Ace lighting designer Gyandev Singh has modified the notion of lighting by permitting it to grow to be a personality on stage
Ace lighting designer Gyandev Singh has modified the notion of lighting by permitting it to grow to be a personality on stage
The dancer spins gracefully on to centre stage and strikes a pose. Gyandev Singh sits in a darkish room overlooking the proscenium. He gently pushes two of the 60 switches on the lighting panel. A blue gentle washes over the dancer earlier than she fades into darkness. And thunderous applause fills the corridor.
Lighting design, particularly for classical dance, has gained appreciable prominence within the final decade. While Indian classical dance varieties historically relied on daylight and lamp gentle, historic practices inspired a theatrical use of shadow. According to some hereditary gurus, a lamp gentle was saved close to the face to light up the dancer’s expressions when she carried out a abhinaya piece seated. The lighting necessities modified because the dance type transitioned to the proscenium from temples and royal courts. In the center of the twentieth century, as classical dance started showing extra often on the stage, it was lit by the resident technicians of auditoriums who employed a harsh, theatrical technique. While worldwide dance had an extended historical past of proscenium areas, its lighting design had additionally developed to accommodate interplay between the dancing physique and the sunshine designer. In India, the proscenium was a brand new residence to a historic type, making illumination the one precedence in dance lighting.
This technique continued till the late Nineties and early 2000; then got here firms like Nrityagram (based by Protima Bedi) that started touring with their very own lighting designer. While the evolution was gradual, the visible oeuvre of the dance started reworking to accommodate a extra worldwide sensibility. One of probably the most vital turning factors was the Kathak exponent Aditi Mangaldas’ 2006 collaboration with Fabiana Piccoli for ‘Timeless’. This manufacturing introduced a completely novel, worldwide dance aesthetic to the Indian stage. At the time, Aditi was attempting to find younger college students of lighting design who may execute Piccoli’s plans. The younger, unassuming Gyandev Singh stepped as much as the problem, and a few would argue that lighting for classical dance would by no means be the identical once more.
A profession in lighting
Gyandev Singh graduated from the National School of Drama with a specialisation in design and course. Having dabbled in appearing and documentary filmmaking, he gravitated in the direction of lighting because it appeared like a wise and sustainable profession alternative.
From Kumudini Lakhia’s choreographic work ‘Miraqi’
| Photo Credit: Courtesy: Gyandev SIngh
His early initiatives had been throughout the realm of theatre, in affiliation with artistes like Roysten Abel and Abhilash Pillai, exploring the concept of sunshine in a extra pure sense. Yet, his early publicity to Bharatanatyam via shut household pal Navtej Singh Johar, left him inquisitive about gentle within the area of classical dance. “I asked myself how can we create psychological and emotional contexts through design?,” says Gyandev, who’s at the moment in Ahmedabad making a documentary movie on veteran dancer-choreographer Kumudini Lakhia. “A situation on stage can be shown through so many different metaphors. How can light enable the narrative?” This important strategy has been the bedrock of his design philosophy, fascinating senior dancers corresponding to Leela Samson, Malavika Sarukkai, Ananda Shankar Jayant and others. He asserts that the notion of lighting as a manufacturing side ought to shift from a technical to a creative one.
While discussing his most important influences, Gyandev credit Fabiana Piccoli for altering his perspective dramatically. “Fabiana coaxed me into adopting a more liberal, inclusive design ideology,” he says. “When we travelled abroad on tours, I would watch other productions and realise the scope of lighting design on the stage.” He first applied these strategies on tour with Leela Samson’s manufacturing, ‘Charishnu’, which integrated all of the classical dance varieties. As early as this manufacturing, Gyandev’s signature type was evident, the place gentle turned one other character on stage.
To dancers who’re used to marking out their positions on stage with tape on the ground, Gyandev Singh’s strategies could appear radical. “What differentiates us from cinema? It is the live-ness of our performances. Can lighting be an act of live artistry along with music and dance?” He argues that the language of spots and washes with ground tape will quickly be a factor of the previous and means that gentle ought to meet the dancer the place he/she is on stage. To clarify this additional, the designer employs the allegory of negotiation. “If the light and the dancer are in conversation, the light doesn’t have legs and the dancer does, so the agreement is that the light is fixed and the dancer is movable. What if the dancer doesn’t feel like moving? What if we think about the concept of design itself as much larger than this negotiation?”
Lights and a stay dancing physique
To work with Gyandev Singh, due to this fact, is to belief him unequivocally. His philosophy of bringing a ‘live’ side to lighting was the idea for an India Foundation for the Arts grant that developed a system for lighting to work together with a stay dancing physique. Singh is unapologetic about his artistry and decided to vary the notion of lighting as craft.
His most up-to-date venture, ‘Parama Padam’ for Singapore-based Apsaras Arts noticed a inventive use of sunshine to evoke the sense of the board recreation, Snakes and Ladders. “The key is not to neglect the stage floor,” says Gyandev, “pools of light can increase or decrease the perceived size of the stage and reflect upon the dancer in interesting ways”. The solo thematic work utilised projections as a substitute of units for establishing scenes, using a brand new development. According to Gyandev, this apply permits the manufacturing to journey simply. For this to occur, he says that he should get entangled on the choreographic stage itself. For ‘Parama Padam’, we began enthusiastic about area collectively on the ideation stage.”
While rising traits within the classical arts are seeing a number of distinguished dancers spend money on lighting design, one wonders how classical dancers can achieve extra consciousness. How can we dance with gentle and never for it? How do we expect past the restrictions of our our bodies to create a creative expertise? As a talented translator between motion and light-weight, the way forward for classical dance aesthetics is protected within the palms of Gyandev Singh.
The Bengaluru-based author is a dancer and analysis scholar.
Source: www.thehindu.com
