peacefulone61
Active Member
I have been asked to take over Lighting Design for our Dance department. It has been a long time since I have Designed for a Dance performance. I was looking for a recommendation for a good Resource to refresh myself.
Dance Lighting
- Thread starterpeacefulone61
- Start date
Paging @MrsFooter meanwhile, take a look at this:
http://www3.northern.edu/wild/LiteDes/dance.htm
Oh yeah, Thomas Skelton used Cinemoid #8 in shinbusters, so try Ecolor or Lee #108.
http://www3.northern.edu/wild/LiteDes/dance.htm
Oh yeah, Thomas Skelton used Cinemoid #8 in shinbusters, so try Ecolor or Lee #108.
jayvee
Well-Known Member
Thanks for that - what an interesting read!
BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
Fascinating. I was very curious to see what was offered. Having been Tom's student for the entire three years he taught at Yale, I had no idea of any book or sources. He simply shared and demonstrated all he had figured out. I remember he having us work with ten-tins, R40s, keyless porcelain sockets, and tin foil. If you mastered that, you were allowed to use gel. Great designer and great teacher. I feel blessed to have known him and assisted him on several shows.
I have to think the way to learn dance lighting today is to apprentice and watch. Hat's to imagine learning much without dancers.
I have to think the way to learn dance lighting today is to apprentice and watch. Hat's to imagine learning much without dancers.
theatricalmatt
Well-Known Member
Jeff Lelko
Active Member
Very interesting resource. To the OP, while lighting techniques haven't changed too much in the years since that publication was written, the tools available to us most certainly have. Have you considered yet what overall "look" you want on the stage? By look I mean lighting mechanics aside, what (if any) personality do you want the lighting to have? In my opinion lighting should never distract from the talent, but oftentimes I get directors and choreographers wanting the light to move in concert with the performers. It's usually nothing crazy and I'm most certainly of the mindset that moving lights aren't the solution to everything, but supplementing a design with texture or movement (be it moving lights or just effects with static wash lights) can add a lot of character to a performance. Just my two cents. Good luck!
Look at http://anstendig.com/Dancers/harkness5.htm to see how the Harkness Ballet was lit in the late 1960's. Tony Tucci (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-tucci-b0a7bb15) was their set electrician in the early 70's and he spent several months setting up side lights in bullrings in Spain every night while the company was on tour.
MrTemplate
Member
You might also consider reading some portions of my book "A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting". Although the text discusses lighting for a small musical, the system construction, placement, and control could all easily be applied to a dance presentation as well. The teachings include stuff that I learned both from Tom and from Ms. Jennifer Tipton. The 3rd edition also includes what i call a Periodic Table of Basic Lighting Systems, which attempts to show construction techniques for each of the basic directions of light.
Hearthfire
Member
So I need a little advice, please! I'm doing dance lighting for 15 student choreographers (with 8 student designers) and need to pick side light colors. I have 2 LED instruments on each side light position, so I can get shins and mids to any color. But, I still have "regular" shins, mids, heads, high, and tops that I need to pick colors for. These dances are from modern, to ballet, to K-pop, to tap, to Indian and Latin traditional dance and a couple more varied styles. I read the suggested readings, thanks for sharing! Does anyone have any suggestions? THANKS!!!
Lextech
Well-Known Member
I would normally have a cool look at the bottom fixture, just what i like. Knee and mid LEDs work good but in my mind knee and head are better. I almost always have a gobo look in my mids, one side being a softer breakup and the other jagged or pointy, color corrected in half or quarter daylight. Since you mention the word student my top light, at a height over anyone's head, I would have a neutral color that I could use to cover when the dancers stand in front of the boom. In my facility we are all conventional booms at this point, stock plot boom color is bottom to top: R68, R36, Gobo L202, some Rosco Lav dependent on taste, L162. These colors seem to work for us most of the time.
@Hearthfire Allow yourself the possibility of lighting from the sides in dramatically different colors and / or transparencies simultaneously rather than both sides in the same tones simultaneously.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
Well, gel changes of boom units within 6-7 feet between pieces is not unusual and - at least before LED and gel strings - pretty standard means to increase variety.
IIRC Tom generally used warm and cool opposite - so maybe warm shin busters and cool mid sides from one side; cool shin busters and warm mid sides from the other. For him it was about the multi colored shadows and additive "whites".
IIRC Tom generally used warm and cool opposite - so maybe warm shin busters and cool mid sides from one side; cool shin busters and warm mid sides from the other. For him it was about the multi colored shadows and additive "whites".
Hearthfire
Member
Thank you all for your suggestions!
And sorry for not knowing, but who is IIRC Tom, please? Tom Skelton?
And sorry for not knowing, but who is IIRC Tom, please? Tom Skelton?
@Hearthfire Think not only warm and cool simultaneously from opposite sides but consider warm and appreciably warmer or cool and appreciably cooler depending upon scenes and moods. Also consider warm and cool diagonal back-lights from high over opposite shoulders once you've got the front and side positions covered. When you get seriously into back lighting, you'll develop a taste for 2Kw back lights which will have comparatively short gel life but look OH SO good while they last.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
When in doubt, R54. Every time.
BillConnerFASTC
Well-Known Member
Yes - Tom Skleton
