Lifting the veil on lighting: investigating how stage lighting design can become an embodied practice within South African contemporary dance making.

Abstract

This dissertation began from an impulse to unpack and comprehend my own 15-year lighting design practice, particularly in the context of South African contemporary dance. Attempting to demystify some of the practice and processes of lighting design that are often obscured by misunderstanding and technical jargon, to begin to ‘lift the veil’ on lighting in order to undertake a personal understanding of how my practice impacts on contemporary dance making more tangibly. Moreover, it also aims to open up these practices to others operating in similar fields. This dissertation traces some of the history of predominantly Western theatre lighting design practice and how these conventions inform my understanding of lighting design practice today. This is briefly contextualised in relation to South African contemporary dance which is advocated for being a style of dance that engages with the personal and the political in relation to the ‘now’ of the contemporary world. This dissertation then explores notions of embodied practice and the acquisition and application of knowledge in action. This idea of embodied knowledge is explored in relation to my own practice through a primarily autoethnographic engagement with my lighting design practice and how it impacts contemporary dance making in the contexts that I work in. This is specifically done by analysing two case studies: days like these (2015) and SoliiDad (2019). This analysis looks at how lighting influences the perception and experience of all those involved in the process of performances. This is also explored in relation to others working in a similar context through interviews with other local lighting designers. This dissertation offers qualitative research, through an autoethnographic framework with my position as a lighting designer research-practitioner. The dissertation also incorporates a multi-methodological approach including phenomenology, as primarily advocated in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962, 1968) and the phenomenologically embodied methodologies of self-study and sensory ethnography in order to support the autoethnographic thrust in the study. Key observations emerge from interviews with other local lighting designers including highlighting: that there is no singular approach to lighting design, however, context and one’s personal life experience significantly shape an individual’s practice. In the realm of contemporary dance, which often has at its core the personal (and thus political) engagement with the contemporary world, the lighting designer’s conscious choices and contributions through their lighting design, can possibly contribute a distinct voice in support of the choreographers/dancers making the work. This is usually done in collaboration, through careful discussions and co-creation with the choreographers/dancers. An overarching observation through undertaking this research, is the possible transformative capacity of lighting design, to not only alter space and time but to also infuse layers of meaning and atmosphere. Lighting design is suggested to operate in the liminal areas of Cognitive Psychologist Robert Solso’s (2003) “Level 3 consciousness”; Performance Phenomenologist Susan Kozel’s (2013) notion of “affect” and Lighting Designer Lucy Carter’s (2023) articulation of light as a “sensation”. This transformative nature of lighting design as a sensation/feeling/emotion necessitates an understanding of my own embodied history that impacts this knowledge in practice. This heightened awareness of the role of a lighting designer, as I continue to be a practicing lighting designer, is the greater awareness of making more deliberate and conscious choices in shaping my authorial voice within the context of a production. Understanding a more holistic approach to lighting design practice, that comes from years of practice and a lifetime of experiencing – also as someone who never formally trained in lighting design – I anticipate this research could begin to provide windows to others, who may be interested in a more comprehensive engagement with lighting design practice.