Dance Show Lighting Advice?!

[Harvey]

Looking for other creative design thoughts on my little situation:

 

Am designing lighting for a dance showcase that has a vast range of styles, dances and songs it it.

Because of small budgets, I don't have the luxury of rgb LED sidelighting and on each boom can only have one profile and one par can fixture.

I've definitely got my mind set on using the par cans at mid height in a slightly warm colour, however am stuck deciding what to do with the profile.

I reckon the show would benefit from having a slightly cooler 5600k sidelight at mid level aswell, but seem to be stuck in thinking the profiles would be best used at shin level in a warm colour also to blend with the mid height par can.

Any thoughts on what you think would work best in this situation?

Considering putting the shinbuster in a cool colour and opening up the beam so it also covers dancers faces where possible but worried this may leave them looking eerie from the uplighting look, or that it would look odd if paired with a warm tone mid height par.

Help?!

[Don Allen]

I consider shinbusters for tap and ballet, and shutter them off for feet and legs only.

 

How many dancers do you have across the stage. I use RGBAWU/W led wall washers rigged vertically for dance side light and have them at shoulder height, angled slightly downwards, so the light is not blocked by the first dancer, but can light head and shoulders or dancers further across the stage. I do the same on both sides. I also use 10 degrees par16 birdies with barn doors as shinbusters, usually from DSL and DSR to cover the line of legs from the front.

 

Sorry, did not reply to your post, I initially used par64 for sidelight as they provide good punch for saturated colours, only disadvantage is no shutters or barndoors, but you can use narrow lamps if you have them. A lot of people have been giving away parcans so they can be picked up for free at times. Although you only have one colour at a time with parcans, you can do a colour change during the show if you have access to the lights. Best to use one person on each side, make sure your colour frames are an easy slide, or use metal spring paper clips. Try using the profiles DSL and DSR as a low sidelight, you will be able to shutter the beam off the floor and keep the light off the faces, however you may be able to take advantage of the dancers silhuetes on the rear cyc, so do not cut off the top shutter for this to work fully.

 

Par56 are a usefull substitute, just use two side by side.

 

My favourite side light colour is Lee201, which is a colour correction but gives a crisp cool light.

 

Because you will have two different light sources available from the front, you can use either or both at any time to provide different lighting for each dance number to add to your sidelight and provide more atmosphere.

[GridGirl]

Is it an option at all to change gels between numbers in the sidelight? Opens up your options a lot.

[Jivemaster]

Side light is great for real dance shows as the faces are (almost) unimportant, it's the shapes movement and timing that is important.

 

However if it's a a dance school(s) show, no-one's gone to see the dancing each person has gone to see their child (or sibling) do their dancing, so face light is necessary.

[paulears]

The other thing is the height - I was amazed recently how different in height primary school kids can be - in one number (kids in the same age group banded class) we had a couple tall enough to be considered adult height, and others shorter than my own 6 yr old grandson? I'd not envisaged this height range. In pro shows, you'd have the source at the right height to get under arms and extended legs, but this is head height for kids, so if you go lower that works, until the tall ones come. However - all that said. Side lighting being modelling light is often pointless without dancer technique. A bit like when you light Irish style dancing and there is hardly any upper body input, and when legs are extended, it's towards the audience. You also get in school shows, very poor blocking - so lots of clumps of kids and lots of empty stage - so your sidelight just lights the nearest, and they block the light from the rest. I'm starting to think sidelight is not really very useful at all for young people's shows. How many scenes of Senior Ballet? Worth it?

[gareth]

Shins do a lot of useful work in a 'proper' dance rig - so assuming you're doing something like a dance college showcase which is all dance (and not just a school show which has a dance element among other things), if I were in your shoes I'd definitely use the profiles at floor level as shins. Colour-wise - you don't necessarily have to put the same colour into the booms on both sides. Try mixing it up colour-wise, and maybe try using the shins from one side and the mids from the other just to get a bit of variation.

 

And as GridGirl said, if you have someone who can act as a stage LX for the show, you can plot some colour changes for the booms - even if it's just an interval change to give you some variation.

[alistermorton]

My favourite side light colour is Lee201, which is a colour correction but gives a crisp cool light.

 

Slightly off topic, but can I suggest also looking at the Lee 500 series of colour corrections - kinder on skin tones, I find (less greeny) but still crisp and cool.