Change text size : a a a



News and features index



News items
What's happening at BRB

Features

 Gaylene Cummerfield
December 6, 2008
 David Bintley on 2008's Claras
November 14, 2008
 Welcome to the jungle
October 22, 2008
 David Bintley on the story of Sylvia
October 22, 2009
 David Bintley on his Sylvia reworking
October 22, 2008
 Robert Parker on Enigma Variations
October 22, 2008
 Wolfgang Stollwitzer interview
October 5, 2008
 The Beasts within
October 4, 2008
 Lei Zhao
September 6, 2008
 Kristen McGarrity
September 6, 2008
 Behind the scenes: Department for Learning
August 18, 2008
 New faces look back
July 14, 2008
 Birmingham Royal Ballet on Classic FM
July 8, 2008
 Notes on Petrushka (full version)
July 4, 2008
 The history of Le Baiser de la fée
July 4, 2008
 Notes on Card Game
July 4, 2008
 Jonathan Payn on BBC Radio York, Spring 2008
June 18, 2008
 Ambra Vallo on Giselle
June 13, 2008
 Desmond Kelly
June 6, 2008
 The Fairy's Kiss
May 13, 2008
 The history of Card Game
May 10, 2008
 Petrushka
May 9, 2008
 Stravinsky: the real deal
May 3, 2008
 Your personal profile
April 22, 2008
 Behind-the-scenes: wardrobe
April 2, 2008
 South-West tour notes
March 20, 2008
 2008-09 season
March 20, 2008
 North-East tour notes
March 19, 2008
 Anniek Soobroy
March 10, 2008
 Céline Gittens
March 7, 2008
 The light fantastic
February 12, 2008
 Dominic Antonucci
February 11, 2008
 Japan 2008 desktop wallpaper
January 11, 2008
 Behind the scenes: Diana Childs
December 7, 2007
 Fantasy and Reality
December 1, 2007
 An Entertainment of Genius
December 1, 2007
 Beauty and the Beast
November 19, 2007
 Stravinsky autumn 2008
September 19, 2007
 Angela Paul
October 9, 2007
 All that jazz
October 8, 2007
 Cardiff2008
October 5, 2007
 Enjoy Strictly dancing?
October 3, 2007
 New arrivals 2007
September 24, 2007
 Tyrone Singleton
September 21, 2007
 Edward II
August 10, 2007
 Strictly dancing
August 10, 2007
 Take Five costume rehearsals
June 22, 2007
 Mary Goodhew: the making of a dancer
June 12, 2007
 Michael O'Hare
June 1, 2007
 200708 Season
March 28, 2007
 Carl Davis interview
February 7, 2007
 Pas de deux - Stravinsky and Balanchine
January 29, 2007
 Ballet Hoo! aftershow interviews
October 7, 2006
 The Acrobat and the Ringmaster
April 20, 2006
 Transaction Charges
July 14, 2006

 
Press releases
Read BRB's current press releases

Reviews
Look up external reviews and articles on the Company.

Discussion forum
Join in the discussions on BRB and its performances, hosted by ballet.co.uk

The light fantastic



(part two)



With sets of such proportions, especially those for touring productions, maintenance can be a big job. 'Within the lighting rig itself we tour a minimal amount of spares,' Reveals Nick. 'We spend a lot of time on preparation, and a lot of time on maintenance. The Shakespeare Suite back wall, we got out last week. It's made up of ten separate panels, which are all controlled from a computer to run the shutters in and out, and unfortunately one of the modules has decided for some reason not to come to life. But by doing all this beforehand we can fix it, so even before we go on stage, we know everything is in good working order.'

'Things we know are going to be problematic - things we've had fail before - we get spares for, but it's matter of how far do you go, how far do you back things up? At the outset of a production we try and invest in decent quality because of the longevity of repertory. Swan Lake is a 1981 production, and for Checkmate there's bits of set and costume from the 1970s, so to actually invest in decent quality at the outset is worthwhile.'

So with all of these lighting effects behind the dancers, what stops them becoming silhouetted? 'One of the key lighting positions for ballet is the side lighting,' explains Nick. The filament in the lights glows white hot to illuminate the dancers, but when you fade or dim the lights it cools and the filament starts turning yellow and reddening, so there's a gel over the top to whiten the light it produces and make it more like natural daylight. Another one then adds a touch of lavender to make it slightly crisper.

'A lot of classical ballets use the front-of-house lights, which give a very flat lighting effect. Normally you'd only use them to bring out the expressions on the dancers faces so they can tell the story. The side lights are then used just to add some depth to the dancers and the stage. But there's no front-of-house lighting in Orpheus... or Shakespeare Suite, it's all done with side-lights and overheads. The first picks the dancers out, and the latter adds the richness of colour.'

Using the lights in this way can cause problems for the dancers however. 'If they're having to exit stage quickly they're having to run into the beams of these strong side lights,' Nick says, 'but invariably you can fend them off with strategically placed members of stage management. The bigger problem is that if they're doing a lot of spinning with no lights in front, it can become very disorientating for them. The front edge of the stage can just be a black void out over the orchestra pit as well, so we're looking now at putting a thin line of blue LEDs [tiny light emitters] just to give them a reference as they're spinning round.'

Without the development of LEDs, productions like The Orpheus Suite would not have been possible. 'It's snowballing now,' says Nick. 'There were LED Christmas tree lights in DIY stores this Christmas. I can't think of another product that gives you such great colour mixing. We use red, blue and green LEDs in strips inside the sliding panels, and they combine to make all the colours of the spectrum, in the same way that dots of yellow, blue, pink and black ink can make all the colours in a newspaper. The wall panels are only about 200mm thick, and the LEDs fill that entire space vertically.'

But with all this technology, many things are reassuringly simple. 'The panels themselves move like a huge set of sliding doors so that the dancers can appear from between them,' reveals Nick, before joking that 'they're manual, or 'handraulic'. 'They go out on computerised motors at curtain up, and for key transitions it's pre-programmed, but during the majority of the show we move them ourselves.' Doing it this way suits the team perfectly. 'We could automate them for the entire length of the ballet,' he concedes, 'but you'd overcomplicate things unnecessarily. It's important to keep a balance between what you can do and what you need to do!'

ENDS

PRINT THIS PAGE
  Contact Us | Legal Statements | Credits | Discussion Forum
® Birmingham Royal Ballet | Company registration no. 3320538 | Registered charity no. 1061012
The light fantastic

(part two)



With sets of such proportions, especially those for touring productions, maintenance can be a big job. 'Within the lighting rig itself we tour a minimal amount of spares,' Reveals Nick. 'We spend a lot of time on preparation, and a lot of time on maintenance. The Shakespeare Suite back wall, we got out last week. It's made up of ten separate panels, which are all controlled from a computer to run the shutters in and out, and unfortunately one of the modules has decided for some reason not to come to life. But by doing all this beforehand we can fix it, so even before we go on stage, we know everything is in good working order.'

'Things we know are going to be problematic - things we've had fail before - we get spares for, but it's matter of how far do you go, how far do you back things up? At the outset of a production we try and invest in decent quality because of the longevity of repertory. Swan Lake is a 1981 production, and for Checkmate there's bits of set and costume from the 1970s, so to actually invest in decent quality at the outset is worthwhile.'

So with all of these lighting effects behind the dancers, what stops them becoming silhouetted? 'One of the key lighting positions for ballet is the side lighting,' explains Nick. The filament in the lights glows white hot to illuminate the dancers, but when you fade or dim the lights it cools and the filament starts turning yellow and reddening, so there's a gel over the top to whiten the light it produces and make it more like natural daylight. Another one then adds a touch of lavender to make it slightly crisper.

'A lot of classical ballets use the front-of-house lights, which give a very flat lighting effect. Normally you'd only use them to bring out the expressions on the dancers faces so they can tell the story. The side lights are then used just to add some depth to the dancers and the stage. But there's no front-of-house lighting in Orpheus... or Shakespeare Suite, it's all done with side-lights and overheads. The first picks the dancers out, and the latter adds the richness of colour.'

Using the lights in this way can cause problems for the dancers however. 'If they're having to exit stage quickly they're having to run into the beams of these strong side lights,' Nick says, 'but invariably you can fend them off with strategically placed members of stage management. The bigger problem is that if they're doing a lot of spinning with no lights in front, it can become very disorientating for them. The front edge of the stage can just be a black void out over the orchestra pit as well, so we're looking now at putting a thin line of blue LEDs [tiny light emitters] just to give them a reference as they're spinning round.'

Without the development of LEDs, productions like The Orpheus Suite would not have been possible. 'It's snowballing now,' says Nick. 'There were LED Christmas tree lights in DIY stores this Christmas. I can't think of another product that gives you such great colour mixing. We use red, blue and green LEDs in strips inside the sliding panels, and they combine to make all the colours of the spectrum, in the same way that dots of yellow, blue, pink and black ink can make all the colours in a newspaper. The wall panels are only about 200mm thick, and the LEDs fill that entire space vertically.'

But with all this technology, many things are reassuringly simple. 'The panels themselves move like a huge set of sliding doors so that the dancers can appear from between them,' reveals Nick, before joking that 'they're manual, or 'handraulic'. 'They go out on computerised motors at curtain up, and for key transitions it's pre-programmed, but during the majority of the show we move them ourselves.' Doing it this way suits the team perfectly. 'We could automate them for the entire length of the ballet,' he concedes, 'but you'd overcomplicate things unnecessarily. It's important to keep a balance between what you can do and what you need to do!'

ENDS