Lighting the Body in Space (Part 2)

Live performance, no matter what the medium, has one unique quality that runs through it. No matter the scale, be it a 3000 seat opera house or a 30 seat black box, the unit of measurement is that of the human form. The body. The average height of a human being is between five and six feet. Quite often the proscenium opening will be over five times that size. That space is filled with scenery and people, yet in the theatre we are often supposed to see one or two people at a time selectively. How does this occur?



Staging is a key factor. One person in a group might be difficult to notice apart from that group. Yet if sixty people are looking at one person, we see the one person. The focus becomes clear.

Similarly setting and costume can help. If a room is green and the sixty people are dressed in blue and one is dressed in orange, we will pay attention to the one in orange. Again the focus becomes clear.

But often we do not want such gross generalizations of focus. Perhaps everyone in the crowd is talking to one another, including the one we want focus on. Perhaps even our body of interest is wearing blue. What then?



Through subtle transformations of lighting we can guide the focus to the appropriate speaking body. Various visual cues can be given to help us see what we should be looking at. Color can be a useful tool, as can the angle of the light and the revelation of the sculptural form of the body. When one looks out over a great distance, objects that are close to us appear clear and in great detail. When they get further and further away they flatten out and begin to take on a blue/purple cast.



In the theatre we can use these principles of nature to guide our decision making. We can apply them literally to make various "naturalistic" effects. But more interestingly they can be applied dramatically to lend a sense of tension and urgency to a scene. Perhaps a scene deals with the conflict between two characters in different psychological spaces. What nature takes as two aspects of the same thing can be deconstructed and recombined to create a sense of visual tension that matches the psychological tension on stage.



We have a tendency to equate bright clear illumination with the truth. Or with a particular kind of truth. And shadow, consequently with with lies and deceit. Yet the body hides its existential truth in the artificiality of full shadowless illumination. The Theatrical Body is Language made form. That language needs its pauses and punctuation, its shadows, as much as it needs its nouns and adjectives, its highlights.



While yesterday I spoke about different performative forms having different notions of the body, in truth it is more a matter of balance. Richard Foreman's Theatre utilizes the Body as Kinetic Sculpture as much as Body as Manifested Language. William Forsythe's Ballet utilizes Body as Manifested Language as much as Body as Kinetic Sculpture. In the end the final composition of the text(aural, linguistic and kinetic) helps determine the final composition of the design. It gives us clues towards negotiating the various currents of visual storytelling, dramatic tension and focus.