scene in the play. As the design developed and through all the
changes that were forced on to the design, I never let go of this rst idea.
This meant that as I jettisoned other ideas I would check back to this at
light and what I needed to combine with it for other parts of the piece.
Since my earliest design experiences, I have had a strong resistance to
hanging and focusing a light for a single moment in a piece. If I add
a special I want that light to be able to serve multiple purposes. I am not
a pedant, I like rules, but I will break them when the need suits, so
I have and will add a xture to design for a singular use but that is not
my norm.
This rule of mine stems from another limitation that served as a design
inspiration. I was working in a small theatre with a limited inventory of
lighting instruments. I needed virtually all of the available lighting to simply
accomplish good visibility. On one show I was asked to create a special for
a particular moment when there was a desire to isolate a gure. I hated the
idea of dedicating a lighting instrument to a moment that would last less
than a minute. After I learned all of the other needs for this production
I reworked the control pattern for the entire plot. The new approach to the
overall design allowed me to take an instrument that was part of a wash of
light and control it on its own to become a special. This let me use that
single instrument in a number of ways and still give the moment of isolation
we were looking for in the piece. In my opinion the overall design improved
with this change and I began to understand that limitations can be useful.
Years later this idea worked its way into my standard approach to dance
lighting: A nine-pool downlight system, focused the right way, provides an
additional wash system, and nine individual specials. I nd it invaluable in
a rep plot.
There are a host of limitations that can be placed on a project and many
fall into the realm of budgetary constraints. These limitations can manifest
themselves in terms of limited time for your hang and focus because the
crew can only be hired for a certain number of hours. There are also limita-
tions on: technical rehearsals because the theatre can only be rented for so
many hours; equipment because the cost of added lights is prohibitive; and
color choices because someone forgot to budget for gel purchases. It is easy
to rail against nancial constraints and to somehow think that all your prob-
lems could be solved with more money. The truth is that when we are
forced to make very careful choices because of the available resources, we
are also making very careful choices about the design. Jean Rosenthal once
said (and I paraphrase) that her worst designs were when she had an unlim-
ited budget. I believe this is because unlimited resources often mean we do
not challenge ourselves to make choices early enough in the process of the
design.
213
The two most common issues you will face is a lack of equipment (or
a budget to get the equipment you need) and a limitation on the amount of
time you have in the space. The balance between these two becomes critical
at times. I had a colleague talk to me about ghting for and nally getting
permission to order additional equipment only to discover that the time
frame in the space was not going to change. The additional equipment was
now looking like a burden since installing it was going to cut into focus time
and that would impact cueing time. When we spoke, my colleague was even
considering letting go of the additional gear because cueing on this particular
piece promised to be complicated and time consuming. I know that in my
own experience I have rejected specialty equipment if I learned there was
not someone on the crew experienced in the installation and operation of
the equipment. The potential of time saved in tech rehearsal did not out-
weigh the possibility of lost time guring out how to add the gear into the
light plot.
The range of limitations I have faced is broad and with each I have
discovered design approaches that I am convinced I would not have
found under other circumstances. Sometimes the limitations have come
from the choreographer or the artistic director involved in a production.
One of the rst things Gerald Arpino told me was that he didn’t like
amber light and that I shouldn’t bother showing him anything with
amber because he wouldn’t like it. Then he asked me to rework the light-
ing for Viva Vivaldi and the main directive he gave me was that I needed
to bring a sepia toned look to the work. It should look like an old-
fashioned picture postcard, he said. The costumes had some rich browns
in them along with gold and a touch of red. If there was ever a piece
that wanted amber light this was it. It was choreographed to a guitar con-
certo and had a distinctive Spanish air in the score, the costumes, and
the choreography; the colors in the costumes, the nostalgia, and the sepia
toned image all cried amber. But Jerry didn’t like amber. So I went with
a rose toned pink in the plot and asked the electrician to precut several
ambers ranging from a true amber through to a chocolate. We worked on
the cues for a few minutes, not getting what Jerry wanted, until
I suggested I swap out a color.
I don’t now remember which color I chose but I know it was not a pure
amber. I reworked the rst cue and Jerry said “That’s it.” We quickly n-
ished cueing the piece and the dancers ran through it. Jerry was very happy.
He told me that he had struggled with the look of the piece every time he
revived it and thanked me for getting the look he wanted. He stopped as he
started away from the tech table and looked back at me with a sort of scowl-
ing smile and said “I know you used amber, I’m not blind. It worked for
this but don’t you ever try to use it again.” I could not have nessed that
piece with the amber I would have liked to use, it would have been too
aggressive and Jerry would never have let it pass, and I do not think it
214
would have looked as good. I had to think about my color with greater cre-
ativity because of Jerry’s imposed limitation, but I was happy with the result.
One of the more challenging limitations is a choreographer that wants to
only use their own ideas. This is tricky because there is no valid reason to
say no to what they ask for, yet it feels as if they are overtaking the process
and diminishing your value at the same time. I worked with a choreog-
rapher who was setting a piece on Giordano Dance Chicago a few years
ago who presented such a challenge. The work he was doing was an adapta-
tion of a longer piece he had set on his own company. The result was “he
knew” how it needed to be done – complete with the lighting positions and
cues. In fact, what he knew were some very strong statement moments in
the piece but the connective tissue and the underlying need for clear images
of the dancers was not as dened. He also understood, but didn’t want to be
bothered with, the limitations of putting this work on a mixed bill program
where it would not be a complete “act” in the evening. In other words, he
wanted some very specic things, knew that in the past he had an intermis-
sion to set them up and take them down, knew we had to do it in a pause,
and gured I would just take care of that.
It would have been easy to see this as one of those design situations
where I could just do what the choreographer asked for and then sit back
and collect my fee. But I knew if I didn’t impose what I knew about the
practical needs of the company, and if I didn’t try to build the arc of the
piece around the backbone of images he had provided, I was short changing
the process. The rst step was to gure out how to avoid setting three 20-
foot-tall booms on the up stage edge of the dance oor. In the original
design these each had about a half-dozen units on them and I knew there
was no way to strike them in anything less than a 20-minute intermission
with the crew we had. There were no available line sets to y them out and
the other pieces used the scrim and cyc, and we would have been looking at
the silhouette of three booms if we didn’t get rid of them. I used my stand-
ard tactic of trying to get to the “why” behind the choice and also the spe-
cic visual impact the booms needed to add to the piece. Often
choreographers resist answering these questions, either because they do not
really know how to answer them or because they feel as if this is a precursor
to talking them out of their ideas. I blunted those objections as I asked the
question by indicating that I was trying to gure out how to accomplish it as
opposed to avoid doing it.
The rst step was to move the instruments from booms to a line set. My
original request was for two additional electrics so I could set one substan-
tially lower than the other and create the pseudo-wall behind the dancers
that I felt the original booms had accomplished. I was informed I would be
lucky to get one extra pipe. The compromise – unmask the furthest up stage
electric and then y the extra pipe in to about six feet below the other elec-
tric. Likewise, we could not open up to the back wall of the theatre since we
215
had a ground row, so we used the furthest up stage blackout curtain which
gave the illusion of greater depth. As it turned out, once the choreographer
realized that we were going to gure out a way to meet the up stage look
for his piece, the other “non-negotiable” items he had asked for were sud-
denly negotiable. From that point forward the process owed quite
smoothly. Because of the single electric compromise the piece remained
active in the company repertory and traveled the following year. I felt I was
able to design the piece, and the choreographer felt I had met the specic
needs of the work that he was most concerned about. Often it is the attitude
you bring to a conversation that determines the outcome of that conversa-
tion. I am convinced that because I did not come from the perspective of
“We can’t do that, so what is your second choice,” but rather asked what
the goal was so that I could try to meet that need, without ever specically
saying we can’t do what you want, we got to a very good compromise.
I also felt as if I had been able to make a strong artistic contribution to the
work and did not feel as if I was just following orders.
The last obstacle I want to spend a little time on is the repertory dance
company. I know it seems odd to be calling this an obstacle but being a rep
company, particularly one that tours, places severe restrictions on what
a lighting designer can do. Every choice must ultimately be checked against
the idea of taking it on the road and tting it into a program of existing
dance works. There are also advantages for a designer working in a rep plot
because many of the tools needed to light a piece are already in place within
the plot. This means you can concentrate on the elements that will distin-
guish your work and help it retain a singular identity within this multi-
purpose plot. The restrictions created by room in the plot and in the budget
to add units means that careful attention must be paid to any and all adds.
Typically, there will be units on the sides where you will have the opportun-
ity to make color choices and then there is usually a specic number of add-
itional lights you can add. Depending on the size of the rep plot itself and
the company’s budget, this could be anywhere between a handful and sev-
eral dozen.
While there is always a temptation to add as many as you possibly can, it
is important to keep in mind that the more complicated you make things,
the harder it becomes for the company to remount the piece. Clearly you
do what you need to do to make the piece look right but, for example, if
you feel you need a path of light across the stage in the fourth wing, it is
probably better to ask for an extra unit on the fourth boom on each side
rather than six lights on the overhead electric. An addition to the side light
is faster to hang and to focus and there is a greater likelihood of tting one
unit into each of those positions than the six lights onto one pipe. The last
thing I want to do is create a situation where a choreographer’s work gets
limited exposure because I made the plot too dicult to execute. I come
close to that each time I remount The Green Table. Stylistically it is pretty far
216
from what most dance companies consider a standard hang. I remember

telling Brad Fields, the lighting director for American Ballet Theatre, that
the design required over 40 overhead units and that the majority of them
would have to be adds because of the focus.
Initially he was skeptical that the necessary units would not already be
something in the rep plot. Once he received my rough plot and focus notes
he called back to say he was not at all sure how he was going to t this into
the plot. Brad and I had worked together before and were friends. I am
fairly sure that is what allowed him to be so direct. We both knew that this
piece was going to get performed, contracts were signed and casting had
been completed. We also knew that I was asking for a great deal more than
he had anticipated, and we knew that we had to nd intelligent comprom-
ises that would allow the piece into the rep, but not change the way it
looked from the front. What this process forced me to do was to analyze
each specic usage of each instrument I was asking for. To look at the indi-
vidual cues in which it appeared and see what other things came up with it.
The more exposed a unit was, the more important it was that it be there.
The more specic the focus, the less likely it could be covered by something
already in the rep plot. Brad suggested that for this program they could add
a shutter cut to a set of units that were part of their rep front light; my
system had to stay out of the fourth wing while theirs lit up to the cyc.
I oered to use some of the existing down lights that I knew did not have to
be cued individually and so could aord a slightly dierent focus. I think we
wound up adding around two dozen lights overhead and another 14 to the
sides and it did require a bump in the budget for labor and rentals that had
to be approved, but we t it in. The company performed it on a variety of
concerts and everyone was pleased.
As designers we are not often forced to think about precisely how
a particular unit we hang will be used in every cue, but we should. It is the
only way to be really sure it is needed. Ultimately the main advantage to
your craft presented by the limitations a rep plot provides is just that: Think-
ing through the usage of all the added units. If it will really only come on at
the very end for ve seconds – then, is it worth it? Is there another way to
tell the end of the piece? I saw a designer do just that: 12 tightly focused
down pools for the nal pose of a dance. He got away with it because he
was the lighting director for the company and there wasn’t anyone to say
“Are you really sure you need all those extra lights?” There were other
added units for this piece, about six more, but they got used a lot and they
really contributed to the look. And, to be fair, the down pools at the end of
the piece looked really good, but I also know that every time that piece
comes up – now that the designer is no longer with that company – there is
a conversation about additional rental and extra time to focus the pools.
There is an added advantage to thinking through the precise use of all of
your instruments. It impacts how you focus, or it should impact how you
217
focus. Let’s go back to my nine-pool-down light system, my specials that

form a wash. When I create the plot I try very hard to get each of the units
in this system centered over the spot where they focus. I want a straight
down light. When each of these lights comes up by itself, it makes
a statement and I want it to say the right thing. This means that I need to
take a great deal of caution, making sure they are centered on the right
spot, that the size of the beams is identical, and that the sharpness of the
edge is the same. This is when I plan to use them all as individual specials,
and most if not all of them in the same pieces. If, on the other hand, I know
that a particular program will only use them as a wash and never by them-
selves, I do not need to be anywhere near as precise, and I can focus each
of those lights in half the amount of time. Even if the center unit will be
used as a special on its own, if it is on with a few other lights I can eyeball it
in on its own. It is only if all nine are on by themselves that I need the
added precision.
If I never had to worry about time, if I could be sure that I would have
ve minutes to focus each instrument, I would never have to think about
what the cues were going to look like. If I never had to worry about enough
time to hang and circuit a plot and I had all the time in the world to focus
and cue, I would never have to make choices about how many specials to
add for any specic piece. But I know I am a better designer when I keep
those limitations in mind. When I think carefully about every light I add to
a plot; when I keep in mind not only how it will be focused but also how it
will be used and what I want that moment to look like – then I can be cer-
tain the extra light is needed and will make an impact. Have I ever blown
it? Have I ever hung a series of lights for specials and then never turned
them on? Sure. I have even hung lights I never focused. But those are the
designs I am not so proud of, those are also the times when I did not have
enough prep time, when I had to turn in a light plot before the piece of
choreography was done. It happens more often than we would like to think
and it is never a lot of fun.
The real lesson I have learned over the years is that limitations are only
limitations if I choose to see them that way. Sure, they push me out of my
comfort zone because I can’t do what I thought I wanted to do, but they
also force me to take a fresh look at what I am doing. I forget this some-
times and push for what I want, but just like my pseudo-complaining to
Marcus about his constant obstacles to my designs, in the back of my mind
I am looking at these limitations for what inspiration they can provide. I am
also pretty sure that at the start of my career I was not this exible; on the
other hand I was working with far fewer instruments so I had fewer ways to
be exible. I also know that some of my most creative work has been done
when I was not in a great theatre and I had the time to search for solutions.
Unconventional solutions.
218
21
ON BEING T H E ON LY
D E S I G N E R IN TH E R O O M
One of the things that is unique to dance is that when you get into the the-
atre, either for load in or for tech, there is a very good chance that you are
going to be the only designer that’s actually in the room. How you choose
to deal with that can make a big dierence in how the production looks and
how often you get asked back to work with that company or choreographer.
You are often the only person that can really make the thing look right, the
only one who is there with the sole purpose of creating an artistic statement.
The crew is a crew. They’re technicians, they are charged with very spe-
cic tasks which need to be accomplished on a tight schedule. You might
have a good production director, who’s got an artistic eye, but they are busy
too; busy getting the crew to do what they need to do to get the show up on
time. Because, and I hate to sound like a broken record, the other big thing
about dance is that there is almost never enough time. Everything that you
do in dance, you do with about a third to a quarter of the amount of time
that you typically experience in a theatre production. You don’t have a set.
Great. The assumption then is that it should be possible to load in (and
focus) the production in eight hours on one day and be ready for lighting
on day two. Great idea but you still have to install a dance oor. Under
most AGMA contracts, you have to install a sprung oor before you put the
dance oor down, depending on the style of oor and the size of the crew,
and that can take two to four hours. You have to get the electrics in the air,
and you have to hang the booms and get them standing; the goal is to make
that happen in four hours as well, otherwise you are going to be charged for
overtime hours. No matter how long all of that takes, you still have to hang
masking for the whole stage, regardless of whether you are using a painted
backdrop or a cyclorama of a black velour drop.
Getting all that done in an eight-hour day is a tight squeeze, and then
you’re supposed to come in the next day and write your light cues. When
do you focus? This is the compression of the calendar and the pressure of
the budget. In a typical touring situation with a large dance company doing
a repertory program, you will have one 12-hour day, including overtime,
and half of the next to be ready to go through a cue session before you have
219
ON BEING THE ONLY DESIGNER IN THE ROOM
to be ready to open your program the second night. In that period of time,
you have to schedule a full three-hour dance rehearsal that is the nal dress
on the day of the rst performance. Forget about a specic lighting session
with the dancers on the stage, because by the time they do their class, their
afternoon rehearsal, and their performance, that’s their full allotment of
work hours in a day. Any time you get to work in the morning of
the second day will be without anybody on the stage. It can be done, you
can light a dance with nobody on stage, but it isn’t easy. Don’t expect
a nished design when you light on a blank stage. Sometimes you have to
ght tooth and nail to get time to write cues with nothing else happening on
stage, because the days are so short and the cost is so high. Usually the
number of people called to work the load-in has to be signicant to get the
work done in the scheduled time; this means the cost of overtime is a killer
if you don’t nish on time. For a large show, it is not a crew of ve or six
stage hands, it will be closer to 25 or 30 – counting all departments. And
you have to count everyone because most union contracts require you to
keep everyone on call until the last light is focused. When all those people
move into time and a half, suddenly you can break the budget. This usually
means you are constantly being asked to cut time wherever you can.
This is also the time you begin to understand why being the only designer
in the room is a challenge. You want to pay attention to the lighting but
you need to make sure everything is getting the right sort of attention. Is the
masking even, did someone take the time to brush the lint o the scrim, is
the oor going down evenly, is the cyc clean and even and wrinkle free?
Yes, none of this is part of the lighting department, but during the dress
rehearsal all of these issues will be seen as aws in your design. That is why
you need to pay attention to all of these details before you even arrive at the
theatre. I can’t begin to count the number of times I was asked by Gerald
Arpino to change the lighting because the oor looked dirty, when in fact
the crew had run out of time for one last quick mop before rehearsal began.
One of the “traditions” I learned when I started designing for the Jorey
was that the lighting designer was responsible for drafting the section. The
head carpenter would produce a line set schedule showing where all the
masking or scenery would hang, but the section drawing fell to electrics.
I blamed Tom Skelton, without any evidence at all except a scribbled
note on an early section drawing of the Nutcracker Oliver Smith designed for
the company. “Dear Mr. Smith, this looks very nice. Where are the elec-
trics?” When I looked over the drawing, it was true. Virtually every line set
had been lled with scenery or else the spacing between pieces of scenery
was too narrow to safely hang an electric between them. I have been accus-
tomed to drawing sections for myself to make sure my lights will reach the
part of the stage I intend but it has always been a rough – albeit to scale –
drawing, just for me. It is always a good idea to be sure you are hanging
your strip lights between the border and the drop you are lighting and that
220
the back light can actually hit the part of the stage you are focusing on. The
requirement that I produce a fully drafted section for all departments to use
was new, but I did it. It meant I knew all the possible collisions in the hang
plot had been solved. Since then, if I am not asked to draft a section I ask
for a section with any ground plan I get. The bottom line is you need to
make sure that if you are not the person making the hang plot and drafting
the section then you have the right of approval.
The other thing you want to be consulted on is how the stage is going to
be set up if there is not a full set involved. What is the “black box” going to
look like? By the term “black box” I am referring to the black legs and bor-
ders that frame the space and whatever background the company is using
for the production. I have always advocated for hanging a black scrim about
one to two feet up stage of the light line. I like to do this with both full stage
black back drops and cycloramas. I have even found it to be eective for
many painted drops. The scrim catches bounce light from the performers
part of the stage and allows the colors of the drop to be less impacted by
ambient light. This also means that whatever color adjustments I make with
lighting are seen as more saturated and pure.
The box starts with the down stage portal. Many of the companies I have
worked with prefer the look of a black frame to their performing space; it
also allows for a consistent opening that is not dependent on the actual
dimensions of the proscenium arch in the theatre. Often this set of legs (or
tormentors) are framed or stretched to give a sharp clean line to the sides of
the stage. They are paired with a border (or teaser) to create the top of the
frame. The border will almost always have a pipe in the bottom and be
stretched smooth. Flat borders, even up stage of the portal border, give
a clean look to the space and are less likely to catch light are which can
pull the eye up and out of the space. I was spoiled by my time with the
Jorey because they had hard framed show legs that they traveled with.
This meant that in addition to a sharp clean line overhead I had a sharp
clean vertical edge to the space as well. The company had committed to this
extravagance because they were committed to a focus on the side light that
kept light o the face of the wings. This kind of focus is very hard to accom-
plish with soft legs and virtually impossible when they are soft legs with
fullness.
The creation of this portal is something that far too often is taken for
granted. I have learned there is a “right” proportion between width and
height that is inuenced both by the aesthetic of the company and the archi-
tecture of the theatre. Many companies have established a dimension they
try to always use for the portal, but most will recognize the inuence of the
space and alter it from time to time. Generally, this will be an adjustment to
the width of the opening and usually it is related to sightlines; in theatres
with really high balconies it could impact the height of the opening as well.
Some of the smaller companies I have worked with are less proscriptive and
221
create the opening that feels right in each space they are in. The ratio
between height and width is usually close to what Euclid referred to as the
golden proportion (or ratio). This ratio is approximately 1.6 which in real
dimensions means a 40-foot-wide opening should be 25 feet tall. The appro-
priate opening is also inuenced by the space, which can ultimately make
the mathematically “right” opening look “wrong.” For this and other reasons
these exact dimensions are not as important as the visual aesthetic of the
opening; so when in doubt trust your eyes. It is interesting that this 1.6 ratio
has a consistent visual appeal, at least in Western culture, and appears in
classic architecture as well as more contemporary structures. For example
the Parthenon appears to have been built following the golden proportion,
except the mathematical concept post-dates the structure. Clearly the aes-
thetic response to the proportion is not all about math. The moral is – go
out into the house, turn around, and look at the space the way an audience
member would. It is the only way to know if it looks right.
The next conversation you need to have is how to dress the legs going up
stage. Assuming you have a backdrop that is wide enough there are basically
three options. The legs can all be the same distance from the center line,
they can taper further open as you move up stage, or they can narrow
down. The choice here is largely aesthetic, although there can be some prac-
tical concerns as well. The Nikolais Dance Theatre preferred the widening
hang, where the portal was the narrowest opening and the furthest up stage
was the widest. This was practical for Nik. He used slide projectors to light
the cyc and the beam spread as it went up stage. In order to avoid image
distortion the projectors had to hang at the quarter point of the amount of
cyclorama that was visible. He also liked to see the projected images as wide
as possible and wanted them to run o out of sightlines if possible. The
majority of companies I have worked with have opted for the equidistant
set-up and have only used a narrowing taper if the sightlines caused the
portal opening to get wider than normal. If it was a matter of one or two
feet they just shifted the portal and everything else remained; but once you
get wider than a foot on each side of the stage it looks odd if you do not
taper back to normal across two or three legs.
No matter what set-up the company uses, I have never seen a taper on
the quarter line marks. In general, the relationship between center line and
quarter line remains consistent and by and large xed. When you think
about it, it makes a lot of sense. In general, the most signicant dancing
takes place between the quarter marks, on the middle 50 percent of the per-
forming space. The edges of the space are also used, just not as consistently.
If the area outside of the quarter is larger than usual it just means the dan-
cers aren’t as close to the masking legs as usual. The only real reason to
reconsider the distance between center and quarter is if the overall stage
space is signicantly smaller, say ve to eight feet narrower overall. In that
case having the quarters halfway between the center and the legs helps
222
dancers properly space their movement so they don’t wind up dancing in

the wings. Another way to think about it is, when you get into very athletic
companies the amount of space that they can cover is critical and, therefore,
the stage needs to reect it. Even an addition of two feet on either side of
center for a total of four feet, something which sounds inconsequential,
makes a dierence to the dancers. After all we are only talking about
a dierence between 44 feet and 40 feet, which really shouldn’t be that sig-
nicant. But for a dancer who has gured out exactly what it takes to get
across 40 feet in the amount of time they have, it is. That choreography is
in their muscles, it is not something they have to think about, it is what we
refer to as muscle memory. You just added 10 percent more territory they
have to cover, and they may not make it. Take that same dancer used to
a 40-foot distance and ask them to shorten their movement to t into 35
feet and they have an equal challenge.
Let me back up a bit to the quarter and center marks. As a lighting
designer I always make sure I know what marks a dance company is used to
working with. A good stage manager will always duplicate the same set of
marks in the rehearsal room that the dancers are expecting to see on stage.
Typically you will nd a down center, down right, and left quarters, and
a mirror of them on the up stage light line. Some companies use eighth
marks as well but generally only at the extreme up stage and down stage
lines. The distance between the up stage and down stage sets of marks is as
critical as the distance between center and quarter. You need to maintain it,
or if because of the limitations of the theatre you are not going to be able
to, you need to get word to the dance captain or stage manager. The other
mark you will commonly nd is a center stage mark. This mark is not neces-
sarily at the precise mid-point between the up stage marks and the down
stage marks, but more on this later. Most companies rely on spacing
rehearsals in the theatre to make the necessary adjustments, but I learned
that Tom Skelton had a dierent approach. A colleague of mine at the Uni-
versity of Notre Dame used to dance with Ohio Ballet, and he told me
a story about Tom’s strategy. He arrived at rehearsal early and found Tom
was in the studio. My friend realized Tom was moving the spike marks. He
asked him what he was doing, a bit concerned about what that might do to
rehearsal. Tom’s answer surprised him. He told him that he actually did it
all the time but that usually no one saw him. My colleague asked why and
Tom said:
Because we’re about to go on a tour where the typical width of the

stage is 36 feet. I am moving the spike marks in. For the next week
of rehearsal, your center and quarter marks will be based on a 36-
foot-wide proscenium and when you hit the rst theatre, I’m not
going to hear a lot of complaining about it being too small.
223
Understanding how important it is to help the dancers transition into the

stage they’re going to be working on is important. But as the lighting
designer you should not be the one who is going into the studio and moving
the marks. Tom Skelton got away with that because he was also the co-
artistic director of Ohio Ballet and no one was going to tell him he couldn’t;
but you can talk to the production stage manager, the technical director,
whoever you are interfacing with, and suggest they might want to see if the
ballet master would like to adjust the rehearsal space to reect the theatre.
Another quick thought about spike marks, particularly if they will be made
with glow tape, is to try to stay with just your down stage three marks,
a center stage mark, and your up stage three marks. That’s really all any
dancer that knows what they’re doing needs. Any more and they can
become confusing. I have been in the audience at a number of performances
where the curtain went up, and there was a series of constellations in glow
tape on the stage oor. It’s really distracting. The bottom line is, have as
few marks as you can and make sure they are useful for the dancers and for
you.
Once you have gured out the size of the space you also need to deter-
mine how many wings you need. For the majority of my freelance career
the companies I worked with used four wings. If the stage was exceptionally
deep there might be a larger gap between the last leg and the up stage drop,
but it was understood that this was not part of the dance space. Recently
I have found that more and more large companies are using ve wings. In
doing some research for this chapter I discovered that, back in the early
days of concert dance in the 1950s, it used to be common to have three
wings. I have decided, despite my prejudice for four wings and consequently
four booms, that a set-up with three or ve makes more sense. With an odd
number of wings your center stage mark lands the dancers squarely in the
path of a set of side lights. If you are working with four wings you often
need to decide to cheat your center mark down stage a bit to catch
the second set of sides or up stage a bit to catch the third. The problem
with this sort of compromise is that in many cases repertory light plots are
set up with nine downlight pools. If we shift center to match the booms it
will no longer be centered in the pool. On the other hand with an odd
number of wings everything works out.
To determine how many wings to set up you need to take into account
a few things. To be honest, purely in terms of using the stage space,
a choreographer typically needs an up stage entrance and a down stage
entrance from both sides; that’s about it. You can do the majority of all
dance work with just that, if you had to. We all know that is not really prac-
tical and what most companies are used to now is a total of four entrances
on each side. Once you know what specic number of wings the dancers are
looking for, then you need to gure out how the artistic director or the
choreographer is planning on using the stage. The next step is to look at the
224
stage itself, because this is where the compromise may come in. How wide
do you have to go for the audience to be able to see what’s going on? How
narrow can you aord to be and allow the dancers the ability to move?
How deep is the space and do you have the ability to use more or less of it?
How wide is the audience and how far can they see into the wings? Sigh-
tlines become critical, and believe it or not, you’re probably about the only
person that’s going to look at them, because the artistic director – unless
they have really schooled themselves in this – are going to be much more
concentrated, as they should be, on the dancers. The choreographer is going
to be looking at the steps. There is no one else that’s looking at the masking.
Does it make the space a nice proportion? Is it the right size for the event
that we’re putting on the stage? While all of this would seem to be, in the
ideal world, a set designer or the carpenter’s purview, it doesn’t always work
that way.
Again, four legs is not a magic number. It’s just simply what I have
gotten used to. What is more important is looking at trac pattern: What
goes through those wings? How well are you masked in terms of closing o
the side of the stage and concealing the back stage. As you establish your
wing spacing you want that to be consistent and you probably don’t want to
exceed eight feet between wings. Once you get much wider than eight feet
between the legs you are forcing your booms further apart and you are
going to have much bigger problems with that dreaded dark triangle that
happens between booms. This is the gap that can occur between sets of side
lights when a dancer moves up and down stage close to the wings. If you
look at the pattern of light coming out of an instrument you nd that two
36-degree lighting instruments, placed eight feet apart, do not overlap beams
until the light has traveled almost 14 feet from the instrument. This means
that once the dancer gets closer than 14 feet to the side light they begin to
go in and out of beams of light. If you are shuttering o legs either on the
near or far side of the stage you are cutting away part of the beam of light
and you will need to be even further from the instrument to avoid the gaps.
Any increase in the space between the booms will only aggravate this
problem.
While the classical ballet companies I have worked with most recently,
Jorey, Ballet West, and Boston Ballet, all have fairly xed ideas of trims,
there can be a slight variation with each theatre. When I was with the Jof-
frey their repertory design was based on four booms per side. Depending on
the theatre we were in, however, the Jorey could have an extra wing
because the masking pattern did not work without an extra leg in there.
Occasionally that would leave an empty wing in the dance space and the
dancers took advantage of that. If they knew there was an exit that they
could go through and not worry about hitting a boom, that’s where they
would go. If it works with the choreography, the choreographer is going to
tell them to do it too, because they know that they will go through that wing
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full tilt. Whereas with the wing that has a boom in it, they’re going to start
slowing down about a foot away from the legs and no choreographer likes to
see that. In all fairness, it is very hard to run full tilt toward a hard obstacle
like a side lighting position. We also had situations where we would wind up
with an empty fth wing up stage of the dance area. The problem there was
that dancers would drift up stage into that area where there was no side
light. This presented a dierent challenge and I would frequently add some
ll light from the sides using rovers in that last wing so they would at least
be seen if they danced up there.
With Ballet West I have designed large story ballets, and the fth wing
was necessary to accommodate the scenery and all of the dancers. As I have
had the chance to look at the light plots for a variety of larger companies
over recent years I nd more and more of them are going to ve side light
positions on each side of the stage. If the space is too shallow to accommo-
date all of the sides they will simply cut number ve on each side. The
works will be teched and cued based on the full complement of positions
and then adapted for the limitations of the odd space. This is good practice
because it means that you are always working with the same channel num-
bers. This is much easier on the lighting designer/director and it means that
you can transition easily between four and ve booms on the same tour. It
also means that anytime you add a new work to the rep you should be set
up in your ve-wing conguration. It means one set of cues will work with
all venues – although you may have to adjust some of the levels.
These are the sorts of things designers should and do think about: Does
the space look right? Are the dancers covered wherever they plan to dance?
If we are creating a new design, are we as close to the standard set-up as
possible? This is why it is important to not lose sight of the fact that you are
a designer, even when all the work you are doing feels technical in nature.
On my rst job with the Jorey I guratively crossed swords with the pro-
duction director at the time. I was at the tech table during a dress run,
making adjustments to some of the cues. About a minute into the piece
Gerald Arpino pointed out a light spill on a very wrinkled looking leg.
I realized that no one had checked to see if the legs were properly dressed –
pulled tight, neat, and squared to the stage. This particular leg looked like it
had been bumped and never straightened out. The production manager said
he would take care of it in a semi-dismissive tone. Five minutes later Jerry
pointed out the same leg and two or three minutes after that he brought it
up again. He had stopped looking at the dance and was only looking at the
masking. I got on headset and asked the carpenter on stage to x the leg
from up stage so they would not be seen; this he did and Jerry’s attention
went back to the dance. At our break the production director pulled me
aside and told me I was undercutting his authority and he would not stand
for it. I told him that I was sorry but the leg was not addressed and the
lighting session had become about the leg and it could not wait. He stormed
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o and the next thing I knew there was a carpenter at each leg checking
that they were properly dressed. We didn’t talk about it again, but in the
future all I had to say was that the tech was becoming about the masking
and the production manager would get things straightened out as soon as
possible.
I knew I should have caught the problem rst, I knew from all my years
with Alwin Nikolais when he would stop a rehearsal cold if there was
a wrinkle in the cyclorama or a leg was not dressed. It used to be second
nature, but I had fallen behind and failed to do my front of house check.
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve walked into a theatre where
I’m lighting a dance company, I come in from the back of the theatre down
the middle of the house. Everybody is working away on stage, and from out
there what do I see? The third set of legs is hung two feet o center towards
stage right. The people on stage hadn’t noticed it. Tunnel vision. They’re up
on stage, they’d hung the rst set of legs, and then they ew them out. They
did the same with the second set, and they ew them out. Then the third
set and on to the fourth and then to the backdrop. They had never looked
at it all together, but they knew I was arriving so they brought everything in
to touch the oor so they would be ready for focus. They were walking
around, xing the edge of the legs, and making sure that they’re hanging
straight, but no one was looking at the full picture. If you are a designer,
take pride in the whole presentation, not just your lighting. If the stage is
looking sloppy, that is what people will notice, not the dancers, not how
good you make them look with your lighting. I have often heard crew mem-
bers remark that if people were looking at the legs or a wrinkle in the cyc,
the dancers weren’t doing their job. The reality is that when there is an
ordered situation our eyes are easily drawn to the thing or things that are
out of place. This means that – ironically – if the dancers are doing their job
it is that much more likely that the out of place leg will get noticed. It also
means that if we really are there to partner with the dance and help every-
one look their best, we need to make sure the leg gets xed and the wrinkle
gets stretched out of the cyc.
One of the things I talk about in my stage management class (which
I also teach) is that the stage managers must add an item to their pre-show
checklist: A front of house check. They need to go out in the audience and
look back at the stage. I know that if it is not on the checklist they have no
reason to go out to the house. They work up on the stage or possibly in the
booth. That’s where they spend their time. I believe as the only designer in
the room you have to take the time to make sure that all of it looks right.
Does the masking all line up? Is there enough of it to cover the wings? Is
the main portal the right shape and size? And that depends on the propor-
tions of the stage, it depends on the proportions of the theatre, and the only
way to check if it is right is to go half to three-quarters of the way out into
the house. Set the rst portal trim from out there. Look at the height it
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needs to be and the width that it needs to be. Then move down to the rst
row, check the rst electric masking from there, and work on up stage.
Once you nish with all of the masking, return to the back of the house and
look at it all once again. It is better to reset trims and legs before you focus,
rather than after.
Even if you have an excellent carpenter or production manager and they
have a great eye, you have not stopped being a designer. Use your own
eyes, take pride in the overall look of the stage. Make sure the space you
will be lighting looks the best that it can. Ultimately your work will look
better, the company will look better, and the audience will be watching the
right thing – the dancers.
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22
AD VI CE F OR T HE
C H O R E O G R AP HER W H O HAS
T O G O I T A LO NE
When Tom Skelton wrote his articles for Dance Magazine in the 1950s he set
out to create a handbook that a dancer could use to produce a concert. In
his early articles he oered advice on how to nd a technician that could
help a choreographer mount a concert. His suggestion was that the choreog-
rapher needed to learn enough about lighting to be able to guide the techni-
cian who perhaps knew stage lighting but nothing about dance. Much of
this book, while written for both the choreographer and the aspiring dance
lighting designer, has assumed a fairly basic knowledge of lighting. I have
not, for example, gone into discussions of electrical load or the safe way to
hang a lighting instrument. While I have talked about consideration of what
you are lighting when you focus, I have not spent time detailing how to
physically manipulate the lighting instrument in order to accomplish the
focus. I am not about to change that now.
I do, however, want to talk to the choreographer who cannot get
a lighting designer and so may have to direct a crew of technicians with
limited knowledge of dance. There will not be as many new ideas in this
section – it is about pulling them together in a manageable fashion so that
you can feel like this is a challenge as opposed to feeling as if you can never
gure it out. Hopefully you will never nd yourself in this position, but
I know that when smaller companies are getting started, or when dance
academies need to mount an annual recital, you may well nd yourself on
your own. I would invite the reader who is more conversant in technical
design not to skip over this part. While what I am describing may seem
obvious, it is important to remind ourselves every now and then that there
was a time when it was not the case for us either.
With very rare exceptions, I would never recommend starting from the
point of view of the light and what it can accomplish. You should be
making your statement with movement, not creating a showcase for light.
A friend of mine, Ross Cameron, was teaching a lighting course for dancers
at the Laban Centre in London and I happened to be in the city with some
free time. I visited him in his performance space while a young student
choreographer was in tech. I watched a fairly pedestrian dance piece that
229
ADVICE FOR THE CHOREOGRAPHER
was lit by three large instruments along the down stage edge of the stage.
Each instrument was gelled in a primary color and the cues consisted of
bringing up the lights in ones, twos, and threes and seeing what happened
to the shadows on the cyc. As I remember it, some of the dancers were cos-
tumed in all white and a couple were in all-black, and most of the move-
ment was close to the oor and placed in the down stage 1/3 of the space.
I wish I could say I saw some compelling choreography, but to be honest
I had forgotten the piece by later that evening. It may have had something
to say about lighting – but almost nothing to say about movement. After
a few minutes, Ross leaned over to me and said something like “I did
a demo in class with three primary lights to show color mixing in shadows.
This is about the fourth piece I have had so far that wanted this lighting
scheme.” Suddenly it all made sense.
This is not to say that you should not keep in mind ways in which light-
ing can help you with what you are trying to communicate, or that you
should not be aware of where it is likely to be coming from. If you want
something that has a very stark at quality to it and you have a good bal-
cony rail position, you will probably want to keep that section of your piece
downstage and try not to over light the background. If on the other hand
you need to use a higher angle position and want to create a similar trapped
or attened quality, you may need to embrace the background and plaster
the gure and the movement up against the backdrop. While it is true that
we normally do everything we can to keep dancer light o the backdrop it is
also true that breaking aesthetic rules can shake up an audience’s assump-
tions and, under the right circumstances, can be even more powerful than
following the rules.
This awareness of where the light is coming from is dierent than starting
from the point of view of lighting. Every performance space has specic
lighting positions. These can often be supplemented by adding temporary
positions, like booms for side light. If your piece will benet from some spe-
cic kinds, or angles, of light it is a good idea to gure out what potential
you have in your performance space for those angles. If there is not an obvi-
ous answer then you need to gure out what kind of alternatives there might
be. Hence my example of at light. Just because your space may not have
a balcony rail position does not mean you have to let go of an idea, but you
may have to rethink it slightly. If you nd yourself in that kind of a position
you should take advantage of the moment to ask not just what the alterna-
tives are, but also to ask yourself why you wanted that kind of light in the
rst place. Is there some other way to accomplish the moment you were
looking for? This is also where having a friend who understands light can be
useful, and remember, lighting designers are not the only ones who think
about light in this way. You may very well get excellent advice from
a painter or a photographer – they just may not be able to explain it in
terms of stage lighting.
230
I have, on two very specic occasions, been challenged by a painter in

very creative ways. Early in my freelance career I was lucky enough to work
on a production in Venezuela with La Compañía Nacional, the national the-
atre company. I clearly remember the set designer, Jacobo Borges, an inter-
nationally renowned painter from a suburb of Caracas, saying to me that
the play was about the earth and the air – he would take care of the earth,
I needed to design the air. I have never heard my job described in this fash-
ion and I took it as a challenge. The play, Lo Que Dejó La Tempestad, became
more of a movement piece due to one of Jacobo’s design choices. He
covered the oor with a beaded construction material, about six inches deep
and loosely packed. Everyone sunk into this surface by at least two or three
inches with each step they took. But what really impacted me was his asking
what would happen if we placed the lights in a low side light position, after
all the material on the oor was re proof and the lights could just sit on
the ground. I started to explain what they would do and he stopped me. He
told me he was a visual artist and I had to show him, not tell him – he had
to see it to understand. This started us on a road of discovery that led to
some choices that I know I would not have made on my own. It was my
design but the process of inquiry was initiated by a brilliant artist who
simply said: “Show me.”
The second occasion came much later in my career. I was traveling in
the Netherlands with the Jorey Ballet and Anna Markard suggested that
I go to Amsterdam to meet with her husband, Hermann, to discuss with
him his approach to the lighting of her father’s masterwork The Green Table.
What followed was a delightful weekend with wonderful hosts, evenings
spent sleeping in the room that housed the Kurt Jooss archives, and lively
conversations over wonderful food and cups of hot beverages. The center-
piece for me was the long careful discussion of the lighting for Green Table.
Hermann is a painter and he thinks about light in terms of what it reveals
about the gure, as do I, but he speaks in a vocabulary that is dierent from
my own. There were times in that conversation when he described things in
ways that reminded me of Jacobo Borges. It was refreshing and I believe
that he too elevated my work just as Jacobo had. When I light The Green
Table I still pull out the ground plan scribbled over with the shape of beams
of light that he drew for me as we talked. There are no symbols of lighting
instruments; it is not something that I could share with a crew and have
them hang a plot; but it describes so many of his ideas about light and how
it could reveal the dance that meant so much to him and does to me.
I have spent most of my life thinking about and working with light in
theatre. Yet both of these artists got me to think about light and what I do
with it in a dierent way and to speak about it with a dierent vocabulary.
The point of this is not to suggest that you shouldn’t work with a lighting
designer but rather to say that perspectives on lighting and good ideas do
not just come from a lighting designer. Trust your instincts and think about
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what you want your choreography to look like on stage. Remember that
while images from painting, photography, and lm can provide talking
points for a conversation with a designer, they are also a valuable tool for
you to think about what you want things to look like. When I was preparing
to deliver a short talk on Tom Skelton and his legacy I met with one of
Tom’s former assistants over coee. We talked about Tom’s design choices
and how he placed instruments around the performance space. Toward the
end he paused and he said he was thinking about a photograph that Tom
once shared with him as an example of excellent dance lighting. The image
was not from a dance performance. It was a black-and-white still of Marlene
Dietrich in a top hat, her right heel resting on her left knee, from The Blue
Angel.
If a dance lighting designer with the experience of Tom Skelton can turn
to an image unrelated to dance to describe what he is trying to accomplish,
why shouldn’t you? This is of course no guarantee that the person who will
set up your lights will know how to create the look you are after, but it is
a better place to start than just words. I was recently reminded of how
eective this process can be when one of my daughters was in a class in col-
lege. It was a design course for non-designers. In order to open up their cre-
ative thinking the students were not asked to gure out where to hang lights
or how to focus them. Their nal project was to create a collage of images
that provided a visual description of what they wanted their lighting to look
like.
If your choreography or you do not need a distinct lighting look for your
piece then you may not think you need to search out any striking pictures. If
that is the case look at some good dance photography. Remember, if you
are in charge of talking about where and how to place the lights it would
imply that the person you are talking to does not have any experience in
this area. They may have heard of side lighting as an idea but may not
know what it is trying to do. This goes directly to some of my comments
about keeping in mind what you are trying to light: What is the “target”?
Everyone has dierent aesthetics and you should embrace yours. I don’t like
streaks of light on the oor, but Alwin Nikolais had a specic set of lights
that did just that. Make sure you are getting an image that can help guide
the way the lights are focused. There are a lot of misconceptions about how
that should be accomplished. For some reason inexperienced designers seem
to forget that the side light should light the entire dancer for as much of the
width of the stage as possible. Even Nik’s “X lights” that hit the oor were
principally focused on the dancers.
Perhaps the most important thing you can do to get ready to “go it
alone” is to honestly determine what you really need. We have all been
faced with productions where the requests far exceed the reach of both time
and budget. In the ensuing discussions things are gradually whittled down
until we are at a scope that can indeed be produced. Often, when the
232
production nally goes before an audience, it is impossible to tell where the

cut elements would have t into the nal event. I remember being asked to
help a choreographer and an artistic director gure out how to create
a specic look to the background for a new piece. It involved panels of
fabric and ying the blackout drop a certain amount to reveal a strip of
white. Because of budget and time constraints we kept having to pare back
on what we were trying to do and the nal result was much less than satis-
factory. It was at this point that I asked the question I should have started
with: What are you trying to accomplish through this backdrop design?
I was asking to see if I could nd a dierent solution, but the answer made
it clear that no solution was needed. They simply wanted a dierent look
other than the cyc or the black drop and couldn’t aord a new drop. There
was no statement about the piece, there was no reection on the choreog-
rapher’s use of space – just something dierent.
We did what we so often do in theatre – we xed it with the lights. We
got rid of the fabric, went back to a black background, concentrated on the
dance, and made our statement there, shaping the space with light.
Save yourself, and everyone else, some trouble. Figure out what you
really need. This applies to all aspects of the production, but for the
moment let’s think about lighting. How long is the piece and does it have
sections which need to be dened by the lighting? Are there shifts in mood
or energy where you would like color to be an ally? Are there “surprise”
entrances where we should not be aware of the dancer until they are all the
way on stage? Are there places where you want the space to feel as big as
possible and others where it should feel crowded with two? For myself,
I refer to this process as similar to building a shopping list. When you set
out to make a meal you build your shopping list around the ingredients you
need for that meal. Likewise, when I am putting together the bits and pieces
of angles, colors, texture, and specials that will make it possible for me to tell
the story I want to, in partnership with the choreography, I am making
a sort of shopping list. This is similar to the toolbox concept, but here I am
not thinking about what it will take to make the piece look a certain way,
rather I am just thinking about what it will look like.
If you are going to be directing the crew in an eort to make your chore-
ography connect with the audience then you need a shopping list as well.
The dierence here is that most choreographers, when they think about
light, think about ways and times when the piece deviates from what they
consider to be “regular dance lighting.” They assume – as they should –
that at the very least they will get that when they arrive at the theatre, so
they concentrate on the things that are particular to their piece. If you are
indeed “going it alone” you cannot make those assumptions. Start your list
with the basics you want for your piece, then go into the extras. You may
well nd yourself having to make do with the basics – and in fact, if there is
no one who normally lights dance, those basic things will cause your piece
233
to stand out as a new way of considering space and light. A new way of
telling your story, even without any extras.
Think about what will be most important and what will help tell the
story of your piece. In Tom Skelton’s articles for Dance Magazine he recom-
mended considering “gooseneck lamps, borrowed photooods and other
improvised spotlights” in order to meet the lighting needs of your piece.
I have designed small projects with clip-on work lights from a hardware
store with household dimmers for control – and it can work. In fact, with
Jacobo Borges prodding me along, I lit an entire scene in the play we did
together with a live re. All of the scenic materials were reproof and so the
actors lit a re to light a scene. We even included cues by adding more fuel
to the re to brighten it up or throwing handfuls of the ground material on
to douse the ames and lower the level of visibility. To be painfully obvious –
this is not a recommendation – I include this to illustrate the point that the
rst step is to know what you want things to look like and to consider what,
and how, you want your audience to see. Only then should you try to gure
out how to accomplish it. In guring that out, don’t rule out anything, par-
ticularly if you are working under less than ideal circumstances with limited
equipment and resources.
One tour I was part of with a smaller modern company was scheduled
into a theatre in the capital of Honduras. We arrived to discover the prom-
ised power was not available. There was a light board and there were light-
ing instruments wired into the board, but there was not enough electricity to
run the board. This was during a time of political and economic instability
and issues like power cuts, or reductions, along with water restrictions were
not uncommon. We were told the promised power had been diverted to the
newspaper building to run the printing press. In the meantime there was
some single phase power with a limited capacity and some home-made
instruments that looked like a metal pail with several ceramic sockets in the
bottom with standard light bulbs in them. I will not say the show looked as
good as I was used to but there was enough light to see the dancers, it was
placed in the wings where its proximity to the gure really helped increase
its eectiveness, and we even rigged some of the gel we had brought with us
to create dierent looks for the individual pieces. We did not recreate the
original lighting as much as we created something that supported the ori-
ginal idea of the piece.
Brandon Sterling Baker, who oered some thoughts for this book, spoke
about “Maintaining the Essential Core of a Design Idea” at the CLIFF
Talks during the 2017 LDI conference. One of his examples was a tour he
oversaw in Cuba. Here, despite early assurances, he ran into many unex-
pected limitations including equipment that no longer had lamps, and an
inventory that was not actually available. He was put in the position of
recreating a fairly complex design relying on PAR cans, only a few steps
above the Honduran metal pails with light bulbs in the bottom. He talked
234
about the fact that this made him think about the essential elements of the
original design and what they were saying about the gure in space and the
space in the theatre. He then distributed the equipment based on this new
analysis of the design and was able to create a valid experience of the dance
under these restricted conditions. Most lighting designers who have toured
their work internationally have faced some degree of this issue. The case of
Honduras in the 1980s and Cuba in the 2010s are, admittedly, extreme. But
the dierent kinds of equipment and the dierent approaches to the use of
this equipment around the world forces us to remember what the most
important idea in a design is, and to make sure we keep hold of that when
we are forced to rethink a design.
This is what you need to gure out before you work with your light crew.
If you are in this situation where you are on your own, then more than
likely the ideas you bring with you about where instruments should go will
be foreign to your crew. If you are lucky, time will be less of a concern, but
if you have a limited number of lights to use in order to make the design
work you should have a priority list in your head. This is when the length of
your piece becomes a consideration. I say this because it is important to
know how many dierent visual ideas you need, and often the length of the
piece will help you get to that answer. If for example you have a piece that
is six or seven minutes long you probably only need a single visual idea.
While it is true that there will probably be more than one or two cues, these
can likely be variations on a single visual idea. This is of course
a generalization and as soon as I wrote it I remembered one of Nik’s curtain
raiser pieces that had closer to 15 cues despite it only being about seven
minutes long. Even though it had that many cues, it really had three visual
ideas with a slight variation on one of them.
What then is a visual idea? I would say it is a change in the lighting that
causes you to look at the space in a dierent way. This might be a shift in
color from the same direction, it could be a shift to a dierent angle for the
primary light, but either way the space feels visually dierent. A concrete
example would be to start a piece in a silhouette look with the backdrop
fully lit and a low level of side or top light to give a bit of denition to the
body – this is a strong visual idea and makes the space appear tall and wide,
though there is less denition to the depth of the stage. Switch from that to
a full set of side lights with the backdrop at a lower intensity and some back
light and the space is now more fully dened with the depth clearly shown
and with the focus pulled down to the scale of the dancer. To get from one
to the other may require two or three intermediate steps if the piece has
a sense of gradual evolution and growth, or it might be a single cue to make
the switch if the piece asks for an abrupt reimagining of the space or the
dancer in the space, but either way it is really only two visual ideas.
This concept of visual ideas is one where I as a designer have the most
diculty. It is easy to go overboard, to try and throw too much at a piece,
235
and when I am feeling insecure about something I am designing my light

plot lls up quickly. I will make sure I have three or four color options from
at least four or ve directional ideas. I will have a couple of textural ideas
along with enough specials to provide isolation or accents on most areas of
the stage. This is particularly true when I am designing a full evening’s
work. On the other hand, I once watched a concert with Giordano Dance
Chicago where I had designed all but one of the pieces on the evening over
a period of a couple of years. The company uses a rep plot and the only
place I can adjust color is the lowest three lights on the booms. I am usually
oered a couple of specials for each piece but other than that it is the same
basic plot and colors. I realized that I had managed to create ve very dif-
ferent looking pieces within that basic light plot, without the addition of lots
of “options.” I also remembered feeling very condent about each of those
pieces when I designed them. Condent that I understood the choreograph-
ers’ intentions, condent that I had good clear visual ideas for the key
moments of each piece, and condent that I had the necessary tools to
create those moments.
The dierence between my situation with Giordano and the one you
may now face is that the basics were in place. Which brings us back around
to: What do you need for your piece? We should assume you want your
dancers clearly visible. Think, therefore, about how you want them to look.
It may be helpful to go back to the section on angles of light as a refresher,
to help you think about how light can reveal the body, and how you want
things to look. This is also where the work of my friends Hermann and
Jacobo, along with Degas and Monet – to name a few – can help you as
well. If you have a picture that reminds you of the visual world of your
piece, analyze it: Where does it look like the light is coming from? Find the
shadows – they are your biggest help in nding the angle of light. What
does it do for the gure, how can you use that in your piece? Does it give
you ideas about the color of light you want? How can you use those in your
piece? Think about it as if you are creating the world of your dance. You
get to set the rules, so take the time to nd creative ways of doing that.
Gus Solomons Jr. introduced me to the idea of rules in choreography.
I was designing a few pieces for him as part of a collaborative arts project
where I was the resident designer and a wide range of downtown artists per-
formed on mixed bill concerts. As we talked about one of the pieces
I suggested an image and Gus casually responded with something like, “But
that would break the rules.” I of course asked what rules, and he proceeded
to explain that he liked puzzles and games and we accept that those come
with rules. So he told me he often approached a new work by creating a list
of rules that would guide his movement decisions. Perhaps in one piece he
might have to only move on a diagonal unless he was moving backwards.
Or he might decide the stage could only ever be occupied by an odd
number of dancers. This was my rst time hearing anyone talk about rules
236
in the creation of art. I had always heard people talk about breaking rules in
art. I have since heard a number of other people talk about this idea of
rules in the creative process and I have worked that way as well for certain
projects. But I have also learned about when and how to break the rules
you set. If the audience understands what the rules are, even subliminally,
breaking them becomes signicant.
One of the most important things to keep in mind is that you want to
approach this process as one of building a partnership. You should feel free
to ask for what you want, but know that the more room you leave for the
other person to react to your ideas and oer some of their own the closer
you move to a collaborative process. The advantage of this is that you do
not have to come up with everything on your own. When you let your col-
laborator truly collaborate then you get the best of both of your ideas work-
ing together. The other important part of this is that you need to start this
conversation early. The newer you both are to this process, the earlier you
should start talking. Recognize that your language may not be the clearest
when it comes to talking about light, and if you are really working with
a novice they may not be able to respond immediately with three or four
ideas in reaction to your images. That comes with time for a designer. As
we gain exposure to more and more works of art – on stage or in
a museum – our vocabulary of images grows. It is not that we are copying
the things we see but rather we are reacting to them and thinking how we
might have done a particular moment dierently. It is how we continue to
grow as we move away from the standard educational environment, and the
really great artists never stop learning.
I remember discovering once – rather by accident – that I was on the
same ight from Venezuela to the USA as Nichola Cernovitch. This was
after I had left Nikolais Dance Theatre but long before he and I would work
together on The Green Table for the Jorey Ballet. He had just nished
designing for Danza Hoy, the modern company in residence at the Terresa
Carreño Theatre, and I had just nished designing for the resident ballet
company. Fortunately, our schedules had allowed us to see each other’s
work and there followed an approximately three-hour conversation about
lighting design for dance until our ight arrived in Miami. That was where
our paths diverged as he ew on to Canada and I to New York. I was, per-
haps fortunately, unaware of the extent of his design portfolio. To me he
was someone who had worked with Alwin Nikolais long ago as Nik was get-
ting started and who was now an itinerant lighting designer, like myself. He
had a disarmingly direct way of talking about what he saw when we talked
about the work I had done. I remember him describing a drop we had used
as the “cheese grater drop.”
The choreographer had wanted a giant swirl of stars and the technology
available in that theatre required a good deal of ingenuity. Labor was the
only cheap commodity so our star eld was made by taking a full stage drop
237
and cutting carefully placed holes. It was then hung behind a black scrim
and in front of the cyclorama which was back lit to create the light of the
stars. Crude but eective, and very much like a cheese grater. Nic asked me
a great number of questions about my background and my approach to
lighting dance and he answered as many questions from me. He never
seemed to be criticizing what I had done but was genuinely curious about
the choices I had made. I learned a lot about myself and how I designed in
that conversation and some of the ideas he shared about color and angles
and his approach to design stuck with me and inuenced future designs. Not
so much in a specic “this is the way Nic would do this” but rather in an
awareness that I did not always have to do things the way I had all the
other times.
There is a gift you bring to this scary adventure of working with a novice
designer/technician. You are asking questions, oering ideas, and sharing
images that a creative designer should nd challenging, and hopefully ener-
gizing. Together you will be looking for a new language of light to go along
with the new language of movement you have created. You get to be like
Jacobo Borges: Don’t settle for a description of what the light will do if they
put it where you are asking – say you need to be shown. What you are
really saying is “We both need to see.” It will really only be by seeing it that
either one of you will be able to gure out what is right. Do not be afraid to
barter for time. If you are being asked to create a dance work and are not
being given a designer who can help bring your work to life, ask for more
time in the space. Time with the electrician, the lights, and maybe a board
operator. Time to play, to experiment, and to learn. Don’t make all the dan-
cers be there, maybe one or two, but there will be a lot of sitting around
time and sooner or later you will begin to think perhaps you should spend
some more time with the dancers. Try to resist that temptation; that is the
world you know and it is safe, but right now you need to work with the
person who can help illuminate the world of your dance and somehow it is
up to you to help them be able to see and replicate the images in your
brain.
The best gift you can bring to this new-to-dance lighting designer is the
gift of collaboration. Make them your partner, give them room to try things
and show them to you. Be honest about what you see, and if it is not work-
ing try to describe why rather than telling them to do it dierently. You
should also be prepared to let go of your own preconceived ideas if they
either prove dicult to create or if the designer has something better to
oer. What I learned from Jacobo, more than anything else, was that
I owed it to myself to try something unexpected and dierent in my design
work. If I lived in the world of what I “knew was right” then I would have
a hard time expanding my vision. I have really loved my time working in
spaces where I could play with light, where I didn’t have to be preoccupied
with getting it done right the rst time. It is a luxury and one that you
238
should push for. Think of it as a trade-o – if you cannot get a designer

with experience in dance then you need more time in the space with the
equipment to nd the solutions. In the long run, you could well be better o
that way.
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23
M Y P ART N ERS I N T HE
T HEA TRE
If I consider myself in a partnership with the dance, I should also

acknowledge that I have a few partners myself who help bring my design
to the stage. There are two in particular, and they work closely with each
other – the master electrician and the lighting director. The third signi-
cant partner is the stage manager. I will start with the rst two. Without
at least one of these two people I would have to take care of all the
mechanical steps required to get my plot ready to use for writing cues.
Their need for some very clear information to be able to do their job is
what pushes me for specicity and precision in my light plot and the
paperwork package that goes with it. Virtually every dance company has
a master electrician; most larger companies also have a lighting director;
but all companies have someone who fullls their functions even if they
do not have their title. In very small companies these duties may fall to
the stage manager – who is probably also the technical director. Other
companies may have the production manager cover the lighting director
duties and the master electrician will pick up some of the slack. But what-
ever the titles and number of positions my work wouldn’t happen without
these partnerships.
Among the many things that dierentiate the process of lighting dance
and lighting spoken word theatre is the repeatability of projects. In theatre
about the only place we are ever asked to remount what we have already
designed with identical intent, equipment, and cues is Broadway productions
that go out on tour, or annual productions of a classic play (most commonly
A Christmas Carol), but even there it is not always expected that there will be
no technical rehearsal for the designer. In dance it is expected that as part
of the design process you will leave a fully updated light plot along with
focus notes, color change information, and cue descriptions. Many contracts
we sign now have very specic language about design “ownership” and the
expectation of royalty payments for subsequent mountings of the piece we
are designing. Despite the appearance that we are agreeing to a “plug and
play” approach to our designs, we are not. Companies who expect to
remount productions have either hired a stage manager with lighting
240
MY PARTNERS IN THE THEATRE
background or they have a lighting director on sta, depending on the size

and budget of the company.
So who is the lighting director and what do they do? And by the same
token, what is the designer’s responsibility to this individual and to the
future of their own design? As with most things, while there may not be one
answer, there is a consistent way of thinking about the answer. Consider
that something you design for some companies could be performed 20 years
from now with your name still attached to it as the lighting designer. If you
want to be comfortable with that possibility then you already have a pretty
good idea of what you need to do in order to turn your work over to the
lighting director. I have experienced just that. A friend of mine contacted
me through email to ask if I was in California. I was a bit surprised as I had
not visited there for a number of years and was happily teaching at Notre
Dame. When I asked why they thought I might be, I was told they were at
a performance of a dance company and saw my name listed as the lighting
designer, so they hoped I would be traveling with the company. I explained
that I had designed that piece well over ten years earlier and then, with
a bit of hesitation, I asked if they thought it looked good. Fortunately, they
did. Although that has not always been the case. I have never asked that my
name be taken o a piece but I came very close once or twice. In those
cases I was able to send notes to the lighting director and get a couple of
things xed so that they were able to get closer to the original idea.
In addition to being in the position of depending on a lighting director to
preserve my design intention, I have worked as a lighting director myself.
When I rst started with the Jorey Ballet, that was the title I held. Many of
my design colleagues have also worked in this capacity and it is a great way
to have a steady income as a lighting designer. I also think that my experi-
ence in this position has helped me to be a better partner for the companies
who have brought me in to set works that then need to be reproduced by
someone else. For example, when I set The Green Table on the American
Ballet Theatre, I spent a good deal of time negotiating the light plot with
their lighting director, Brad Fields. I knew that the piece was not going to
be performed extensively, but I also knew there was a desire to take it on
tour in a few months after we set it. If I made the process of incorporating
the design into the rep plot impossible, the likelihood of it either not going
on tour or of the design being compromised would be high. I really enjoyed
working with Brad. He (as are most lighting directors) is a designer in his
own right and he understood immediately what I was looking for and
oered many very useful suggestions as we were trying to make all this
work.
Let me be clear. I respect the work that lighting directors do in this
industry, but I also know that the reality of getting a show into a particular
theatre can require compromises. If I am lucky it will be in terms of the
type of unit that is substituted for the one I specied in my plot. If I am not
241
as lucky, it means that something I wanted for the piece will be cut. This is
not a failure on the part of the lighting director; in fact it is part and parcel
of their job. They have been charged with tting the show into a theatre
and within a particular inventory – their job is all about compromise. That
means that I need to be sure I have equipped them with enough information
about each addition I make to their standard repertory light plot so that
they can make smart choices. Choices that most closely resemble the ones
I would have made if I had to t my piece into that theatre for them. I also
have another responsibility to the lighting director that I often forget: I need
to make sure that when I rst design a piece, I don’t make compromises. If
I have not designed the piece that I want to see as the starting point in the
life of my design, I am already behind the curve when it comes to resetting
it in other venues when I am not going to be there.
I learned this lesson from Jennifer Tipton, even though we have never
directly worked together. When I was the lighting designer and production
manager for the American Dance Festival at Duke University, the Paul
Taylor Dance Company premiered a work during their performances in
Page Auditorium. As a way to make the summer season manageable I had
created a rep plot that was based on the standard plots used by the seven
dierent companies that would be performing in Page. I had double checked
with each designer and/or lighting director from all the companies to make
sure they understood the compromises I had made. I should add that part of
the complication was that there was an additional venue, Reynolds Theatre,
and I had to share the equipment inventory between the two venues in
order to have a workable rep plot in each. When Jennifer Tipton showed up
to design the premiere she was upset to discover that her lighting director
for Taylor had agreed to an instrument substitution on one of the back light
systems. As she rather pointedly put it: If they chose to compromise for the
premiere how would they know what to do when they were back in their
own rep plot and even beyond that when they went on tour and had to
work with house equipment? She went on to say that this was the one time
she got to design the piece and if she couldn’t leave clear notes when she
left, how on earth could she expect the piece to look the same the next
time?
As it turned out the Reynolds Theatre was dark while the Paul Taylor
Company was performing and so we were able to borrow the nine units we
needed from that plot. It was deemed an appropriate use of an hour to
strike the compromise units, replace them with the right ones, and focus
them. Fortunately, we had not compromised on the channeling so we did
not have to run any new cable. Later in my career I learned another, similar
lesson from Ms. Tipton. I was working as the lighting director for the Jorey
and we were mounting a piece by Jerome Robbins that she had designed.
I had remounted a fair number of her designs for works by Gerald Arpino
and Robert Jorey by this point and so our production manager reached
242
out to her to see if I could do the same for this work. We had been
informed by the Robbins Trust, the organization responsible for licensing
and setting the works of Jerome Robbins, that the company had to use
a lighting designer approved by Jennifer. I was asked to call and speak with
her about the possibility of being approved to set this piece for her. During
the conversation, which was very respectful and polite, she basically told me
that she felt if she agreed to compromise on a hard fought right to maintain
control over her lighting design, even though I had successfully reset
a number of her other pieces, she was concerned she could lose control over
the Robbins works. She told me it had taken her a good deal of eort to
convince the trust to insist on only using designers she approved and she did
not feel she could aord to compromise the point.
I must say that I felt she was well within her rights and raised issues that
I would nd myself facing with my own work later on in my career. Beyond
that, both of these encounters were about maintaining the integrity of her
artistic work. There are too many reasons why we are expected to relinquish
this control after we have established a new design so that if we are not
careful we can fall into a trap. The trap of being so interested in having our
work done that we become too willing to compromise the design. While it
often appears to be about the money – and to be honest the more control
you maintain over your work, the more you can get paid to reset something
you have already designed and the more you can get paid for a single
design – that is not the most important issue. If you let your work get too
far away from where you have some say in things the less representative it is
of your work. Do I want to be judged by work that I have left in someone
else’s hands? The honest answer is, if I have adequately equipped them to
accurately reset my design – yes; if I have not – no. So I’d better make sure
I properly equip the lighting director to do their job and appropriately rep-
resent my work. Either that or I need to be willing to relinquish the design
credit and take my name o the piece.
The lighting director has the same responsibility to every designer repre-
sented on a program; they also have a responsibility to the company and
must answer to the artistic director. These dierent loyalties can come into
conict at times. I wish there were some specic formula available to us
when we have to navigate these situations. I remember being put into
a rather dicult position when I was traveling with Jorey. We had just
premiered a remounting of an Arpino produced work, Legends. It was mod-
eled after the highly successful Billboards and featured female choreographers
and the music of female legends in popular music. One of the sections was
choreographed by Laura Dean and featured a strong diagonal path through
the space. Lighting designer Howell Binkley had matched the movement
with an equally well dened path of light. After we left Chicago and took
the piece on tour to Los Angeles, Jerry leaned over to me during level set
and told me he hated the path and to get rid of it.
243
Here I was right up against it. I either had to support the work of the
lighting designer who was trusting me to safeguard the design or I had to do
what the artistic director was asking for. I decided to oer a compromise:
I softened the look of the path. I still maintained the clearly dened passage,
I simply balanced the levels a bit dierently and softened the edges of the
path a bit in the focus. Jerry was happy and when I later had a chance to
chat with Howell about it he was comfortable with the solution. If
I remember correctly the piece was only performed in about two or three
other theatres and then the problem went away. Sometimes there is an easy
solution, sometimes it feels like it is impossible to solve. This is why I respect
the lighting directors. Ultimately, what I came to realize is that I had to
make things look the best they could, based on the circumstances in which
I found myself. To borrow from the title of a talk given by Brandon Stirling
Baker at LDI, I had to preserve “the essential core of a design idea.” Just
because I was the lighting director didn’t mean I relinquished any of my art-
istic sensibility; however, I did need to make sure I was not taking over the
design and making it something it wasn’t.
I was reminded at the time this happened of a lecture I attended on tele-
vision lighting during a USITT conference in Pittsburgh. One of the points
covered in the lecture was “guring out who the 900 lb canary was.” The
point that was being made was that it was important to be clear on who you
were working for. The designer leading the session spoke about a gig he had
been working where it became clear to him that the 900 lb canary was not
the producer who had hired him, but the news anchor who was sitting
behind the desk. He suddenly realized that if he ever wanted to work for
this station again, that was the person he had to make happy. As a lighting
director for a dance company you are working for the company, but you are
also representing the designer. Most of the time this will never be an issue,
but when it does become one, you have to be very careful how you respond.
In addition to the light plot, with all of its attached paperwork, lighting
designers need to give the lighting director a few other things. They need to
leave a clear record of how the light plot is focused. Sometimes this is in the
form of notes and in other cases it may take the form of pictures or sketches.
Some designers take careful pictures of each instrument on its own, showing
the pattern of light on the oor with appropriate landmarks. Whatever the
technique the result needs to be the same, the lighting director needs to
know how to reset the lights for the piece. In addition, there should be a cue
description for each change in the lighting that happens during a piece. In
many cases with current light board operating systems, the lighting director
can arrive at load-in with a set of cues that can be loaded directly into the
board.
This is useful as a starting point but should not be relied on as the nal
version of the cues. Whenever I was asked to reset a piece of mine and
I was told the cues were already in the board, I made sure I kept the usual
244
30 minutes to an hour for level set. I needed to be able to look at each cue,
live onstage, before we went into dress rehearsal. Even if I had the exact
same equipment and the lighting positions were virtually identical to our
home theatre, I had to look. A wrong gel could have been put into an
instrument or the light might be old or sometimes the theatre itself made the
lighting seem wrong. I would always hear Tom Skelton saying, “Look at the
stage, not the page.” The real design happens in the space, not in the
board.
Finally, I need to do everything in my power to help the lighting director
understand what the essential core of my design actually is. If I do not make
sure they are looking at the same thing I am then it will not work. Much
like the problem I had in Tulsa where the stage manager was looking at
a dierent part of the dance than I was, if I do not make sure the lighting
director knows what I am looking at when I set a cue they will have a very
hard time resetting that same moment when I am not there. I do not need
to train them to think about design the way I do, I simply need to make
sure they know what I am trying to do throughout the dance. This is not as
hard a job to do as it may sound. If I do the job properly, I will not have to
go over each and every cue with them. I need to help them understand my
“big picture” approach and trust that they will be able to ll in the details.
Ultimately that is the essence of this relationship – trust.
The master electrician, or the production electrician, or the road electri-
cian (pick a title) is the person who makes the lights come on. They are the
other critical set of eyes that will go over all the paper I send to a company
when I am designing, particularly if the company does not have a lighting
director. In some cases they will communicate with me directly, in others
they will go through the lighting director (assuming there is one). Their func-
tion is to implement the plot itself and that is why, if there is a very involved
lighting director, they are likely to defer to them. They do not want to begin
working out the details until they know the plot is set, so if I am still negoti-
ating instruments or placements or even rentals, they will not begin their
work. The other variable is where the equipment is coming from and how it
is getting to the theatre. There are basically three main ways this happens
and then a myriad of hybrids in between, all of which are purely economic-
ally as opposed to artistically driven.
In some cases the show will be entirely hung using equipment that is
available to us from the theatre where we are performing. I will get the
inventory in advance and I am expected to design within those limitations.
If for some reason I do not feel as if I can create an eective design that
way, I will go back to the company, either the lighting director or whoever
contracted me, and ask for additional equipment. What is trickier to do is to
expand the amount of dimming capacity I have from the theatre, and so
that remains a fairly xed limitation. The next iteration is the one where the
company has their own inventory and I will be asked to design based on
245
their inventory and the dimmers they carry with them. In this situation
I will usually be asked to use house equipment for anything that hangs in
front of the proscenium arch; then the dimmers we bring will be controlled
by the light board the house already has.
Frequently these companies will have their own side light systems that
are pre-rigged and they may use some form of “speed bars” to hang the
overhead electrics. Speed bars are pieces of pipe, or some other hanging
system, that can accommodate six units and will attach to the house bat-
tens with two clamps. So instead of using six clamps to hang six lights
you only use two, and the circuits that carry electricity to these six instru-
ments can be pre-wired using six circuit “multi-cables” before you hang
the lights. It saves a great deal of time when you are loading in a show,
but it can also impact the distribution of the instruments along the elec-
trics pipe. The side lights will be in a similar sort of rig that allows them
to be laid out on the oor, bolted together, then stood up and xed into
place. Again, the electrical circuits will be pre-rigged to save time and
speed the process.
The last common approach will be to rent the entire show from an
equipment rental house. In this case the show will probably come in set up
on speed bars and pre-hung side light positions, much as it would in the pre-
vious scenario. In this situation the limitations on what equipment I can
request become budgetary more than anything else, but the bigger challenge
is that the light plot winds up being due much earlier than in either of the
rst two situations. In this scenario and the preceding one, the master elec-
trician is responsible for getting the show ready to go into the theatre. This
will mean one or two weeks of “shop time” when all the speed bars and side
positions will be pre-hung, circuited, and gelled. All of the multi-cables will
be labeled and the circuits will be patched into the dimmer racks. In some
cases they may also use a light board that matches the system in the theatre
and create a show le with the electronic patch as well so that this informa-
tion can then be downloaded onto the house light board.
The rental approach generally needs additional time to allow the com-
pany the option of looking for competitive bids, assuming there is more than
one place that is renting lighting equipment. It is also important for the
company and the designer to be aware of any other major shows going on
in the same rental market. If you get your bid request in before other shows
you may well get a pick of the equipment and a more favorable price. On
the other hand, if you get it in late you may discover the rental house needs
additional time to assemble the equipment you need, pulling it from other
warehouses and shipping it in to be ready on time. All of these factors have
led me to have to turn in nished light plots several weeks before the chore-
ographer may have nished their work – almost certainly before the cos-
tumes and any scenery are available for me to look at, unless it is a rented
show or a revival.
246
If the lighting director is the person who asks if I really need all this
equipment, the electrician is the one who asks if I really meant to put two
dierent gels in the same control circuit or if I really meant to put a cyc
light and a side light in the same control channel. They know the answer is
probably “No, that was a mistake,” but they also know I am the one who
has to correct it. They are neutral on the answer, they just need to know
what to do to x it. It is this very neutrality that makes them so valuable to
me. They will catch the inconsistencies and then let me x them. They are
a second set of eyes that look for the details and make sure that everything
checks out. They will keep the show safe and make sure I get as much of
what I want as is possible and often come up with practical solutions for the
things that I am not able to get.
I have worked with several outstanding electricians over the years and
I have been thinking about what made them so good. One was C. J. Bart
who worked with me at the Jorey Ballet for some of the time I was there.
He was preceded by Dylan Costa and followed by Rob Brady. All three
saved me from big mistakes at one point or another and were excellent part-
ners throughout my time with the company. Dylan helped me gure out the
rental scene in Chicago and how best to go about approaching the various
houses. He made sure that my plot was broken down into an appropriate
bid document and oered suggestions on equipment swaps that helped make
the rental aordable so that we would not have to cut any equipment.
C. J. started the practice of creating the Lightwright le from my drafted
plot. I had always done both things as I was taught that was the right way
to go about it. While C. J. agreed that it might be the correct way to go
about things, if he did the Lightwright le it meant that he was able to nd
the small drafting errors that might have crept into my drawing. He became
a valuable second set of eyes, one that was not inclined to make any assump-
tions. Rob helped me streamline the in-house paperwork process that we
used to catalogue our pieces once they entered the rep. He also helped tran-
sition the company to owning its own lighting package to avoid renting as
much equipment.
Collectively the Jorey master electricians made me better at document-
ing my work and that is something a number of other companies have bene-
tted from. I should also add that Steve Shelley worked with the company
just before me and introduced a number of his very well-designed forms to
the documentation process. While I did not continue to use his forms after
I left the Jorey, I tend to work with what a company is used to; they also
helped me to think about all the kinds of information a company might
need in order to remount a piece. One of the things that we all developed
was a “specials plot” for individual pieces. There were two versions of this
for a while but it ultimately got pared down to just the adds. C. J. was the
one that got me started on this. He pointed out that, since I was drafting the
plots on Vectorworks, what I really should do after a new work entered the
247
rep was to save a version of the plot that only included the specic units
needed for the piece. That way I would not only have a record of exactly
where the special was hung but I could also “cut and paste” those units
from the specials plot when I was drafting a season plot that included that
piece.
The rst version of this was a full rep plot, with all the systems that were
cued into a piece, and the specials on top of it. Eventually we shifted to
a drawing that was just the adds, because it was easier to tell the impact of
a particular piece as we were planning for a particular season. This also
solved a problem we would run into with older paperwork where specials
were documented by their electric and unit number “address” but without
a plot to go with it. If a unit had a very low number, like 1 or 4, it probably
meant it hung on the stage left end of the electric, but a number like 10
could be almost anywhere on the pipe. Without a plot we had no idea of
the total number of units on the electric so we could not even begin to guess
on how they were spaced along the pipe.
Another very good electrician I have worked with is James Larsen with
Ballet West. James has reminded me that it is never the electrician’s job to
assume anything. If I have not been clear on a particular item, largely
because I assume he will know what I want, I can be pretty sure there will
be a question about it. On a recent production I listed a follow spot color as
“Color Correction.” I was being lazy; I had not looked up what I had used
in the past and I was sure that James would simply go back to the last plot.
He did not and, as it turned out, I had specied the wrong gel on the previ-
ous plot. Once I checked the equipment and determined what lter was
needed I began to understand why my pink follow spot color had looked
lavender in performance. James asked the question; I did my job, and the
result was a better-looking follow spot.
The best thing I can say to help you understand how valuable a good
electrician is in this process is this: When an electrician knows their job and
does it well I can stop thinking about a design between the time I submit
a fully documented design and when I walk into the theatre to begin to
focus. Everything will be precisely where I expect it to be, will come on with
the right combination of other lights, have the right color and gobos, and
the crew will be on standby to begin to focus the lights for the show. I will
not know how it is all connected, nor do I need to know, but everything will
function exactly as it is drawn. Anything that doesn’t do what I think it
should will be because I made a mistake in how I placed it on the light plot.
I would add that I know full well that the rst design I send into the com-
pany is likely to require me to answer questions and perhaps make adjust-
ments to the documentation, but if I take the questions seriously and follow
through on the answers, the whole process will be much smoother.
My last partner is my performance partner, the stage manager. I have
always felt that stage managers were uncredited performers, particularly
248
when they do their job well. They generally know the majority of the chore-
ography well enough to know when a dancer has made a mistake. They cer-
tainly know the entire dance well enough to know if the mistake is
dangerous or will disrupt another aspect of the performance. A good stage
manager has a strong sense of musicality, the same quality that can distin-
guish an outstanding dancer from a technically excellent dancer, and as
a result essentially dance through the cues they call during the performance.
And they learn to do it all in the space of about three rehearsals.
Clearly the learning of the piece does not happen in three rehearsals;
rather it is about how many chances they get to call all of the technical cues
in real time. Depending on the complexity of the piece these can include
light cues, follow spot cues, y cues (for the scenery that comes in and out
on the overhead battens), carpentry cues (for scenery that sits on the stage
oor), prop cues, and possibly cues for the conductor and some of the per-
formers. They need to know who is supposed to be onstage at all times and
to be aware if they are ready in the wings before they enter. All of this while
maintaining the quality of the performance as they make sure all of these
things happen on the exact music or movement cues that have been given
to them by the designers and the choreographer.
There are dierences between stage managing for spoken word perform-
ances and for dance, but in terms of their relationship to the lighting
designer there is not much dierence. I count on the stage manager to not
only know when they are supposed to call a cue but also to know what I am
trying to do with the cues and how long each one is supposed to take. When
I stage managed dance concerts in the early days of my career, the shows
were not generally run on computer light boards. So I also needed to be the
clock for the cues to maintain a consistent pace. Part of me feels that the
absence of that additional task (counting backwards so that all the lights
complete their fades as I hit zero) has taken away a level of connection to
the timing of cues for most stage managers. I do make sure that the stage
managers record all the timings in their books so that they know what it
should look like, but it is not quite the same thing.
I have worked with so many stage managers that I hesitate to mention
any of them specically, but I remember the ones that got it right the rst
time out. I also remember the ones that could take a note and implement it
the very next time they called the piece. I always knew if they had that
necessary connection to the dance and the dancers and I knew I had to be
much more cautious about teaching the cues to the ones who did not. I also
never took for granted the signicance of this essential part of the perform-
ance team.
When I began building my career as a lighting designer I led each of
these jobs, either alongside my work as a designer, or as a way to keep work-
ing between design gigs. I know I am a much better lighting designer as
a result of having to implement and focus other designers’ light plots as an
249
electrician. My cueing is much more precise as a result of all the dance

pieces I called as a stage manager for small companies and festivals, and
I am also much better at communicating the placement of my own cues to
other stage managers. My ability to clearly articulate the key elements of my
design to a lighting director and to nd the easiest way to merge what
I want to do into their light plot is signicantly better because of all the
times I managed this at The American Dance Festival or for the Jorey
Ballet.
Just as I never forget that I have a responsibility as an artistic partner to
the choreographer and the dancer, I never forget the people that make me
look good as well. I recently set Romeo and Juliet on the Boston Ballet. It was
a tricky process as the set was almost too big for the stage we were working
on. The advance work I did with their lighting director, John Cu, gave me
condence walking into the theatre. John also provided the interface with
the head electrician to make sure everything was ready for me. John’s assist-
ant, Harrison Burke, kept me up to date with paperwork changes and
helped me get some of the focus points we needed for the movers taken care
of and kept a careful set of notes on all of the focus I did for specials and
added side light. Our light board operator and electrician, Jon Gonda, took
away any concerns I had about working with a mixed moving light/conven-
tional xture light plot and could make changes to the cues almost as fast as
I could ask for them. Our stage manager Craig Margolis kept things rolling
and easily accommodated the last-minute changes the stager made in the
use of scenery and props in response to the very tight scenery hang, all the
while maintaining the artistic integrity of the production. Because of all of
these people supporting me throughout the process I looked good and
I believe that my support of the dancers and the choreography helped them
look good as well.
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24
A L I TT L E H EL P FR O M M Y
F R I EN D S
One of the things that I have discovered while working on this project is just
how much I take for granted what I have learned. Despite the fact that
I was not formally trained in dance lighting, my earliest lighting classes were
steeped in dance and the rst backstage work I did at the North Carolina
School of the Arts was on dance concerts. In fact, the majority of the work
I did there was in dance. The result of this is that it is very dicult to step
back and think about what I should be sharing as I wrote this. So I asked
some of my fellow dance designers what they wish they had known when
they started designing for dance. For some of them this was an easy question
to answer; others were more like me and had to ponder the question. This
chapter is based on those answers, interspersed with some comments of my
own that their observations triggered for me.
My question caught up with Brandon Sterling Baker as he was starting
his job as lighting director and resident lighting designer with Boston Ballet.
Brandon trained at CalArts and was the Gilbert Hemsley Lighting Intern for
Lincoln Center in 2010. He started working with Justin Peck and has been
designing for him for more than seven years. He began his answer to my
question by saying:
There are two very big lessons that I’ve learned the hard way in
my career (so far) as a dance lighting designer. In 2012 I designed
my rst ballet for New York City Ballet. I was 24 years old and still
nding my own voice. The ballet was a premiere by choreographer
Justin Peck and my rst major design in New York City. I had only
been in NY for two years prior to lighting this ballet so my know-
ledge and understanding of large scale opera house lighting was
very, very limited. The big challenge that I did not expect was that
it’s actually much harder to light a full stage bright cue (in
a stunning beautiful way) than it is to light a dark/stark visual
image on the stage. The NYCB light plot had so many tools, sys-
tems, specials, moving lights, and all of the toys that a lighting
designer might dream of, but the big lesson was actually to use less.
251
A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
Just because I had all of these tools did not mean that I actually
should use these tools. Therefore I had very much over-lit this ballet
without even knowing it. Looking back and seeing this ballet still
running in the repertory at Lincoln Center, I am constantly
reminded that less is more and even in the brightest of cues visual
balance is a very important detail to consider.
I really enjoyed this answer and realized that it was something that I had
learned – without knowing I had learned it – while working with Alwin
Nikolais. Toward the end of my time with the company Nik created a piece
called Mechanical Organ. After decades of saturated color, reliance on slide
projectors, and even black light, Nik created a work where he wanted to
light the dancers in a much more conventional manner than he had before.
This made sense because the work was not bound up in a visual approach
that was heavily reliant on his slide projector set-up. Much of Nik’s lighting
started with the slide projector and then the remainder of the lighting was
balanced to that light source. In this piece he was relying on his shin light
stacks to provide most of the color impulse for the work and he added
a fth light to the top of the stacks that was shuttered at the dancers waist
line, eectively bisecting the gure with ungelled light highlighting the torso.
This piece, despite its apparent simplicity, always took longer to light in tech
rehearsals than the other pieces. It was a matter of balancing the levels so
that there was variety in the lighting, along with the punchy highlight he
wanted for the dancers.
Brandon’s second point was somewhat related to his rst:
In college while getting my BFA in lighting I would design many

theater and dance shows. All of the spaces were black box theaters.
All Grid, no y space or line sets (and) no proscenium theaters (at
all). Because of this, I had zero idea how to use box booms. And
later while at Lincoln Center I learned a big lesson by watching the
lighting by Mark Stanley, Ronald Bates, and Jennifer Tipton.
I discovered that a big missing ingredient in my own work was the
use of box booms. I simply did not know how to use them and
then I gured out that they were truly just an extension of high side
light, ladders, or pipe ends. This may seem like a very simple idea,
but this was a major awakening for me as a designer for dance.
The use of front light is so important in all of the work I do for
choreographer Justin Peck. His ballets are very much about the
human facial expression and even his darkest ballets involved
a clear visibility of their faces. The big awakening was that I could
really sculpt and craft the lighting in a very beautiful and delicate
way by keeping box booms as my source of visibility in facial
expression. After this “awakening” I have always made sure that
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this type of position was used in 99 percent of all my work as

a designer. Both in USA and in Europe. When I work with Dutch
National Ballet, they always hang a special system of “American”
box booms for my ballets. It is always a very important ingredient
that I no longer take for granted.
This answer was a prime example of why I asked my friends for input.
I didn’t know Brandon was going to bring up box booms and I am not
sure I would have imagined a time when I didn’t use them and what
a revelation that was. This is because when I stared at NCSA the touring
dance company traveled with a set of specially constructed booms for this
position. They had a single base with two vertical pipes and a square
hanging position that attached to the top. The base was designed to be
able to t between xed seats, if necessary, and was placed in a house
box if they were available or at the extreme ends of the front of the bal-
cony if there were no boxes. In my world, box booms really were booms
that we loaded into the boxes, and I was taught how to compensate for
not having them as opposed to discovering them after I had learned to
design. To Brandon’s excellent description of the advantages of box
booms for face light, I would add that all the bounce light from them
goes into the wings. The Nikolais Dance Theatre always lit the cyc with
slide projectors and one of the major goals of the light plot was to keep
ambient light o the cyc. When we were faced with no box booms we
would often not use any front light until bows, rather than risk losing the
image on the cyc.
Another friend I reached out to was Aaron Copp. Aaron trained at Yale
in the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program studying with Jennifer Tipton,
among others. He is a New York City based designer and his point – rather
eloquently put – is a nice parallel to Brandon’s rst comment:
Of course no one tells you at the beginning that the best thing you
can do for almost any light cue is turn something o … I don’t
remember if I was told that at some point after someone watched
me struggling or if I just gured it out on my own.
This comment from Aaron reminded me of a production I was recently

involved in that had much more front light on it than is normal for me. The
show required it and I had been mentally prepared for it. As a result, I had
raised the level on some of the side light to make sure I was still able to
draw the bodies forward from the backdrop. The strategy backred, how-
ever, when I was asked at one point if I couldn’t get more light on the faces
as the stage looked “shadowy.” I looked at the monitor to discover that
every last bit of front light I had was full. The lack of punch from the units
in those positions combined with the higher levels of side light had indeed
253
created a contrast on the faces. I should probably have started by turning

some of the side light o.
A newer acquaintance to whom I turned was Judith Daitsman. She was
a panelist with me on a Dance Lighting presentation when she had been
asked to speak about Jean Rosenthal before I spoke about Tom Skelton.
Needless to say, we made many similar points. Despite her caveat at the
beginning of her response to me that she couldn’t think of anything to say,
I think what she did say is important. Judith studied with Gilbert Hemsley
at the University of Wisconsin. Gilbert was a wonderful human being that
had a very unique take on life and the arts.
I’ve been puzzling over your question and I’m not sure that there
has been anything relating to lighting dance that I wish I had been
told. All of us in Gilbert’s program were basically shown how x-
tures and control worked and then told to go forth and do it. Gil-
bert believed that the only way to learn how to design was to do it
for real.
There is a great deal of merit to this approach to design and it comes

from a time and point of development in dance lighting where that sort of
discovery was encouraged. In an academic setting there is still room for this
but in the “real world” you are expected to know exactly what you want
and what you want it to do. I have replaced this ability to “try and fail and
try again” with exposure to many dierent approaches to lighting concepts
in my own teaching. I do not have enough productions or time in the the-
atre to allow all my students to just go and gure it out. Instead I emphasize
the idea that there is no one “right way” to light anything, that as
a designer it is our job to not only gure out how best to see something but
how we want our audience to see it – these are not always the same. If
I can get my students to see many dierent ways of solving a design chal-
lenge then I believe I am training the individual designer to have a singular
vision of design. I never want to turn out a class of designers that see every-
thing the way I do. I may not have the luxury that Gilbert did to tell his
students to go gure it out by doing it, but my goal is similar. I do not want
to turn out design clones, I hope to create design individuals.
Judith then went on to say:
The one bit of frustration that I’ve always had is that choreograph-
ers are not trained how to communicate with their collaborators.
One nds that many choreographers, especially “young” ones will
simply try to order up an à la carte assortment of color and specials
rather than share their vision so that the designer can create the
environment that the work deserves. I spend as much time as I can
training young choreographers in communicating with designers.
254
I try to get them to understand the sorts of imagery or vocabulary

they can use to help us make their world appear.
As I have discussed, this barrier created by the insuciency of words

when describing light is not isolated to choreographers. It just strikes me as
something that should be taught, and I am glad Judith (and Susan who you
will hear from later) are spending time dedicated to this idea. The communi-
cation that needs to happen around a lighting design is clearly a dialogue; it
is unfortunate that it often devolves into parallel monologues with neither
party fully understanding what the other is driving at. I remain convinced
that imagery is the best answer to this cross-communication. Words are
useful but they are open to interpretation, images are xed and both people
are looking at the same thing at the same time. The danger from this is
when someone says “I want it to look like this” instead of “This is the sort
of thing I am thinking about.” In the rst place it may be impossible to
recreate on a stage and in the second place there is a danger of appropriat-
ing someone else’s artistic vision.
Another long-time associate that I turned to was Ken Tabachnick. Ken
did his undergraduate theatre training in Bualo but I got to know him
when he was an active designer in the “downtown dance scene” in
New York City. Ken went on to receive a law degree from Fordham and
has become a much sought after arts consultant and administrator as well as
an academic, having served as a dean with both Purchase College and Tisch
School of the Arts. Throughout all of that he continued to design and has
had a long-term association with Stephen Petronio and the Merce Cunning-
ham Dance Company and now the Cunningham Trust.
When lighting my rst Trisha Brown piece at BAM, Beverly

[Emmons] saw I was struggling with light spill and getting the dan-
cers properly lit. She told me to light the dancers and the spill
would probably take care of itself. I always took from then forward
that my primary job is to light the performers rst and then deal
with other issues.
As simple as this sounds I will vouch for the fact that designers, particularly
on large scale shows, often have to remind themselves of why they are in the
room. That their “primary job is to light the performers rst” is something
that can get overshadowed by many other demands. The purity of that
statement is something we should all hang on to. It relates to one of my
“rules” in Chapter 19: “Know what you are lighting and focus your light on
it.” Ken’s illustration about “light spill” is a succinct way of putting it and
Beverly’s direct suggestion is important to keep in mind.
As many of us do, Ken had a Tom Skelton story to share as well.
255
When I was supervising the Graham company Tom Skelton was in

to light a new piece and one of his old pieces was on the program.
We had a light plot that was pretty dierent from what he had seen
the last time he had worked for the company. I suggested we make
a translation of his previous cues and put them in the board before
he arrived since he only would have one run through to light the
piece. He looked at me and said: “Why would I want to do that?
Then I will spend all my time xing any mistakes or changes in the
cues. I am better just lighting the piece from scratch.” My take-
away from this is that I had to know any particular dance inside
out so that I could sit down with any plot I had and light it, not
rely on previous cues and levels from dierent versions.
Tom was a very no-nonsense sort of a person and he had strong opinions
about things that he generally followed in his own work. Toward the end of
his life he and I were talking on the phone and he was telling me how hard
he was being on the lighting director he was working with at Ohio Ballet.
He told me he would show up at the theatre during cueing sessions to see
how things were going and he said that he couldn’t help himself, that the
“kid” was good but he spent most of his time just plugging in numbers from
the paperwork. He said he started at the back of the theatre and the whole
way to the tech table he just kept shouting out “Keep your eyes on the
stage, not on the page.” Like his remounted piece with Graham, he rmly
believed that knowing what things should look like was more important that
knowing what intensities you had used the last time you did the piece in
a theatre. Equipment changes, angles are dierent, throw distances change,
all of which conspire to make a certain group of lights behave very dier-
ently than they did in the last space you worked in. If you really know the
piece and the design, you will be able to make it work, but only if you keep
your eyes on the stage and not buried in your notes.
Steve Shelley and Susan Hamburger took my query in a totally dierent
direction, but one that I am glad was brought up. They took a look at the
real world we live in while we are creating our art. Steve is an alumnus of
the North Carolina School of the Arts and while we attended at very dier-
ent times we are closely allied by that institution. Steve built a solid freelance
career and we worked the most closely together when he and I both took
turns mounting the Jorey Ballet. Steve is also an author, having published
A Practical Guide To Stage Lighting. He is a very practical person who has
always tried to help new people in the industry understand those practical-
ities. He oered four interrelated points in answer to my question.
[1] No one told me that I would make a living as a dance lighting

designer, and there’s ample reason for that. If you want lighting
design to be your career, don’t limit yourself to just dance. Make
256
sure you can handle all of the other disciplines as well, such as
straight play, opera, musical, industrials, and so on. When
I consider all the designers I’ve met in my career I can only conjure
up two or three designers whose sole income might have been
based on dance lighting design, but then I’ve never asked them if
that was the only medium they worked in. If you’re naive about
a discipline, assist someone on a show and see how they handle it.
[2] If you want to design dance lighting and also eat, get a job
working for a dance company as the lighting supervisor and get ready
to learn many lessons that impact your lighting; speed of remount,
precision in construction, and detail/organization in record-keeping.
You may make art while you’re there, but if it can’t be accurately
reconstructed after your departure, why bother? A good friend of
mine told me once that she planned on insisting as part of her con-
tract that, once she left, her credit should read “lighting based o
design by …
[3] If you want to design dance lighting and be able to nancially
retire, start your own nancial planning now. The union may be
helpful if you get enough contracts, but do not depend on the union
or a single job alone. Find a nancial planner you trust and start
retirement accounts now. I have several friends who did not plan well
enough, and have little to no savings, will probably never be able to
aord to retire, and in many cases don’t have insurance.
[4] You may think that working in dance will automatically mean
that choreographers will all thrive for thorough and deep collabor-
ation. That is a wonderful ideal, but it will also be a situation that,
when achieved, should be savored. You will do more of the artistic
heavy lifting than you imagine. Detailed research is your friend. Use
it. The dance piece’s success may depend on your input.
While Steve may have a particularly direct way of putting things, his
point of view is not wrong. I have mentioned the nancial circumstances for
many dance companies several times. Money is not plentiful and what may
sound like a generous contract becomes much less so when you realize your
design may well be used many times over; and if you are not careful with
your original contract, you will have very little nancial gain from those per-
formances. Most of the nancially successful dance lighting designers I know
have a “regular” job. Either as a lighting director for a larger dance com-
pany or as a stage manager for a smaller one; they may design in many
other art forms or, like me, they may hold a faculty position. I admit to feel-
ing a bit envious of some of my designer friends who have wonderful careers
including designs on Broadway or with the Metropolitan Opera in
New York. I would love to have had some of those opportunities. I was sur-
prised when my friend who has a couple of Tony’s told me he envied my
257
stability and my family life and when my friend who works with Chicago
Lyric, the Met, and Houston Grand Opera said he wished he had been able
to maintain a marriage and help raise his child. Then there was the time
when the production director for the Jorey informed me that he was going
to have to send a certain designer’s entire fee to the Internal Revenue Ser-
vice (IRS) – his contracts were all being garnished to deal with tax debts.
We make the choices we have to as artists and as people, not everyone will
make the same choice, but it is important to know what you are signing up
for before you commit to a career and a lifestyle that you are not comfort-
able with.
Susan is a freelance lighting designer and a teacher. She works with stu-
dents at New York University, The Juilliard School, and Muhlenberg Col-
lege. One of the things I enjoy about Susan’s teaching is that she teaches
dancers about working with light and designers. I had the good fortune to
listen to her talk about this aspect of her work once and she referenced it in
her answer:
Well, one of the most important things my mentor said to me was:

“You need to love being a lighting designer and working in the the-
ater. It requires that much love and dedication, otherwise you
would make more money driving a cab.”
Admittedly, with the growth of Uber and such, that is a less appro-
priate analogy, but it makes sense. This is not a gig you do to get
rich. The wealth is in the community one has during a production
and in the joy we all feel when we are making good art. It is enriching
in so many other ways than through your wallet.
I suppose one thing I would have loved to hear about lighting
before trying it is how capricious and hard it can be to get the “good
gigs” or to get noticed. Sometimes the good gig comes about not
because of your skill or intelligence but rather the other guy had to
drop out. It would make me feel less disappointed about not being on
Broadway, for example, or having other such career milestones.
Another thing to learn about is how to nd your joy in the art world
however it comes to you. I have recently found that I really enjoy
being a professor and relating to students about how to grow their
work and their knowledge towards being self-sustaining choreograph-
ers in the current business climate. Though this has nothing to do
with lighting design (or very little) this is currently what makes me
happy to go to work, so I am going with it.
Also, it is good to remember that we work in our little gopher holes
and rarely surface to come together as a community of lighting
designers other than LDI [an annual trade show and conference] or
a birthday or funeral. I wish there was another frequent gathering for
designers [other] than once a year. I vaguely remember a motherly
258
gathering at a bar in the west village specically for lighting designers

maybe 20 years ago. Even if I can’t go to it all that often, it would be
nice to know we could all get together and support each other in that
way.
Lastly, as a single parent of a young child in the business, it is
uniquely challenging. It has come a long way in the last couple of
decades, but it is still a largely male dominant eld, and I doubt most
men get asked “Where is your child?” when they are at work, but we
women are constantly asked [and judged as parents] about this.
I still hear people telling me “Oh, I would have hired you, but
I know you have a child, so I thought you wouldn’t be available.”
I suppose that’s my socialist/feminist rant for the day.
It is a bit odd to consider that an industry that refers to its performers as

“babies” or as “boys and girls” despite addressing grown men and women,
and likes to present itself as a sort of family in terms of commitment and
dedication, makes very little room for real family. There is a singularity of
dedication and focus in the dance world that sometimes sees parenthood,
particularly motherhood, as a betrayal of sorts to the art form. Perhaps it is
the physical changes pregnancy brings about, the forced hiatus from per-
forming because the physical aesthetic is no longer “right,” but I have
known women who were seen as having made a poor choice by deciding to
become a mother even when they came back to perform stronger than
before they left. Likewise (although admittedly to a much lesser degree) men
who work to nd a schedule that is more family friendly are seen as lacking
in the right sort of dedication to the art form. I do see change from when
I began and I have hope that things will get even better, but it is odd to me
that in the very tolerant world of the performing arts there is often discrim-
ination when it comes to raising a family. As a designer I am in a position
where, to a degree, I am not age limited in my career. I have worked with
designers in their 70s and while I make no predictions, I also see no rm
reason why I could not do so as well.
To get there you have to make certain lifestyle choices and be willing to
endure nancial insecurity and have either an iron clad ego or very little ego
to speak of. Your self-condence will take hits on a regular basis. It will sur-
prise you how many people “know” they could do your job better than you
do. But like most people in the arts – I do what I do because I can’t imagine
doing anything else. I also remember the people who helped me get where
I am and the little bits and pieces of advice I got along the way. Friends
who were mentors or teachers, some who had no idea they were teaching
me something new.
I had the good fortune of designing a piece for Gerald Arpino alongside
Ming Cho Lee, who had designed the scenery. It was a gig I got because, to
quote Susan, “the other guy had to drop out.” While I was acutely aware
259
that I was not the rst choice I also knew that I understood Jerry Arpino’s
aesthetic. This was when Ming Cho Lee asked me: “What is it about light-
ing designers that they always want to make everything symmetrical?” His
set was not symmetrical, the choreography was not symmetrical at that point
in the piece, so why did I care about balancing the pools? Interestingly
enough when I decided in the moment that it was not important, the cue
looked much more interesting. I still think in symmetrical terms when I am
designing and frequently when I am cueing a piece, but if the focus or the
cue looks better slightly out of balance then I push it a bit more so with
Mr. Lee’s words in the back of my mind – so much learned from such an
ohand comment.
From my rst direct encounter with Tom Skelton while I was focusing
for him was when he told his assistant: “See, I told you he was a designer.”
In Tom’s opinion, a real designer didn’t care what the name or number was
on a gel, they would tell you what the color looked like. I learned to trust
my eyes more than the numbers, particularly when you blend color. Now
that we have color changing LED xtures to work with, I often have to
ignore the numbers or the names and simply look at what the color actually
is on the stage. Tom opened my eyes to a number of things and has made
me a much better designer as a result. The enduring lesson, the one for
which I am very grateful, was to really care about the dance and the dan-
cers. I will never be a co-artistic director of a company as he was but I do
pay attention to more than my own little part of the performance and make
sure I am not negatively impacting someone else’s work just to make mine
look better.
In all reality the person who made the biggest impact on my design aes-
thetic was Alwin Nikolais. I do not design like Nik and I do not want to, yet
so many small lessons over the years have inuenced how I use light in my
own approach to design. It is because of Nik and the six years I toured with
him that I still look at how the legs are lined up, how the backdrop is
stretched, and if the oor is evenly laid. None of this is part of my job and
sometimes I think I annoy the props people and the carpenters because
I notice the little things. But from Nik I learned there is no such thing as
a little detail if it is wrong. The dancers saying was: “You’re never so wrong
as when you are right all by yourself.” The thing about details is that the
one thing that doesn’t line up with the others is the one that will catch your
eye. As a result I do not subscribe to the point of view that “if the audience
is looking at that then the dancers and the choreographer are not doing
their job.” Instead what I learned is that if it is within my power to x it
and I don’t then it is entirely my fault that the audience member is not look-
ing at the dancers, because I allowed the distraction to remain and because
it was the one thing out of place that caught their eyes.
I also learned from Nik that lighting the area around the dancer can be
as important as lighting the dancer. When we had an exceptionally deep
260
stage he would always insist on an additional set of side lights, not because
the dancers were going to perform there but because we had to light the
oor in order to lift the dancers forward in the space. For this same reason
Nik tended to light the background rst and then to light the performers.
Even if I don’t always follow that pattern, I always make sure that once the
background levels are set the foreground balance is still right. I also try to
make sure that I can control the background from the bottom as well as the
top. The best way to balance for the gure is to keep the audience’s eyes at
the dancer’s level, not pulling them up to the top of the backdrop. And, as
Nik taught me, an extra amount of oor, properly illuminated, can create
a similar visual balance for the audience. It is because of Nik that I always
pay attention to the balance between the dancer and the oor as well as the
dancer and the background. (Jerry Arpino’s obsession with the oor also
impacted the way I look at the space, although because of him I am often
also focused on whether it is clean or not.)
Nik, like Tom, also taught me to trust my eyes. Nik never let us simply
reuse the light levels from another theatre. He looked at every single cue in
the space before the audience came in – even on one-night stands when we
barely had enough time to get ready for the performance. Of course, there
were times when he seemed to be making the levels much brighter than
usual. On more than one of these occasions he would stop part way through
and in mock anger he would ask me how I could let him light the show
with his sunglasses on. He knew that things would always look dierent
based on the theatre itself – regardless of the equipment or the hanging posi-
tions. Nik had a theory that there was a visual equivalent to acoustics. Just
as a theatre could shape the way sound moved through space he felt the
theatre could impact how light moved between the stage and the audience’s
eyes. Some theatres seemed to be almost too bright while the same inten-
sities on the equipment we brought with us would look as if they were not
even on in other spaces.
I am the designer I am because of the friends I have worked with, and
for, over the years. I do look for the details and I trust my eyes more than
any other tool I use when I work. When I rst started working with
C. J. Bart my long-time electrician with the Jorey Ballet he would argue
with me when I would tell him he had a wrong color in one of the lights on
the overhead electrics. By the time he left the company he had stopped;
I had been right too many times. I am convinced we can train our eyes just
as musicians can train their ears, but it will not happen unless we trust
them. My ability to see subtle dierences in color between instruments, and
to catch the one element that is out of place, has gotten better the longer
I have worked in lighting. I know, intellectually, that there will be a point in
my life where that stops being true. That is probably when I will decide it is
time to retire.
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25
P R A C TI CAL E X AMP L ES
I am including a few descriptions of how I arrived at a lighting approach for

a few shows. It is my hope that this will help the novice designer think
about how to assemble the elements of a light plot. There will be no draw-
ings or examples of paperwork; this is more about how I think about lling
my toolbox. The process on each of these examples was driven by specic
needs the individual projects had. These are all shows I was recently
involved in, but I believe each one of them was a slightly dierent process
and I know they each resulted in a very dierent light plot.
The Nutcracker
I was asked to design a new light plot for the Ballet West production of The
Nutcracker. The choreography was not going to be changed, only the physical
production, new sets and costumes, the addition of projections, and a new
light plot. Some of the visual ideas were ones they wanted to keep from past
productions, but how I chose to design the piece and the colors I wanted to
use were all up to me, as long as I was able to meet the artistic director’s
aesthetic for the production.
Nutcracker is an odd sort of piece to work on. In the rst act we move
from Drosselmeyer’s shop, to the outside of the Stahlbaum’s house, to the
entry hall of the house, to the main living area of the house, to a magically
altered version of the room, to the space beneath the Christmas tree, and
nally to the Land of Snow. The second act is all set in The Land of
Sweets. This is one of the regular challenges of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker: All
the scenery is in the rst act, the majority of the classical dance is in
the second act. The result is two dierent styles of lighting from a single
plot. There is also the challenge of tting in all of the scenery and keeping
room for the electrics pipes.
I had been invited to create a new design to go along with a new set of
scenery and costumes for Ballet West. The one new wrinkle was the addition
of projections to increase some of the magical qualities in the production.
For a variety of reasons, I was brought into the production late and by the
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PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
time I became involved there were a number of decisions that had already
been made, particularly in relationship to the projections. The projection
designer, Mike Tutaj, was really open to new ideas and between us we g-
ured out some additional ways to use the projections. This was one of the
few times I have had another designer actively working on a production at
the same time I was designing the lighting – I really enjoyed the process.
The next complication was the information that I needed to stay rmly
within the company’s inventory as the production was expected to tour. In
fact I was going to be taking the show into three dierent venues: The
Austad Auditorium in Ogden, Utah, The Opera House in the Kennedy
Center, and the Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City. The venues were all dif-
ferent sizes and required some creative work on the part of the carpenter to
get the scenery to t, but there would be no time to reset the light plot
between theatres. This meant, in a few cases, that some lights were used for
dierent purposes in the dierent theatres, but the channel assignments
couldn’t be altered.
I was able to have a phone conversation with Adam Sklute, the artistic
director for Ballet West, and I had been supplied with renderings of the
scenery and a video of the choreography. I also met with Mike in person as
we are both based in the Midwest. Since I was not free to attend rehearsals
this would be the extent of the background material I would have to work
from. So I set about guring out my toolbox. I knew that I wanted a warm
and a cool color from the pipe end position and another set from the boom
tops. I had a similar combination at head high, the shin positions, and for
back light. This was my basic foundation. The next thing I gured out was
how to cover the scenery properly. There were drops all the way down stage
with no room for cyc lights, as well as drops for the house and interior in
the second wing, so I needed to light them from the balcony rail. Then
I had a set of cyc lights for the front of the up stage drops and then an over-
head and ground row for the bounce drop behind Snow. One of the newer
additions to the company’s inventory was a set of Source 4 LED ellipses.
These became the balcony rail units I used to solve the down stage drops. It
meant only hanging one unit instead of one with a warm color and one with
a cool color and blending as needed.
I also knew that I had to come up with some ways to make the magical
transformation of the stage in act 1 and the toy soldier battle with the mice
feel dierent. I decided on a system of dierent templates and an additional
back light color. I also chose to place these and focus them as diagonal back
light systems so we had a further shift beyond color and texture. There were
a few givens that Adam wanted from earlier productions: A set of foot light
gobos that cast the dancers’ shadows on the set during the transformation,
and a red shin light for the battle sequence. What I was not mentally pre-
pared for was the request for more front light. I am not sure why I had not
anticipated this as Nutcracker is one of those pieces that uses a lot of children.
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PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
One of the things I have learned over the years is that when you have
children on stage in a dance work, you better have good front light systems.
If families cannot spot their children someone is going to complain. Save
yourself some trouble and maintain some level of artistic control, add the
fronts to your design and make sure you set the levels because if it is added
in later it is more likely than not to be too much. Each of the three theatres
we went into was providing the equipment for the front of house positions,
so the degree of success I had providing the requested face light varied
between venues. I only came up short in one space and that was as a result
of inappropriate lensing for the distance the lights were from the stage.
There are a few things that come up every time you light a Nutcracker,
two of them have to do with the snow scene. The rst one is aesthetic and
varies with each company. In real life snow is white, in Nutcracker snow is
usually blue, because it is romantic and “cold.” Most designers include a no-
color system and plenty of blue. The problem is that, depending on where
you place your no-color system, you may not be able to bring it to full. Add
that to the fact that all the other light is blue and your white starts to look
amber. The second one is that all of the light is focused on the dancers and
you will frequently nd the artistic director asking why they can’t see the
snow falling higher up in the air. My solution to this second problem is to
add units to the booms that are lined up with the snow bags and which
focus in the air and not on the dancers. I try to get them up around 16 to
20 feet in the air, so they usually end up as high as the booms will allow.
For Ballet West this meant just over 16 feet up.
The second problem was dealt with by using some color correction gel.
These gels colors are designed to adjust the base level of “white” we are
working with and were developed for television and lm lighting. There are
several sets of these types of colors that allow you to adjust daylight toward
incandescent, and stage lights toward uorescent, and so on. I used gels that
were in the Color Temperature Blue (CTB) series. A full CTB converts
a tungsten source to the color equivalent of daylight and reads like a pale
blue on stage; but there are also half and quarter CTB gels which let you
bring a light up to less than full and counter the tendency of the lamp to
appear to be amber. I used both of these approaches to solving the regular
snow issues.
Beyond that it was a fairly standard classical dance plot. The big change
was what happened when Mike and I put our tools together for some of the
magical moments. We worked to match, or blend, color temperatures of
white so that the projections and the lighting either lived in the same world
or in complementary ones. The contrast of the color his projector produced
was useful at times and at others it was important to blend so that the eect
was subliminal instead of more obvious. We had talked a great deal about
the dierent color temperatures of the various sources of light and we
shared a similar aesthetic. I think the result was that most of the time people
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PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
were probably not clear on when the eects they were seeing were lighting
or projections. Beyond that we had some LED sources in the tree drop as
well as the LED ellipsoidals on the balcony rail, and the follow spots were
a dierent color temperature. In some cases I added color correction lters
and in others I worked with the unadjusted source.
One last thing to mention is that I also had some of the LED ellipsoidals
focused into the painted portal legs. One thing I learned a while back is that
if you do not intentionally light your scenery you will be disappointed in the
unintentional lighting that occurs. While it is often the case that the scenery
is easy to see from ambient light, it is also true that it is very hard to control.
It is much better to add some units into your plot that are focused onto the
scenic elements – it lets you be in charge of what is going on with the light-
ing. I was very happy I had done this because there were at least four times
during level sets when Adam asked what I could do about the portals; there
were a half-dozen more when he told me how good they looked.
The Tempest
The University of Notre Dame hosts the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival
in the summer months. It features one fully produced Shakespeare in the
proscenium space where the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre
produces their season. So it is as close to a home theatre as I have. The
show has the benet of a larger budget than the departmental productions
we produce during the academic year and, despite much higher expect-
ations, it doesn’t have a budget for rental equipment. Since it is in the
summer, I get to put all my attention on the production instead of having to
work around teaching and administrative duties at the same time.
Tempest was challenging for a number of reasons, within the connes of
a single light plot with a xed inventory and a very limited budget I needed
to light:
• Actors on the stage oor, in the orchestra pit, and on the deck of
a ship 13 feet above the stage;
• An actress who spent the entire performance on a trapeze 10 feet
above the stage;
• Another actress who would climb more than 20 feet into the air;
• Dance and acrobatic movement;
• Jugglers’ balls tossed 10 to 15 feet in the air;
• A set of silks that would be propelled by a “wind illusion” more than
30 feet in the air.
On top of this the entire stage left side of the deck would be blocked by
a distressed boat that rose over 16 feet above the stage oor. I also had to
make sure everyone remained safe and that the lights never distracted the
265
PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
performers or prevented them from being able to complete their circus acts.
This was the challenge presented by the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival’s
production of The Tempest.
Based on this I had to assemble a set of tools that would be coherent for
the storytelling yet exible enough to allow for all of the disparate elements
so that they could all feel of a piece. That was the goal going into the
rehearsal process – a remarkably short three weeks before tech, one week of
tech, and only two previews in which to get it all right.
Rehearsals were choppy with big chunks of time taken out for training
the circus acts and, shortly before we began work, the idea of a shadow
puppet piece was also added to the mix. The artistic team spent about nine
hours outside of rehearsal talking through the show beat by beat. I started
out with the usual sorts of questions to try and get a handle on the project
and the design. Most of the answers were in terms of what it was not, which
often is just as useful. The set design, by Marcus Stephens, underwent sev-
eral variations from abstraction to construction to realism, which is where
we landed. This left us in a very theatrically real world where fans, acrobatic
silks (tissu), and a static trapeze all needed to make sense. But in
a “theatrically real” world we traditionally mask overhead with borders and
with legs on the sides. There was a short discussion about dispensing with
masking altogether, but the director was not interested in that.
I realized that I needed to either set up the overhead electrics so that
they could move out of the way when the “dancing silks” started to soar
into the air or I needed to set them about ten feet higher than usual. This
also meant the battens with the masking legs would be visible or the higher
electric would be useless except for straight down light which reopened the
masking conversation. The rst major decision that I made with the director
was to unmask the electrics and to dispense with the masking on the ground
row at the bottom of the cyc, a compromise to the original masking decision.
For me, this revealing of the stage machinery caused the fans, also clearly
mechanical devices, to have a place in this otherwise realistic space. It also
meant that I had a very clear path from the rst electric to the cyc in order
to add templates, and that I could trim the electrics that fell within the “air
tornado” we were creating high enough that the silks would not get fouled.
Because of the jugglers, the acrobats, and the aerialists I knew I needed
side light. But the boat meant that traditional side light could come from
only one side. In order to balance the booms on stage right I did add a few
units on ladders hung stage left but the lowest unit on the ladders was still
higher then the top unit on the booms. This pushed me into a somewhat
asymmetrical plot, something that made sense with the scenic design. When
the boat was brought on stage it sat at an angle where it reached center all
the way up stage and was about two feet away from the masking down
stage. There was an entrance down stage of the boat and one or two people
could sneak on up stage of the boat, but otherwise stage left was dead. This
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PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
meant that my centerline really ran from quarter right up stage to center
down stage.
In recognition of this skewed centerline and in an eort to control
shadows on the boat I set one of my front light systems along the angle of
the boat and pushed the other one as close to perpendicular as I could.
Color had to be carefully chosen as the majority of it would light the boat
and the rest would impact the heavily painted oor – as a result I used
more individual colors on the production than usual in large part because
there were so many one-sided systems. The boat really dictated the plot in
a way I had not initially imagined.
The trapeze on which our Ariel spent all but the last minute of the pro-
duction became its own small plot that was folded into the larger one. Light
had to come from sucient dierent directions to make this one spot in the
air as dynamic as the rest of the space. Again, because of the boat and the
oor, I also had to carefully consider where the beam landed once it passed
through the trapeze. All of this while making sure the performer felt safe
executing some very complex and potentially dangerous choreography. The
tissu was less of an issue and simply needed to be lit for its full height, as all
of the choreography was very vertical.
The air tornado was a bit more problematic. This eect is a central part
of the touring production Air Play that our director, West Hyler, had created
with air designer, Daniel Wurtzel. The dierence is that Air Play is
a standalone production with a world of its own as opposed to being worked
into a play by Shakespeare. Much of what they learned from that show
helped us to be successful in ours, though we found some new consider-
ations. Remembering my snow tricks from past Nutcrackers I incorporated
a few units from the ladders to light the air above the fans. What I had not
accounted for was that some of the items that ew into the air were very
small and others were translucent. This meant that at times we had to keep
the cyc very dim and at other times we had to light it in such a way as to
allow the things in the air to be multiplied by their shadows. Templates
from the electrics and a wash from the balcony rail focused into the cyc
helped very nicely in these situations.
The next most signicant choice we made was to stop treating the cyc as
if it were a realistic sky. This came about organically as the original shadow
puppet idea morphed into a shadow play with people casting shadows on
a screen and nally into a distorted shadow play on the cyc. We lit this with
a light source in the wings, with the actors positioned just o stage of the
legs, and projected 15 and 25-foot-high shadows onto the cyc, a technique
that I had come up with working with one of the modern dance companies.
The nal piece of our storytelling vocabulary was the “magic.” In our
production there were two types of magic: That which Prospero generated
from his knowledge of the magic of Sycorax and the magic that Ariel does
at Prospero’s bidding. Since our Ariel was conned to a trapeze, ten other
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PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
performers were cast as “Ariel’s Qualities” or AQs. These were our troupe
of acrobats, aerialists, and musicians. I relied heavily on gobos and green
light, a color choice based on the costume design for the AQs.
The Tempest has room for a great deal of music. Because the music was
played live by our AQs it also lined up with the majority of the magical
moments in the play. Ariel is trapped and so a couple of template washes
(Loose Weave and a horizontally mounted Crackling Breakup) became
a dominant part of these moments as it reinforced the idea of entrapment.
Two cyc washes (Thicket and Reected Water 1) also became part of the
vocabulary of magic. Two other signicant gobo washes were a soft focus
Realistic Leaves colored in R370, creating a wonderfully watery front ll,
and a set of side lls in Water 1 that helped the opening storm scene. We
augmented this moment with a special projector by Rosco called the X24
that creates free form water patterns. Because I had to hang the show before
the blocking I also added four iCue instruments with DMX irises to serve as
refocusing specials. For the same reason, I included a back light system with
color scrollers so I could have more color possibilities and I lit the cyc with
LED strip lights for additional color possibilities.
Once our vocabulary was dened, cueing the show became pretty
straightforward. The music helped dene the magic, and the type of magic
dened the lighting. The clowns and jugglers played o the audience, so we
added house lights into those scenes which then gave us permission to have
the house lights on at a low level for Prospero’s nal speech: An appeal to
the audience that he be granted release from the island just as he has
released Ariel moments before.
Romeo and Juliet

I was invited to design John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet for Boston Ballet and
for Washington Ballet within a month of each other. Since these fell during
the academic calendar I really was not free to take on both of them. It
quickly became clear to me that Washington Ballet had assumed I was the
original designer for the Canadian National Ballet production they were
renting since I had designed with that set for Ballet West. The solution was
simple. Robert Thomson, who was the designer in Canada, went to DC and
I went to Boston.
John Cranko choreographed full length ballets based on two of Shake-
speare’s plays, Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew, both of which
I have had the pleasure of lighting. In both cases he took some liberties with
the story but remained faithful to the core essence of each play. What is
remarkable is how well he manages to communicate the emotional range of
the plays and how clearly he presents these fairly complex stories. I will
admit that for the novice the addition of a synopsis in the playbill is import-
ant but, even without that, the heart of each play is clearly visible. I have
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PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
now mounted Romeo and Juliet for three dierent companies, The Jorey
Ballet, Ballet West, and Boston Ballet. They were all good experiences, but
the most interesting in terms of adjusting to circumstances was probably in
Boston. I am glad that it was the third time I had mounted it because
I certainly drew on my previous experience with the choreography and the
storytelling solutions that I had discovered in previous productions to make
the mounting in Boston work.
To begin with, the production was sharing a run – in rotating rep – with
a mixed bill of one-act pieces all by contemporary choreographers. The
lighting needs for the three other pieces was signicantly dierent in
approach to the plot I was asking for. So I needed to look closely at what
I needed and what I could use. Once I got past the sheer number of moving
lights on the plot – something I was not used to in dance lighting – I began
to look at how things were plugged and in what ways I could adapt what
they had to my needs or my needs to what they already had. After several
phone calls and email exchanges with John Cu, the lighting director, I felt
I had a good grasp on the plot and what I could expect from it. Then
I needed to gure out what my additions needed to be.
As this was going on I was also getting emails from Benjamin Phillips, the
production manager for Boston Ballet, with questions about the scenery.
They had purchased the Jürgen Rose sets from the Jorey Ballet which had
arrived without much information about how the pieces all went together.
To further complicate things, no one currently at the Jorey had used this
set and so they were able to oer very little help. I shared what
I remembered but more importantly connected them with the former head
carpenter for the Jorey, Keith Prisco. This resulted in a line set schedule
and an updated rep light plot with only a handful of changes. I continued
digging in and eventually came up with a request for just over two dozen
conventional xtures and about three movers to add a center stage unit to
an existing system of moving lights. In addition, I had four rovers to help
deal with the bridge unit that lled the entire up stage of the space. In fact,
the majority of the added units were for the upper level of the bridge and
took the place of the fth boom and ladders that were in the original plot.
The bridge also had some units hung on and under it to cover entrances
and to ll in the bottom of the up stage drops.
Romeo and Juliet has three full stage drops behind a bridge unit that has a level
for dancers that is about ten feet above the stage oor. While there is not very
much dance that happens on the bridge there are several critical points in the
story that do, so I needed to treat this as an extension of the stage oor. When
the Jorey used this set the bridge sat at about 34 feet up stage of the light line
and the drops were around 48 feet up stage. In Boston the bridge was at about
27 feet and the drops at about 33 feet. Ultimately it was this compression that
forced the majority of the changes I had to make, but it was this same compres-
sion that allowed me to reduce the number of added units I was requesting.
269
PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
The biggest challenge came from the fact that there are entrances and exits
under the bridge and then o stage. Normally the space between the up stage of
the bridge and the drops was about six feet; in Boston we had two feet.
The moving lights on the booms were used in a single focus with up
stage shutter adjustments for some scenery pieces. The pipe end movers also
sat in a standard focus for most of the show, although they were used as
specials for some of the scenes. The down stage drops were lit exclusively
with front of house moving lights and they were very eective. In fact, if
given the option I would ask for the set-up I had in Boston for most any
down stage drop situation. We had a mover in a low position on the house
right and left box boom, four on the balcony rail, and four on a truss in
front of the proscenium arch. I found myself having to take back everything
I had said about using moving lights in dance. The units were VariLite
VL1100 with an onboard dimmer and shutters. There was a breakup gobo
in them which worked really well for the drops I had to light down stage.
I was able to use the balcony rail units to add some life to some of the wall
units around the bridge in a few key points as well. In fact it was interesting
how many places they crept into cues. I know this was a combination of
Harrison Burke, the assistant lighting director, reminding me I could use
them and Jon Gonda, the programmer and board operator, making it so
easy to use them. It was the rst time I used moving lights where I didn’t
have to think about how to use them; I simply said where I wanted them to
hit and what I wanted them to look like.
The regular light plot more than covered the two colors of boom tops and
two colors of pipe ends I asked for; the back lights were handled by multiPAR
strips which closely mimicked the PAR56 strip lights I had used the rst time
I lit the piece. An adjustment for me was that the majority of the dance was
now being lit by three booms instead of four as the bridge blocked the lower
half of the fourth boom. This is another way the moving lights in the overhead
cross light and boom tops helped because I could adjust shutter cuts to help
with some of the issues the three wings created in terms of coverage. My usual
front of house wash color went into their more distributed area fronts and then
we added the half-dozen or so specic specials that were not covered by the
moving lights. The other tricky point was the bottom of the up stage drops.
This was something that I normally covered with cyc lights that hung on the
back of the bridge. There was not enough distance to make this work so we
substituted one set of Altman Q-Lites, an open face ood more commonly
used in photography work, as a no-color ll. We also used another eight of
these as ll light under the bridge.
Spring Awakening
Back to the Decio Theatre at Notre Dame, this time a departmental produc-
tion. The challenge on these departmental shows is that I wind up serving as
270
PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
my own master electrician. This sometimes tempts me to hang fewer lights

since I have to do all the work, but this show would not allow me to do
that.
When the University of Notre Dame decided to present Spring Awakening,
the musical by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, I knew it would be
a chance to use more new technology than we generally did. I also knew
that I would need to do most of the programming myself as I did not have
a student who was well enough trained on the light board to program for
me. To be honest, I barely knew enough to program it myself, but I had
nished Romeo and Juliet a month earlier and was condent I could gure it
out. When I met with the director we realized that we actually needed
a way to make it feel as if we were working with two completely dierent
light plots. The book and some of the songs lived in what we started calling
a German expressionist reality, which felt like a no-color light with a patina
of age to it. Then there were the songs which the director originally called
out as where we would go to town with color. Once we started working on
the piece I realized that there were enough dierent aesthetics that the two
vocabularies would not be enough and so I added what I referred to as
a “punk rock aesthetic.” This too was no color but harsh and bright, angular
and unfriendly.
The set designer wanted to use silver trussing in addition to a series of
industrial scaolding units, and so these truss units became the home for our
more technologically advanced lights. This is where our moving lights and
the moving mirror xtures were hung along with a set of 11-inch Selador
LED units that served as part of the back light for the show. We knew we
wanted side light, even though the dance was minimal, and the need to be
able to punch in a bunch of color led me to hang the 42-inch Seladors verti-
cally on the booms. To these I added a shin below the strip and a head
high above it which completed my minimal side light. I did have pipe ends
but they were more for texture and for dening the space. In addition to the
Selador back light, which was reserved for musical numbers, I had a warm
and cool back light in PARs and a diagonal back light in amber ellipsoidals.
The acting space was dened by the front light which was carefully shut-
tered to the wood deck, and a set of top lights that were also cut to the
deck. Then there was a set of templates from overhead to help us designate
the exterior scenes. The pivotal hay loft scene was played on the edge of the
stage and on the apron with some templated side light to create the atmos-
phere of the space and top light to dene the area along with a single angle
front light to keep the area tight. My nal tool was the addition of follow
spots, which again were limited to the musical numbers.
In many ways the element that most dened the aesthetic of the work
was the ve instruments on the front truss that were equipped with iCue
moving mirrors and DMXing irises. These created very well-dened beams
of light that caught people at various points around the stage as well as
271
PRACTICAL EXAMPLES
providing the majority of the face light on the upper level of the scaold.
This caused shadows on the back wall, which bothered me at rst but ultim-
ately I incorporated visible shadows from the lights into a number of
moments. I followed the advice I had learned long ago with the Nikolais
Dance Theatre: If you can’t x it, feature it. We used minimal haze in the
show, just enough to help dene the beams of light in the air, and we had
a dry-ice-fog moment in the graveyard. Because of the trussing, that was
part of the scenic world, all other electrics were above that line. There was
no eort to mask them but they tended to fade out of the frame until the
back light strips on the oor behind the band came on. These were focused
up into the air and were there to create a sense of depth; they were the fur-
thest up stage element, and to add another layer of theatricality.
When all was said and done we wound up with more than our initial
three types of lighting, but most of the new visual ideas were variations on
one of the three – our expressionist reality, our colorful rock world, and our
punk rock world. Unlike my usual approach to using moving light – I try
not to see them move – I added several light cues that were specically
about watching the lights move. One number introduced the moving lights
from the back light truss by shining them into the audience when they came
on and then slowly tracking them up stage into the scene we were lighting
and at another point the iCues came on up stage and snapped to a spot
down stage center for a musical entrance. This was the closest I came to
lighting design for its own sake but it was something that came from the
aesthetic of the show, so it was not technically for its own sake. It simply felt
right to highlight the mechanical capabilities of our lighting in this story set
on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution.
In closing I will say that as a designer I try not to repeat myself. This
often leads me to try dierent ways to begin a design. Sometimes I start
with face light, sometimes I decide I am going to lean into side light, and
still other times I solve the space before I gure out the performer’s needs.
I nd this keeps things fresh for me, particularly since I have been working
in the same theatre spaces at Notre Dame for 15 years. I have to do some-
thing to keep from repeating myself. I also hope these four brief descriptions
have given you a bit of insight into how I think about the technical side of
what I do as a balance to the more theoretical material that preceded it.
I remain much more intrigued by the “why” questions that surround lighting
design as opposed to the “how.” There are already very good how-to books
out there, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. I only hope that this book will
lead you to more questions, but more importantly that it will give you ways
to nd your own answers to those questions.
272
INDEX
Air Play 267 boom placement 183–185

angles of light: classication 111–119; booms: focusing the light 200; use by
and color 126, 127; light plots dancers 76–77, 78
183–184; limitations as design ideas Borges, Jacobo 231, 238
212–213; space 52–53; see also distribu- Brady, Rob 247
tion of light budgets: dance lighting 11–12; going it
Appalachian Spring 47–48, 54 alone 232–233; lighting equipment 36;
Appia, Adolphe 14 limits of 12, 206–207, 213–214; pay as
architecture of space 49 a dance lighter 207–208, 257–258;
Arpino, Gerald: artistic relationship technology 193–194
71–72; choreographer-lighting designer bump cues 150, 152
partnership 43, 159; color 214–215; Burke, Harrison 250
light plots 181–182; modern dance 24;
Nikolais Dance Theatre pieces 60–61; Cage, John 89–90
remounting of work 243–244 carpenter 186
artistic expression: being the only Cata, Alfonso 176–177
designer in the room 219–228; dance Caught 45
lighting as 1; designer’s toolbox centre line marks 222–224, 267
166–175; ego 71–72; purpose of dance Cernovitch, Nichola 133–134, 237
lighting 1; sharing your ideas 155–165; character names 67
story telling 153; understanding dance children on stage 263–264
30–31 choreographer’s perspective: artistic input
Aviary 124 from lighting designer 155–165; color
134, 135, 136–137, 143; common
back light: color 137–138, 142; dening language 10–11, 60–72, 254–255;
the space 49; denition and use 115, generalizations 56–57; going it alone
119; Nutcracker example 173–174 229–239; lighting as central 45; motion
Baker, Brandon Sterling 234, 251–253 35; partnership with designer 10–11,
ballet: denition 20, 23; motion 20–21, 43–44, 56, 106–107; space 47–48, 52,
34; positions 20–21; story ballet 21–22, 55–56, 58–59; and understanding of
103, 144–145; terminology 20–21, 63 the piece 102–103, 104–106;
Bart, C. J. 247–248 understanding point of view 33
big picture approach 244–245 classical dance see ballet
Binkley, Howell 151, 243 Closure 151
black boxes 221–222, 252 color: bold choices 133–134, 137;
Blue Snake 67 common language 66; cool colors
Blunden, Jeraldyne 27 130–132, 138, 174; and dance
273
INDEX
122–132; dancers’ perspective 85–86; understanding as a lighting design

designer’s toolbox 167; distribution of 25–34; see also ballet; modern dance;
light 113; limitations as design ideas partnering the dancer
214–215; as manageable property of dance classes, attendance at 25–28,
light 14, 15–17; safe colors 122, 29–32, 79
131–132, 133–134; snow scenes 264; dance lighting: as art form 1; being the
as storytelling tool 133–143, 148; using only designer in the room 219–228;
technology 192–193, 194, 196–197; common language 10–11, 60–72;
warm colors 130–132, 138, 174 designer’s toolbox 166–175;
Color Temperature Blue (CTB) series importance of 1–4; partnership with
264 choreographer 10–11, 43–44, 56,
color wheel 128–130 106–107, 237; recognising good and
common language: choreographer- bad 6–9; simple rules 199–208; as
lighting designer 10–11, 60–72, subspecialization in lighting design
254–255; dancer-lighting designer 5–6; supporting the story telling 2–3;
73–80, 87–89; learning to talk 87–88 understanding the piece 101–110
company preferences: dancers’ roles dance work: artistic input from lighting
73–74; lighting equipment 57–58 designer 155–165; cueing 90–95,
computer aided design (CAD) 177, 97–98; how to learn 87–100; lighting
180–181, 183, 187 as subordinate to 229–230
cool colors 130–132, 138, 174 dancers: communicating with 73–80;
Copp, Aaron 253–254 focusing the light 200–201;
Costa, Dylan 247 infantilization 75, 259; light designer’s
costs see budgets attendance at classes 25–28, 29–32, 79;
costumes: color 139, 140, 143; dance lighting sessions 81–86; low side lights
work 89–90; esh colored warm-up 116–117; writing cues 152
clothes 82–83; freedom of movement Dean, Laura 50–51, 243
36; light as complementary to 147–148 design see dance lighting; lighting design
Covey, Stephen 203 Diavolo 23–24
Craig, Edward Gordon 14 dimming systems 16–17
Cranko, John 268–269 Disney 75, 195
Creative Force 49–50, 54–55, 110 disruptive technology 189
cue sheets 93–95, 99–100 distribution of light: classication of
cueing: big picture approach 244–245; angles 111–119; designing for
common language 65, 66, 69–70; 119–121; as manageable property of
dance work 90–95, 97–98; denition of light 14, 17–18
12; importance of 12; lighting sessions down pools 45, 68–69, 217
83, 84; from music 108, 149–150; down stage portal 221–222
number of cues 41–42, 201–203; Duato, Nacho 33
partnering the dancer 42, 43–44;
preparation for 13; from a score eciency 12
90–91; stage managers 90–92, 97; story ego 71–72, 164–165
telling 148–149, 153–154, 201–203 Eisenhauer, Peggy 149–150
Cu, John 250 electrician, partnership with 240–241,
cyc lights 169, 170, 173, 267 245–248, 250
electrics placement 186, 211–212,
Daitsman, Judith 254–255 215–216, 220–221, 234, 246
dance: and color 122–132; denition ellipsoidal reector spotlights 169, 171
19–20; historical development 28; Entropy 93, 94
main classications of 20–21, 23, 28; as equipment see lighting equipment;
populist art form 35–36; and space technology
47–59; sub-classications 33–34; Ezralow, Daniel 33
274
INDEX
face light 19, 112, 253, 272 Kelvin scale 196–197

fades 150–152 Koner, Pauline 85–86
family, work-life balance 259 Kylián, Jiri 33
fees 207–208, 257–258
Fields, Brad 241 Lalama, Kiesha 163–164
nding the light 11, 76–77 lamp housing 189
Firebird 65 language see common language;
esh colored warm-up clothes 82–83 terminology
oor, importance to dancers 29–30 Larsen, James 248
oor plates 169 LED-based color-mixing xture 129
focusing the light 199–201 LEDs 170, 188–189, 190–193, 197
Fresnels 169, 170–171 Lee, Ming Cho 181–182, 260
front light: children on stage 263–264; legs of the stage 222–223, 225–227
denition and use 112–114; face light Lekos 169
19, 112, 253, 272; limitations as design light plots: basic instruments 169–170,
ideas 213 173–175; complexity 216–218; early
front of house checks 227–228 choices 167; practical examples
262–272; purpose and considerations
García-Romero, Anne 145–147, 148 176–187; visual ideas 236
German aesthetic 123, 132 light spills 171, 210–211, 255
Giordano Dance Chicago 24, 64–65, lighting design: describing light 156–165;
163–164 as discipline 14; historical development
gobo technology 168, 182–183 9–10, 14; manageable properties of
Gonda, Jon 250 light 14–19, 156; see also dance lighting
Graham, Martha 22, 47–48, 54 lighting director, partnership with
The Green Table 39, 216–217, 231 240–250
lighting equipment: budget constraints
Hamburger, Susan 256, 258–260 206–207, 213–214; changing
Hamlet 127, 181 technologies 188–198; company
Harris, Rennie 64–65, 157–158 preferences 57–58; costs 36, 193–194;
Hemsley, Gilbert 254 dening the space 49; designer’s
Henry the Fifth 119 toolbox 166–175; xing and repairs
Henry the Fourth 11 194; gobo technology 168, 182–183;
high front light 113–114 LEDs 170, 188–189, 190–193, 197;
high side lights 118–119, 137–138 light plots 167, 169–170, 173–175,
historical development: dance 28; lighting 176–187; limitations 245–246; moving
9–10, 14; lighting positions 51–52 lights 188, 193–194; projection design
Hodson, Millicent 102 194–196; rovers 168–169, 209–210;
Hooper, K.C. 30 and space 47–48; spot lights 169; see
house style see company preferences also technical considerations
Humphrey, Doris 22 lighting for dance see dance lighting
lighting positions: distribution of light
111, 113, 116; historical development
image bank 158–159 51–52; space 52–55; theatre venues
infantilization of dancers 75, 259 230, 245
intangibility of light 19 lighting sessions 81–86
intensity: as manageable property of light limitations: budget constraints 12,
14, 17; understanding the piece 206–207, 213–214; as design ideas
101–110 209–218; going it alone 232–233;
lighting equipment 245–246; time
jazz dance 24 constraints 37, 203, 206–207, 218,
Jorey Ballet 24 219–220; working with 206–207
275
INDEX
line sets 215–216 141; designer’s toolbox 173–174; end

load-ins 176–177 in mind 203–205; example of
Louis, Murray 81–83, 84–86 designing 262–265; protability 36;
low back light 115 story telling 135–136
low front light 113
low side lights 49, 116–118, 148 painting palette analogy 166
PARs (Parabolic Aluminized Reectors)
Madam Buttery 138, 141 169, 170–171
manageable properties of light 14–19, partnering the dancer: dance and light
156 35; as role 36–37, 38–46; safety 42–43;
Markard, Anna 231 visibility 45–46
Martha Graham Dance Company 24 partnership with choreographer 10–11,
masking 115, 183–185, 211–212, 227, 43–44, 56, 106–107, 237
266–267 partnership with electrician 240–241,
McCandless, Stanley 14, 112–113, 126 245–248, 250
McKayle, Donald 77 partnership with lighting director
Mechanical Organ 252 240–250
mental rotation 91 partnership with stage manager 240–241,
Merce Cunningham Dance Company 24 248–250
Miracle Interrupted 66–67 pay as a dance lighting designer 207–208,
modern ballet 21 257–258
modern dance: breaking the rules 23–24; Peck, Justin 251, 252
cueing 41–42; denition 20, 23; performers see dancers
motion 22, 34 Petipa, Marius 24
MOMIX 68–69 Petronio, Stephen 255
The Moor’s Pavane 38 pigeon plates 169
motifs 109–110 Pilobolus Dance Company 23–24
motion see movement plié 20–21
movement: choreographer’s perspective pre-writing 149
35; classications of dance 23–24; cues projection design 194–196, 263
from 92, 96; dance lighting 10; as punctuation, in light 150–151
manageable property of light 14,
18–19; modern dance vs. ballet 22, 34; qualications, dance lighting 5–6
motifs 109–110; understanding dance quarter line marks 222–224
31; understanding the piece 101–110
moving lights 188, 193–194, 270 rehearsing: budget constraints 12; lighting
music: cueing 108, 149–150; dance work sessions 81–86; preparation for 13;
89–90, 97–98; ‘listening to the score’ stage managers 249; The Tempest 266
107–108; The Tempest 268; training rental market for lighting 246
108–109 rep plots 57, 216–217
repetition 109–110
Nelson, Bill 139–140 Resur, Ward 139–140
Nijinsky, Vaslav 102 risk management 212
Nikolais, Alwin: artistic ownership 71, 72; The Rite of Spring 102
changing technologies 189–190; color Robbins, Jerome 242–243
123–124; learning lessons 260–261; Romeo and Juliet 250, 268–270
modern dance 23; slide projectors 189, Rosenthal, Jean: aquarium of light 35;
252; visual acoustics 84; working with budget constraints 12; dancers and
dancers 81, 86 light 9–10; lighting positions 51–52;
Nikolais Dance Theatre: color and the rep plot 57; side lights 115; supporting
light plot 124–125; legs of the stage the dancer 40, 207
222; works 60–61; The Nutcracker ; color rovers 209–210
276
INDEX
rules in choreography 236–237 spike marks 223–224

rules in dance 23–24, 56–57 spill light 171, 210–211, 255
rules in dance lighting 199–208 spot lights: communicating with dancers
74; lighting equipment 169, 171
safety of dancers 42–43 spotting lights 42
salary as a dance lighter 207–208, Spring Awakening 270–272
257–258 Square Dance 209
scenery: electrics placement 220–221; stacks, use of color 124–125
focusing light on 265; light as stage drops 173, 237–238, 263, 269–270
complementary to 147–148; and light stage managers: cueing 90–92, 97; front
plots 185, 186; and space 48–49 of house checks 227–228; partnership
scores: cues from 90–91; ‘listening to the with 240–241, 248–250
score’ 107–108 stage marks 222–224
Scott, Siiri 98, 150 stages 224–227
section drawings 186 Stephens, Marcus 211, 218, 266
selective visibility 15 story, vs. story telling 145–147
set designers 186, 231 story ballet 21–22, 103, 144–145
shadows: awareness of 211; and color story telling: color as tool 133–143;
128; and distribution 18; Spring cueing 201–203; denition 145–147;
Awakening 272 end in mind 203–205; light as support
Shelley, Steve 247, 256–257 for 2–3; light designer’s role in
shin light 114, 116, 117, 252, 263 144–154; partnering the dancer 37–39
side light booms 42 street map analogy 178
side lights: color 137–138; common supporting the dancer 10, 35, 40; see also
language 69; denition and use partnering the dancer
115–118; focusing the light 200–201; symmetry 260
getting blocked 209; light plots
183–184; story telling 148; The Tempest Tabachnick, Ken 255
266–267; use by dancers 78 Taylor, Clifton 193
silence, dance work 89–90 technical considerations: common
Skelton, Tom: color 125–126, 137, 142, language 68–69; dening the space 49,
260; lecture on 28, 29, 51, 232; light 50; going it alone 229–239;
plots 179; lighting positions 52–54, 55; manageable properties of light 14–19;
partnering the dancer 26, 27–29; see also lighting equipment; lighting
producing a concert 229, 234; positions
reworking a piece 255–256; stage technology: changing technologies
marks 223–224 188–198; computer aided design
skin tones 131 180–181, 183, 187; early adoption 191;
Sklute, Adam 263 see also lighting equipment
slide projectors 189, 195, 252 Telesca, Christina 98, 150
snow scenes 264 The Tempest 265–268
Solomons Jr., Gus 236 Tensile Involvement 61
Souce 4s 169, 188, 191 terminology: ballet 20–21, 63; being
sound: dance work 89–90; ‘listening to precise 160–161; choreographer-
the score’ 107–108; see also music lighting designer 10–11, 60–72,
space: architecture of 49; and dance 159–165; color 139–140; common
47–59, 89; distribution of light 111; language 10–11, 60–72; dancer-
light plots 177; partnering the dancer lighting designer 73–80
38–39; purpose of dance lighting 8–9, texture 18, 167–168
11 theatre venues: being the only designer in
speed 12 the room 219–228; black boxes
speed bars 246 221–222; down stage portal 221–222;
277
INDEX
learning lessons 252–253; legs of the United States Institute for Theatre
stage 222–223, 225–227; light plots for Technology (USITT) 188, 197, 244
multiple venues 263; limitations as
design ideas 210–218; stage marks venues see theatre venues
222–224; stage use 224–227 videos, learning the dance work 92–93
time context: collaboration 238–239; visibility: going it alone 236; partnering
color to indicate time of day 138; the dancer 45–46; purpose of dance
cueing 151–152; dance lighting 37; lighting 8–9; selective 15
fades 150–152; going it alone 232–233, visual acoustics 84
235; tracking sheets 96–97; working visual ideas 235–236
hours 219–220; working within time visual metaphors 63–64
constraints 37, 203, 206–207, 218,
219–220 Walt Disney World 75
Tipton, Jennifer 26, 242–243 warm colors 130–132, 138, 174
top light: dening the space 49; denition white: color wheel 128–129; mixing for
and use 114–115, 271 125–126; using technology 196–197
tracking sheets 93–95, 99–100 Wilson, Robert 84
training: dance classes, attendance at wings 224–226
25–28, 29–32, 79; dance lighting 5–6, word pictures 159
8; going it alone 229–239; learning working hours 219–220; see also time
lessons 251–261; music 108–109 context
trust, choreographer-lighting designer 41, work-life balance 259
43–44, 56, 155–156
Tutaj, Mike 263 zero-second fades 150
278

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DANCE AND LIGHT

Dance and Light examines the interconnected relationship between movement

Kevin Dreyer is a freelance lighting designer and an associate professor at

ISBN: 978-1-138-33823-4 (hbk)

1 Why Do We Need a Book about Dance Lighting? Or, if It Is

2 What’s It All About? Or, Dance, Meet Light; Light,

3 Learning about Dance 25

4 Dance and Light 35

5 Dance and Space 47

6 Talking with the Choreographer 60

7 Communicating with the Dancer 73

8 A Conversation I Wish I Had 81

9 Learning the Dance Work 87

10 Understanding the Piece or How to Approach Cueing 101

11 Why Did You Put That Light There? 111

12 Dance and Color 122

13 Color as a Storytelling Tool 133

14 The Designer as Storyteller 144

15 Sharing Your Ideas for the Dance 155

16 The Designer’s Toolbox 166

17 The Dance Light Plot 176

18 Changing Technologies and What They Mean 188

19 Simple Rules 199

20 Limitations as Design Ideas 209

21 On Being the Only Designer in the Room 219

22 Advice for the Choreographer Who Has to Go It Alone 229

23 My Partners in the Theatre 240

24 A Little Help from My Friends 251

25 Practical Examples 262

is that I received my design training from Carnegie Mellon University,

probably cuts into those wonderful options we thought we might have in

Lighting design as a discipline – or an art form as I like to think of it – is

added. In modern usage “gel” is understood to be shorthand for color medium –

most basic, dance is a specic form of physical movement that is presented

body as a means of communication – with the props serving to extend their

The mechanics of lighting a performance are fairly universal. Basic decisions

I was hooked – I had to understand what made that possible. I wanted to

space, an angled or raked stage makes it hard to balance, a hard oor

of carefully selected performances to help you understand the dierences

Joining their conversations, getting to know their personalities, gaining their

become an inadvertent obstacle. This issue of how we communicate is a very

a story. We start somewhere; there is a relationship of a dancer to the space

When I was starting out as a free-lance designer someone told me that as

they are either very limited or broad enough to accommodate a group of

This could be because we had worked together before, or it could have

• Planes represented the lateral space created by the imposition of masking

SR Path Center Path SL Path

Center Pool CS Plane

DSR to USL Diag. DSL to USR Diag.

Figure 5.1 Tom Skelton’s Dance Lighting Areas

I think I will stop oering “general rules” at this point.

Figure 5.2 Examples from a Tracking Sheet for Creative Force

A member of the audience, himself an experimental choreographer, raised his

technical requirements – which ruled out some of the options; nally

to elevate their experience and allow themselves to be a bit more adventure-

session. I wondered later if it had been something the choreographer had

everyone is dierent. Again, this is a dierence with the smaller companies

ideas or to be able to own the suggestions from the choreographer. So I take

Working through a translator is always tricky. In another case a friend of

boards were unreliable because the shift of about a quarter of an inch on

(big music change)

US gures move DS 2 wmn cross US and hold facing US

Freeze melting movement, all different