Sydney Dance Company’s momenta, Rafael Bonachela’s newest full-length work, premiered at the Roslyn Packer Theatre before travelling around the country. The performance has been widely acclaimed by theatre critics and not just for the incredible choreography and execution. Lighting designer Damien Cooper has been lauded for his daring lighting design.
“In terms of collaborative input, the highlight is the lighting from Damien Cooper. It is mostly relatively dark, although the colour of that darkness is not always the black we might have expected. As the work progresses, there are hints of dark green, sudden flashes of red, a burst of white cloud, at times a sudden brightness, and at others a mysterious hazy quality. The lighting design is enhanced by the constant presence of a circular rig of 19 spotlights that moves up, down and around in the performing space and limits, at times, where the dancers can gather.”
Michelle Potter, Dance Australia
Damien started his design with the idea of a lighting structure that could change heights and positioning throughout the performance.
“I decided to make that the only light source, in a sense,” he commented. “I tried to work out how many lights I could compress into the smallest amount of space and that was a 3-meter circle truss with 19 x Martin MAC Aura PXLs as close together as we could get them. We put a variable speed chain motor system on it through Simple Motion that allowed us to vary the speed, height and angle of the truss.”
This allowed the MAC Aura PXLs to be positioned anywhere from just off the deck up to 18 metres, depending on the venue. Primarily the lighting pod is a backlight structure and it’s heavily assisted by a Harlequin high-shine floor which allows the light to bounce out of the floor and onto the dancers.
Damien comments that when the MAC Aura PXL was first released he was excited to use one. He admits that he doesn’t use the pixel effects much at all.
“I simply like that they’re a good bright wash workhorse,” he said. “As you can tell from the photos, we were doing lots of narrow beam work. They go down very tight and are made beautifully, like all Martin gear. They’re compact which is great – we all want bright, but we want it small as well.”
Complementing Damien’s lighting was the special smoke effect where he created a cloud in the middle of the space with a couple of Look Solutions Vipers.
“It took a lot of R&D to get the correct smoke temperature,” he explained. “We put a chilling system in to cool the smoke so it floats in the space at exactly the right height. And you know, like with all things smoke, it’s so variable to climate, temperature, humidity, Barometric pressure, whatever else they want to add into the confusion of smoke.”
Chameleon Touring Systems provides all the lighting production for Sydney Dance Company in Australia.
SDC Production Staff:
Technical Director: Guy Harding
Production Electrician and programmer: Tony McCoy
Photos: Pedro Greig
