by CHRIS HARPER

And Then We Dance
C Venue – Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Edinburgh
Summer 2013

Performance Design, Lighting Design

This Music Theatre show, first performed in Bristol in 2013, is about the Chainmakers strikes that occurred in the Black Forest in 1910. This project combined an operatic mood and physical theatre and it was well received at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival the same year at “C” venues.

Despite the problems experienced with respect to equipnent and time restrictions, I received an excellent review from the columnist and theatre critic, Joyce McMillan, in The Scotsman: “…As the show begins, performer and co-writer Victoria Bourne appears on a stage surrounded by simple work benches, exquisitely lit by Santiago Martinez”.

In this lighting design, I tried to do a realistic lighting composition based on original library pictures of the Chainmakers workplaces. In order to achieve the effect of the natural daylight in an indoor space, I experiment combining skylight (Full CTB and Diffusion) and sunlight (L764 Sun Colour Straw). I also support the skylight filling with light coming from the opposite side to reduce the contrast and to simulate the reflection produced on the walls.

That lighting state, which is the spine of the first act, fades in during 10 minutes from a “night forge” lighting state, representing the sunrise as this first act passes in a working day.

I also collaborated with this company in a project devised at The Arnolfini Theatre in Bristol, after our project won the «Devising Time» Grant they offer every year.