Small Victories

Okay, so yeah minor failure there for a day or two. The idea of blogging every day is pretty sound, but obviously there will be times when I'm going to be busy or maybe just not have a lot on my mind. I'll rip myself for for it, but for now we'll just have to continue going with the flow. No, you don't get a say in it. I never claimed that the blog was a democracy. If you can't take the heat...you shouldn't throw stones? Whatever.

An exciting job opportunity has come up. Even though I just talked about it a few days ago, a theatrical production/lighting design job has opened up at Towson, working with their Department of Dance. I'm very excited! Dance lighting has sort of unintentionally and unofficially become my specialty. I love working with dancers and choreographers because they're usually just bubbling over with ideas and creativity. They have a vision, but they are often willing to say, "Hey, I kinda' want this to look like this, what can you do for me?" That's great, because it really lets me play around with all kinds of different ideas.

The hardest part about doing lighting for dance is trying not to reuse the same look too many times. Ultimately, you have a somewhat limited pallete for the duration of a single show. This means that it is necessary to reuse colors in different ways so that individual dances are unique. One of the greatest challenges for me is when I look at the choreography and look at the costumes and think, "Damn...I really want to use the exact same colors I used on the dance RIGHT BEFORE THIS ONE!" That's the challenge though, to find something that's both unique and appropriate, and make it exceptional. That's part of why lighting is so fulfilling. Unlike my current job, where I basically just apply the problem I encounter to the template of my knowledge for a solution (like a robot...or a monkey, either of which could be trained to do this job), it requires creativity to make a show that really hangs together. Dance shows have such diverse acts that it is really the challenge and responsibility of the lighting designer to give it a very cohesive feel. Given the chance to be work with the choreographers throughout their creative process, I feel like I am going to be able to make some really awesome looks.

Crap...I still need to try to get the job.

Macbeth continues tomorrow morning.