LIGHTING

We moved on to look into lighting with Graham. I found the first lecture really interesting. He showed us a powerpoint about how to use lighting within performance, especially outside. I learnt a lot about what 'IP numbers' are for and how to not blow a fuse, and also different types of lights. This was aided by the next lesson with Graham where we got to be hands on with the equipment. We got into groups and made a tableaux, whilst another group lit us, and visa versa. This helped us understand how to use the equipment, and also get a better visual idea of what we would like to use in future performances. The first years did a 'Son lumiere', which is a night time light performance. Regrettably I missed this due to rehearsals, but it would be something interesting to do within a performance one day. James Turrell is an artist whose work mainly revolves around light, space and form. I thought that the following quote is a great example of one of the reasons that light is important within performance and art:

“Through light, space can be formed without physical material like concrete or steel. We can actually stop the penetration of vision with where light is and where it isn't. Like the atmosphere, we can't see through it to the stars that are there during the day. But as soon as that light is dimmed around the self, then this penetration of vision goes out. So I'm very interested in this feeling, using the eyes to penetrate the space” (Turrell, J www.gagosian.com, 2010)

When we went to France we learnt a lot about a company called 'Luc Amoros'. A lot of their work is based around lighting. They use a lot of shadow; silhouettes and puppetry, which wouldn’t work without specifically, correct lighting. We hope to take this idea to make a performance based on silhouettes and painting, much like Luc Amoros' work. We will need to use a light, which placed behind us, will cast our shadows on a plastic wall in front of us, much like Luc Amoros’s early work. Luc Amoros is famous for his use of a large screen that the artists would perform behind using silhouettes and other multimedia techniques. This would create an illusion of 1930’s style film, with black and white imagery and theatre based on historical and cultural happenings. We have adapted this idea, keeping with the silent-film style, yet creating a comedy piece based on a fairy tale, with a music and sound effect based soundscape to accompany the performance. There was originally a technique where a fixed light would be shone against a screen to create silhouettes but Luc Amoros invented the technique of moving the light throughout the performance to make the shadows seem more alive. We used a static light within our performance.