Contemporary Performance Lighting is a coming of age story for the field of lighting design. On the shoulders of a century of technical and artistic progress, a collection of international designers and thinkers usher in a new era for our discipline one in which meaning finally becomes the central pursuit. Seasoned practitioners and new designers alike will find inspiration in these terrific explorations. * Deanna Fitzgerald, Lighting Designer and Vice Dean, University of Arizona, USA * Light that immaterial material with the power to dematerialize performs as an agential force in our daily lives. But within the shadowy realms of theatres, galleries, found spaces and nocturnal outdoor sites, it is employed as a transformational aesthetic medium by artists of technical alchemy attentive to the subtleties and intensities of its appearing.
This timely anthology critically celebrates light as a performative medium and an event in itself. Meditating on processes, practices and projects its contributors confront the politics of perception and constructions of visuality to challenge conventional hierarchies and assumptions not only in the world of theatre but within the world as theatre. Chapters explore its relevance to the performing, visual and spatial arts including architecture and urban design to reveal how lighting design integrates effects and affects to orchestrate, enliven and shape our individual and communal experiences. * Dorita Hannah, Designer and Independent Academic, New Zealand * A thought-provoking and much-needed volume of researcher-practitioner essays that brings to the table a wide range of diverse and extensive discourses on the intricacies, working philosophies, and nature of light(ing) in performance making. Along with rigorous positionings of the lighting designer, this collection is full of exemplary, detailed accounts of the curious and sensuous pleasures of participatory performances, environmental scenographies, and collaborative processes with dance and theatre makers Without a doubt this volume is necessary reading for scholars, students and practitioners engaged in performance making and cross-disciplinary studies, and beyond. It is also of interest to performance lovers. -- Michelle Mann * Theatre and Performance Design *
