Description
Book SynopsisThis is the first major collection of critical responses to performance lighting and includes contributions from award-winning lighting designers, researchers and artists. Showcasing recent examples of work with case studies of lighting practices in Britain, Europe, the US and China combined with theoretical and analytical approaches to practice, this will enrich your understanding of the role and potential of light in performance and related creative practices. This volume explores three core themes and provides a framework for thinking through the role of light in performance:1. Experience considers both the audience''s experience of light and the ways in which light influences the experience of performers2. Creativity examines both the creative, performative capacities of light in performance, as well as the creative practices of lighting designers3. Meaning offers an expanded view of performance aesthetics by examining the capacity of light to influence and generate meaning w
Trade ReviewContemporary Performance Lighting is a coming of age story for the field of lighting design. On the shoulders of a century of technical and artistic progress, a collection of international designers and thinkers usher in a new era for our discipline – one in which meaning finally becomes the central pursuit. Seasoned practitioners and new designers alike will find inspiration in these terrific explorations. * Deanna Fitzgerald, Lighting Designer and Vice Dean, University of Arizona, USA *
Light – that immaterial material with the power to dematerialize – performs as an agential force in our daily lives. But within the shadowy realms of theatres, galleries, ‘found’ spaces and nocturnal outdoor sites, it is employed as a transformational aesthetic medium by artists of technical alchemy attentive to the subtleties and intensities of its ‘appearing’. This timely anthology critically celebrates light as a performative medium and an event in itself. Meditating on processes, practices and projects its contributors confront the politics of perception and constructions of visuality to challenge conventional hierarchies and assumptions not only in the world of theatre but within the world as theatre. Chapters explore its relevance to the performing, visual and spatial arts — including architecture and urban design — to reveal how lighting design integrates effects and affects to orchestrate, enliven and shape our individual and communal experiences. * Dorita Hannah, Designer and Independent Academic, New Zealand *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Introduction: Thinking Light –
Katherine Graham (University of York, UK), Scott Palmer (University of Leeds, UK) and Kelli Zezulka (University of Salford, UK) Section One: Experience 1.1 Theatrical Atmospheres and the Experience of Light,
Scott Palmer (University of Leeds, UK) 1.2 Felt Dramaturgies of Light,
David Shearing (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, UK) 1.3 Transforming the Visitor Experience Through Light: Tivoli Gardens: A Case Study,
Jesper Kongshaug (architect and lighting designer, Denmark) 1.4 Narratives, Choreographies and Felt Experiences of Light,
Lucy Carter (lighting designer, UK) 1.5 The Unbearable Brightness of Beams: Light, Darkness and Obscure Images,
Yaron Shyldkrot (University of Leeds, UK) Section Two: Creativity 2.1 Language, Creativity and Collaboration,
Kelli Zezulka (University of Salford, UK) 2.2 Northern Lights: Natural Light Phenomenon as Stage Lighting Concept,
Michael Breiner (lighting designer and Danish National School of Performing Arts, Denmark) 2.3 Light in Contemporary Chinese Opera,
Psyche Chui (Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, China) 2.4 RashDash: Fusing Feminism and Light,
Katharine Williams (lighting designer, UK) 2.5 Reflecting on Light,
Jennifer Tipton (lighting designer, USA) Section Three: Meaning 3.1 Aesthetics, Materiality and Meaning-Making in Scenographic Light,
Katherine Graham (University of York, UK) 3.2 Storytelling with Light,
Paule Constable (lighting designer, UK) 3.3 Tracing the Light: Light and the Process of Looking,
Nick Hunt and Hansjorg Schmidt (Rose Bruford College, UK) 3.4 LX
ludens: Mediations Upon the Play of Light,
Christopher Baugh (University of Leeds, UK) Index
