Lighting designer Michael Stiller talks about his designs and shares the plot for Neil Greenberg's Betsy, which ran November 12-20, 2022 at La Mama Experimental Theater Club in New York City.
Live Design: Who were your collaborators on this project?
Michael Stiller: Choreographer, Neil Greenberg, whose dances I have been lighting since 1990, and my assistant, Kelly Martin.
LD: What was your intent with the design, and where did your inspiration come from?
MS: Neil and I have been working together for over 30 years, and it is the shared design language we have developed that keeps me inspired and coming back for more. I have always been captivated by the ability of kinetic lighting to create a visceral experience; and, to the benefit of my growth as a visual artist, Neil has remained willing to let me use these techniques and literally experiment with his work. No matter how much we might discuss the effect of a 1.5 second cue that is meant to evoke a gust of wind, or a bloom of color that might bend our perceptions, it will always be a shock to the choreographer who, after months of work on a dance, will then see it suddenly transformed—in sometimes not so subtle ways—during a tech process that may only last for a few days.
I have always appreciated Neil’s willingness and ability to see past the initial disruption so we can find which of my choices support the work AND have the resonance I am trying to achieve. With Betsy, I was especially interested in playing with saturated colors, used sparingly and in small doses, to transform the dancers whose costumes of neon yellow (with matching nail polish) might appear nearly white at some moments, and phosphorescent in others. I often come to these projects—usually performed in the semi-industrial spaces that make up the downtown NY venues—with an eye towards revealing the environment and making use of the architecture that so many artists try to hide. In past, that meant foregoing the Duvetyne.flats and masking used to create a proscenium experience and instead lighting the exposed walls and even columns that might bisect a performing area. I have always felt that we will be more successful embracing the environment instead of trying to make it something it is not. But with this piece, no such opportunities existed and so I focused (literally) on the dancers themselves, to create an environment made entirely of light.
LD: What gear do you rely on for your design choices?
MS: Most of my work now is in the commercial and public space, with budgets that give us a choice of gear, but as is always the case in the NY dance and performance scene we have to adapt our intent to the tools that are at hand. In the 80s and 90s this sometimes meant lighting a performance with clip-lights—at least we could choose between spot and flood reflector lamps. And in this case we were given a small and not-so-well-matched inventory from the venue that was not really adequate to the task at hand. But with age comes some benefits, and my friends at 4Wall made us a great deal on 30 AX5 LED pars from Astera, which we used to create one comprehensive wash for this in-the-round piece. La Mama had 12 Chauvet COLORdash Par Quad 18’s we cobbled into a partial wash on the other axis, and 24 old-school, tungsten halogen 6” Fresnels (Kliegl and Altman, mixed) which we color-corrected with half CTB and used to create a second wash with better coverage on the same axis as the Chauvets.
The intent was to create sweeping, directional washes with the ability to change color from subtle warms and cools to extreme chromatic statements. No attempt at area lighting was made and there were no “specials,” except to kiss the dancers with a bit of light when they sat among the audience. As I expected they would, the Fresnels gave off a lovely warmish blanket of light, which created a nice contrast with the rest of the LED plot. Kelly Martin, my assistant, did a great job programming the house ETC Element console and was instrumental in making this rudimentary lighting plot sing.
LD: What was the biggest challenge?
MS: Time (or the lack thereof).
LD: What do you think made this design successful?
MS: The process and collaborative language shared by Neil and me.
