Light on their feet: Dancers learn craft at Theatre School
Contemporary Dance chair Michael Montanaro shows the importance of light through a publicity photo he took of dancers, above. He choreographed eight of 10 acts for the Cirque du Soleil show Varekai, and is still flown out to cities in the U.S. when the director needs him to update the show. “It’s a different type of choreography” he said, “because it’s not for dancers, but for acrobats with more strength but less stamina. It’s like movement management.”
Photo by Michael Montanaro
What would you do if your cyclorama was too cold and there was no gel in your pin spot?
Don’t know? Until last week, neither did many of the 32 Contemporary Dance students taking an intensive two-week lighting workshop in collaboration with the National Theatre School of Canada.
The students not only pick up the lighting lingo but they develop a sense of what it’s like to work under pressure in a real-world situation.
Christine Germain, one of the dancers, called it “a fantastic experience.”
Like other second-year students, Germain and her classmate Hannah Naiman have been assigned to work with a third-year choreographer, who in turn works with one of the NTS’s lighting design students.
Their job is to put together a dance production for a showcase this Saturday. This year, there are 15 choreographers and six lighting designers cramming to put something together with limited time and limited space.
Since returning from Christmas break, the students have had to spend at least two hours every weekday at the Monument National on St. Lawrence Blvd. while maintaining their regular course load.
They must choreograph and rehearse their productions while gaining such practical experience as hanging and focusing heavy lights. Those who aren’t slated to use the stages work in hallways or empty rooms to keep up. Teams fortunate enough to have a stage are encouraged to use their time as wisely as possible.
The time and space constraints are exactly the point, says Contemporary Dance Department chair Michael Montanaro, who helped pioneer the workshop three years ago and has watched it grow in scope.
“It’s more of a process-driven workshop than a product-driven one,” he said. “Wonderful things happen [by] putting all these creative people in not enough space.”
Associate Professor Silvy Panet-Raymond agreed. “The restrictions are wonderful tools. They don’t feel like a problem. They feel like an opportunity.
“The challenge is how to work in such a concentrated time and address new ways of working. You have to develop all of your senses — bring into focus a lot of possibilities and move fluidly between them.”
An added pressure, albeit positive, is a visit from Francis Reid, one of the world’s foremost lighting design authorities. He observes the teams’ efforts and offers comments and critiques.
The workshop came into being four years ago to provide Concordia’s dance students with some practical lighting experience and at the same time give NTS’s lighting students a chance to understand the challenges in lighting a dance production.
“Lights are more often than not used to make people visible,” Montanaro complained.
In the workshop the students can see and practice things like an “angle demonstration,” where a stationary body’s appearance changes with a moving light.
In past years, students have stunned Montanaro with their creativity. He recalls one group using light to create the illusion of people floating in the air.
For some of the students, merely understanding words like “cyclorama” and “pin spot” is enough. According to Hannah Naiman, “Now we understand what we’re talking about.”
Front page and table of contents
Next story: 