Working with Choreographers...

[texskittles]

Am I crazy, or are choreographers just statistically more likely to drive LDs to insanity?

I don't want to go into details, but if anyone has a story about working with choreographers that might cheer me up (rough tech week), I would forever love them.

 

[mstaylor]

I could tell you some interesting stories about choreographers but I my first wife was one.

 

[derekleffew]

Being ingrained from an early again to perform thru masochistic pain eventually manifests in sadistic tendencies.

• "Fame costs, and right here is where you start payin'."
• (After they've taken injured Paul away to the knee hospital) "You ever think about what you're going to do when you stop dancing?"
• "The white tights with black leotards make the girls' legs look fat. They have such pretty faces. Can't you light just their faces to de-emphasize their legs?"
• "You do an eclectic celebration of the dance! You do Fosse, Fosse, Fosse! You do Martha Graham, Martha Graham, Martha Graham! Or Twyla, Twyla, Twyla! Or Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd, Michael Kidd! Or Madonna, Madonna, Madonna! ... ... but you keep it all inside."

Speaking in baseless prejudiced generalities, I'd rank:
(us normal people) < < Lighting Designers < < < Choreographers < Opera Directors < Disney Imagineers
on the batcrap/whack-a-do continuum.

I've very worried about how MrsFooter is going to respond to this thread. Prepare the bad word censor.

 

[Ric]

Is this where we insert dancer jokes?

Dancers can only count to 4, but start on 5 ( 5,6,7,8...)

 

[chausman]

Dancers can only count to 4, but start on 5 ( 5,6,7,8...)

And doesn't it take two tries? 5...6...5..6..7..8

 

[shiben]

Am I crazy, or are choreographers just statistically more likely to drive LDs to insanity?

I don't want to go into details, but if anyone has a story about working with choreographers that might cheer me up (rough tech week), I would forever love them.

How bad could it have possibly been? You probably got asked to re-focus, then got that as a demand, then asked to re-color because that made the tights look nicer, then probably were ordered to make some cues "better" with no real direction as to what that meant, then got told your shin busters were hurting the dancers and could you move them but keep the light looking the same, and can we make the distance between the legs bigger but not have any change in appearance from the house, and there is this one light thats getting in this girl's eyes right before she goes into a lift, but the lift is too dark and I cant see her very well so could you please move the light so she cant see it at all but I want more lights so maybe put 2 on there but again, she cant see them at all so she can see her lift partner and while your at it the stage lift is going to be moving in my piece now can you ensure that we can see the dancers when they come up? Also the footlights are too hot when they are down there so maybe make those cooler some how... Also they distract the dancers and make it hard to find CC so make them dimmer. And can you put some glowtape here? Thats not too many notes, is it (insert a seductive smile from the choreographer here), because I dont want to be a jerk but its just so important that we dont have distracted dancers, but again they cant be in the dark because then would it be art?

I feel your pain friend. Lighting dance is fun, isnt it.

 

[Les]

I love when they put a row of dancers six feet from the cyc, ask for their faces to be lit, then complain because the cyc gets washed out.

 

[SteveB]

Choreographers are notoriously weak at verbalization skills, in my experiences.

Which typically is one of the things taught in design class, but not often how to communicate with dancers and choreographers.

Which possibly is one of the reasons many top LD's in the theatrical end of the business had some sort of background or basis in dance (Tipton, Skelton, Emmons). They seemingly have a refined ability to read minds.

 

[derekleffew]

When I used to design dance, I found it particularly difficult to get choreographers to talk to me about their work. Perhaps it's because dancers aren't used to expressing themselves verbally. They'd say, "I don't want to schedule a meeting because I don't know anything about lighting." But when I would finally get the choreographer tied up in the interrogation room, I'd start by (inquisitively, not accusatorily) asking, "Why are we doing this piece?" or "Why did you choose this music?" I'd tell them, "Talk to me in your terms, I'll catch up. I know what a pas de deux is. You don't have to know about Lekos/watts/color numbers--that's my job. Let's talk moods, emotions, plotlines. Is there a 'message' we are trying to convey?" And so on. Sometimes this approach worked; often it didn't.



EDIT: Posted simultaneously with SteveB's post above. Just because he beat me to it doesn't me that I'm not going to redundantly say the same thing again.

 

[shiben]

...But when I would finally get the choreographer tied up in the interrogation room, I'd start by (inquisitively, not accusatorily) asking, "Why are we doing this piece?" or "Why did you choose this music?"

One time you had this experience or once you had them in your dungeon? Either way, rather creepy Derek... I make it a point not to tie up my creative team partners...

 

[derekleffew]

...I make it a point not to tie up my creative team partners...

If you've never held a Costume Designer at gunpoint to force him to show you costume swatches, or threatened a Scenic Designer's children when she doesn't want to draw you a vertical section, I'm afraid you haven't been a Lighting Designer long enough.

 

[zmb]

If you've never held a Costume Designer at gunpoint to force him to show you costume swatches, or threatened a Scenic Designer's children when she doesn't want to draw you a vertical section, I'm afraid you haven't been a Lighting Designer long enough.

Or had to nag a director to decide if they wanted cloud gobos or not after they came to you wondering to have a cloud effect and then try to figure out when they will be available to put in the instruments that've been waiting for them to arrive.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

I was baptized by fire into the theatre and lighting world in high school by a choreographer/director. (She did both)


Derek, I love your ordering, but I feel like Opera designers need to be in there somewhere.


I once had a dancer freak out at me because I was using a $4 roll of "marley" tape for a non marley purpose. What can I say, 2" vinyl tape is very useful, and when your space only puts down the marley once every two years, can't let those rolls go to waste.

 

[rochem]

From a production meeting last week:

"We want around one hundred handwritten sheets of paper to come down from above during the number. They'll start off with just one every few seconds, then grow into a constant stream of descending paper, but it's extremely important that each piece of paper comes in individually - I don't want them coming in in groups. You can just tie them to linesets, right?"

 

[jglodeklights]

Yeeep, I've had some whacked out choreographers. A few years back we did a walk through of one's piece and she was very specific about isolating certain areas and she, "could deal with" the areas not being quite so tight as she would have liked. They were all on the opposite side once we performed. Dancers/Choreographers LOVE changing things without telling designers. She also kept giving notes to the stage that were meant for me during tech........ I can't hear you unless you look directly as me as I'm sitting in this concrete bunker called the booth.

More recently, I had a choreographer completely incapable of walking me through her piece. Every separate movement by a dancer was a different section.... yeah. Running the piece with her musicians...... never happened til first performance and completely changed things since she also explained everything in terms of them.

Yeah, but I still love lighting dance.

 

[Grog12]

I love dance. There are days I'd rather jump from a 10 story building into a kiddie pool but I love it.

Currently I've had a rash of choreographers who "hate color". I'm sorry there's 4 other pieces on the show that need it and if only nc booms don't work for you we're going to have some issues.

 

[jglodeklights]

I love dance. There are days I'd rather jump from a 10 story building into a kiddie pool but I love it.

Currently I've had a rash of choreographers who "hate color". I'm sorry there's 4 other pieces on the show that need it and if only nc booms don't work for you we're going to have some issues.

This is exactly why I always try to have the ability to swap my boom color between pieces. Last show was actually three different shows: 1. Group of African-American female choreographers, 2. 3 choreographers from local dance Co-op space, 3. a mixer of 2 choreographers from each. I couldn't change my highs, so they stayed L202, but the mids and shins changed from everything from R54 and R87 to L200 and R56.

 

[MrsFooter]

As a former dancer and choreographer turned lighting designer, I've always felt that my ability to communicate with choreographers was one of my strengths. It's not so much about needing to know the language, per say; "flippy kicky jump" works just as well as "tour jete." But more about understanding the language and purpose behind the movement. That sounds really pretentious and artsy-fartsy, I know. But there's something to being able to see each movement as a word in their message, as opposed to a bunch of bunheads flailing around on stage. It's deciphering that language that I find so much more intriguing and challenging than doing musicals.

That being said, if I have one more dancer/teacher complain that there's light in their eyes (the heads are at 9%!) or that there's shadows on the dancers' faces (that's kinda the point of gobos!) I will projectile vomit on their shoes.

 

[chausman]

That being said, if I have one more dancer/teacher complain that there's light in their eyes (the heads are at 9%!) ... I will projectile vomit on their shoes.

Oh yes...it's soooooo fun isn't it...

 

[Grog12]

; "flippy kicky jump" works just as well as "tour jete." But more about understanding the language and purpose behind the movement.

This makes me incredibly happy...namely because its incredibly true. We just remounted a full length work and one of my Q notes was to go on shakey hand box thing...when I was trying to remember what it was my Artistic Director knew exactly what I was talking about.

I'm rather lucky, I have good repoirte with my Artistic Director and Associate Artistic Director its when I have outside choreographers that things get hairy.

But it's still all about building repartee with the choreographer, as an LD you have to understand those who can't explain, explain to those who can't understand, and have the patience to do both.