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Fabrizio Crisafulli

ACTIVE LIGHT Issues of Light in Contemporay Theatre

ISBN-13: 978-1494786922available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble catalogue:

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This book looks at various important events relating to the poetics of light in theatre production in the West in the twentieth century, from the great refor-mists at the beginning of the century to contemporary artists such as Josef Svoboda, Alwin Nikolais and Robert Wilson. The intention isn’t to outline a somewhat organised history of stage lighting, instead it is an attempt to iden-tify some basic issues concerning its use. Lighting issues are unshackled from the limited contexts of technique and image, where they often end up only to be relegated, and examined in the context of the performance’s space/time structure, poetic and dramatic construction, and the relationship with the per-former. A section dedicated to the theatrical work of the author outlines the distinctive point of view behind the book, regarding the creative processes and the operational relationship with technique. The title Active Light is a direct reference to Adolphe Appia who, at the end of the nineteenth century, was one of the first to deal with the issue of light explicitly as an artistic issue in theatre, with his own writings and creations. As far as Appia was concerned lumière active was expressive light, creating shapes, forming poetic matter and dramatic substance.

«Drawing inspiration from philosophers, artists and theatre-makers, Crisaful-li exhibits a rich theoretical, historical and practical understanding of lighting – sensitive towards its emplacement, its mobility and its absence – as well as a proficiency in activating architecture, bodies and shadows. Rather than advocate a single approach or exhibit a signature aesthetic, his scholarly and practice-based research illustrates a broad and persistent inquiry into light’s potential: dramaturgically, poetically and experientially. This book is an expli-cation not only on how light acts, but how, as an event in itself, it activates both things and thinking»

Dorita Hannah, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland

Fabrizio Crisafulli advocates an active role for light on the stage. In his book he counters those who believe that light should not consciously draw attention to itself in performance. He brings us back to the aspirations of Appia in providing a reminder of the essential and dynamic role that light brings to performance and also of its future potential.

Scott Palmer, University of Leeds, UK

It’s a unique book in the context of Italian historiography on theatre, which clever-ly combines rigorous historical research conducted through a solid and refined me-thodology and aesthetic awareness fed by fieldwork. This volume happily reconci-les the almost constant discrepancy between historiography and scenic practices.

Renzo Guardenti, University of Florence, Italy

It’s a fine example of combination of historiographic and artistic interests. For many years Fabrizio Crisafulli’s theatre research has involved the in depth study of all ‘luminous’ and ‘illuminating’ phenomena, where light is not just a stage tool, but has transpired as a tool which makes you aware of reality in all its aspects. Light is used in all possible ways and technique never sacrifices artistic expression.

Cristina Grazioli, University of Padua, Italy

Crisafulli focuses on the linguistic value of light. This book is an interesting and useful contribution for those – students and artists – who wish to go deeper into some aspects of theatre production that manuals usually skip or minimize.

Antonio Pizzo, University of Turin, Italy

PART TWO

Self-Analysis of Research in Progress 189 Place, body, light 204 Theatres of light, dramas of technique, mobile architecture

223 Afterword by Luca Farulli

227 Sources of illustrations

229 Bibliography

251 Index

11 The Event og Light Foreword by Dorita Hannah

17 Preface

PART ONE

Object Light, Body Light 25 Electric shows 31 Loie Fuller’s light dance

Cosmic Light 41 Mariano Fortuny: the distinction between sky and land 48 Adolphe Appia and light as the creator of form 60 Dramatic light, cosmic light: Edward Gordon Craig 70 Alexandre de Salzmann and the absolute light

Light as Action 87 The music of colours 95 The futurist “illuminating scenogaphy” 106 Vasily Kandinsky and the “inner sound” of light 115 Light and intercode: László Moholy-Nagy, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack

Dramaturgy of Light 129 Modes of active light 141 Structure of active light

Poetic Maturity and New Techniques of Active Light 151 Josef Svoboda and dynamic light/set interaction 162 Alwin Nikolais: light and body in decentralised space 166 Robert Wilson and the Theatre of Images 174 New technologies, new issues

Contents

1. Playbill for Danse du Feu by Loie Fuller at Folies Bergère in Paris, 1897

The Event of Light Foreword

by Dorita Hannah

I’ve learned from Fredegiso of Tours that darkness and light are degrees of the same phenomenon, and from John

Cage that silence can be heard, therefore darkness can be seen. From the 19th-century Swiss set designer and

theorist Adolphe Appia I’ve learned that shadows are the substance of vision, and from author Italo Calvino that the most effective images are those that let people create their

own mental view of what they’re looking at.1

Fabrizio Crisafulli

I discovered these inspiring words, chosen to preface this timely book on Active Light, many years ago while flipping through a theatre lighting magazine and was struck by a lyricism rarely found in literature on the subject. Too often lighting design is regarded as a primarily technological skill and expressive tool, utilized to serve the overall poetics of a production, rather than a collaborative and performative art form in its own right: capable of challenging spatiotemporal conventions, not only of the stage but also of the lived world. It is therefore no surprise that many of the significant players referred to by Fabrizio Crisafulli in the following chapters are radical artists, directors, perform

ers, theorists and architects – revolutionary thinkers and makers who maintain light is indeed an engaging and challenging force. Crisafulli himself encompasses such varying roles and here pres-ents an erudite survey of modern lighting design as well as a compelling exposition of his own creative work on and off the conventional stage.

In English the word ‘light’ connotes both ‘a doing’ (as in the act of illuminating something) and ‘a thing done’ (as in illumination itself). This confluence of verb and noun also applies to ‘design’, which is both a creative undertaking and the resulting artefact. Light Design – designing the light and lighting the design – is therefore highly active. This book outlines how illumination does more than give shape, drama or character to staged events, but in fact ‘performs’ as a discrete element within the sensory performance landscape. In doing so it en-lightens – informs, in-structs, clarifies and undertakes theoretical work – just as Cri-safulli does throughout this publication and in his renowned workshops with students and designers.

How wonderful to begin with Loie Fuller whose ‘dance of light’ was a dynamic amalgamation of spirited movement, flow-ing textiles, coloured light and hyperbolic body. Representing something utterly modern and dramatically excessive, Fuller’s pioneering spectacle was dependent on technologies concealed in both stage and costume. Less than a decade before the fi-ery Fuller took to the stage, Richard Wagner had plunged the auditorium into darkness when he inadvertently extinguished, rather than lowered, the houselights during the inauguration of his Bayreuth Festspielhaus. This happy accident, which shocked the audience at the time, led to a general expectation that spec-tators sit in the dark gazing towards a lit box of tricks full of concealed technology. Yet, as Crisafulli expounds, the magic lies not in the apparatus but in the artistry, which, since the audito-rium went to black in 1876, has consistently challenged the box, its machinery and performers, as well as those spectators caught within its glow.

foreword

One of the major perceptual revolutions over the last century has been the move from a spatialization of time to a temporalization of space. Objects and environments are no longer immutable material situated in perpetual time, but are understood as events: active and mobile through elemental variations and a dense lay-ering of realities and virtualities. Vibrating at a molecular level, they fluctuate in temperature while gathering and shedding mat-ter. Such micro-performances are affected by light as well as revealed and concealed by both its presence and its absence. As a forceful temporal phenomenon, light itself can also be consid-ered an event, or even a series of multiple events.

As time-based phenomena events occur at varying scales – from major epic occurrences, to produced aesthetic spectacles, to nu-merous tiny incidents happening all around us – and even out-side the theatre their authenticity is called into doubt. The world itself has become a stage upon which global politics and medi-ated communication are played out through designed perfor-mances, which range from advertising and socializing through to acts of terrorism and war. Influencing our spatial awareness and temporal sensitivity, light plays a significant role in the delineation and experience of historic, dramatic and quotidian events. An immaterial material it can have an unsettling impact, defining our experiences and often signaling danger and the uncanny: seen in the flare of a match, the discharge of a spark, the blinking of machines, the streaming of data, the luminosity of screens, and the flash of distant bombardment brought into our seemingly safe living rooms. All of these effects taking place in ambient lighting, under a blaze of fluorescents, within flicker-ing tributaries of traffic; veiled by gloom or through the haze of smoke, mist and fog. Insubstantial light is substantially effective and affective.

Crisafulli refers to the impressive accomplishments of Josef Svo-boda who maintained that every time he faced an empty stage from which to create sets and lights, it was like confronting an

active light

abyss: not only because of its darkness but its boundlessness. Although often a box of limited dimensions, the stage defies space and time in its sanctioned role of collapsing the here and now on the there and then: calling forth its gods and ghosts and temporarily transporting the audience to multiple places and ep-ochs. As a phantasmatic force, light plays a critical part in the spatiotemporal constructions, deconstructions and personifica-tions emerging from the void. Yet, as Crisafulli also points out, the stage has left the theatre, seeking other sites with their own materialities, atmospheres, histories and phantoms, or occupy-ing the dislocated realms of immersive theatre and cyberspace.

While we have marvelled at Robert Wilson’s three-dimensional lightscapes where highly trained performers find their marks that allow for the precise illumination of a fingertip, and at Wil-liam Forsythe’s experimentations in which dancers manoeuvre mobile lights around the stage as a choreography of moving shadows, we now have performance ensembles that utilize tech-nology to connect audiences across dispersed locations. In Gob Squad’s Super Night Shot the city’s ambient light is employed for one-off movies created by four performers who move cam-eras through the streets an hour before the audience arrives at the theatre to see the resulting live-mixed multi-projection. Blast Theory also relies on existing urban lighting for Rider Spoke in which each participating audience member cycles alone in the nocturnal city, discovering and sharing sites via an intercon-necting device with screen and earphones. Punchdrunk Theatre creates events in huge multi-storied warehouses – black boxes nesting more black boxes – through which masked spectators randomly wander, encountering a labyrinth of barely lit, highly detailed installations that momentarily become animated with scattered performances. Fuerza Bruta orchestrates 360-degree sensory experiences by transforming large spaces into night-clubs for aerial performances with spectacular lighting accompa-nied by the many glowing screens of spectator’s mobile phones recording the event to be redistributed across social networks.

The mobile phone has become the new illuminated box of tricks, replicated throughout the auditorium and conventionally extin-guished with the houselights.

Drawing inspiration from philosophers, artists and theatre-mak-ers, Crisafulli exhibits a rich theoretical, historical and practical understanding of lighting – sensitive towards its emplacement, its mobility and its absence – as well as a proficiency in activat-ing architecture, bodies and shadows. Rather than advocate a single approach or exhibit a signature aesthetic, his scholarly and practice-based research illustrates a broad and persistent inquiry into light’s potential: dramaturgically, poetically and ex-perientially. This book is an explication not only on how light acts, but how, as an event in itself, it activates both things and thinking.

1. Quoted in M. Clark, ‘Avant-garde Artistry. Lighting Takes Center Stage in the Works of Fabrizio Crisafulli’, Lighting Dimensions, 3, New York, April 1997.

forewordactive light

64. The Magic Flute by W. A. Mozart, produced by Robert Wilson, 1991

Preface

This book looks at various important events in the theatre production in the twentieth century, in terms of the poetics of light. The intention isn’t to outline a history of stage lighting which is to a certain extent comprehensive, instead it is an attempt to identify some basic issues concerning the subject, which in my opinion have been given little consideration up until this point. The title Active Light is a direct reference to Adolphe Appia who, at the end of the nineteenth century, was one of the first to deal with the issue of light explicitly as an artistic issue in theatre with his own writings and creations. As far as Appia was concerned lumière active was expressive light creating shapes, forming poetic matter and dramatic substance. He set these ideas against the most common theatre practices of his time, where light was basically viewed as ‘illumination’, a technical, functional element, something which was secondary, and even external, to the creative process. One of the reasons behind this book is the fact that the ideas Appia was fighting against still continue in present day theatre, to a degree which is not insignificant. Innovative ideas such as those of Appia, Craig and other artists who came later, some of whom will be discussed in this book, have essentially remained on the sidelines in terms of actual influence on the methods

by Fabrizio Crisafulli

preface

of using light. These methods seemed to mainly develop under the influence of business and production needs, then established techniques and conventions, as happened generally in theatre. Another motive behind this work is the persistence, in my opinion, of a certain void in considering the poetic issues of light techniques in theatre – an uncertainty surrounding ideas and in identifying the issues, which more often than not are defined within the limited contexts of technique and image, and which fail to also take account of the action, meaning, dramatic construction, and space-time structure of the performance, aspects which should be capturing attention.The events and characters discussed have expressed, and continue to express, a basic standpoint that light is an element which is structural, constructive, poetic, and dramaturgic. Such a standpoint is at odds with the idea of isolating light from the previously mentioned artistic issues surrounding the theatre, and contrary to the widespread idea of light as a surface element, an afterthought to be dealt with in the final days of rehearsals, something that gives the performance its ‘fancy wrapping’ or spectacular effects. Obviously only some of the most significant experiences, past and present, have been considered. As mentioned previously, the idea wasn’t to reconstruct a comprehensive journey through history. The first three chapters of the book deal with experiences relating to the period spanning from the last decade of the nineteenth century until the late twenties in the twentieth century. This is a period in which I feel most of the important issues regarding light as poetry, action and drama have been essentially outlined. A particularly crucial phase was the period that straddled the two centuries, due to developments brought about by the advent of electricity. It was in this period that light acquired new qualities which gave it a wide range of possibilities, even if conflicting at times – on the one hand the possibility of condensing light, making it a material which was malleable as it had never been before, and on the other hand the possibility of

dematerialisation, in relation to adjusting intensity, determining incidence of light, and using projection. Switching light off completely was also possible for the first time, and therefore total darkness as a result. Furthermore, power was amplified and reflection, transmission and refraction were enriched and multiplied, all very significant conditions in creating drama with light. In relation to these developments light acquired the totally new potential of moulding space and time, of becoming ‘music’, unspeakable matter, cosmological substance, and materialising in objects and bodies, becoming the action itself. Basically becoming a theatrical language and fixture. During the initial decades of the twentieth century this potential, faced with a wealth of ideas, often came up against considerable obstacles due to the inevitable lack of experience of technicians and limits of instrumentation. We only have to think of the many Italian futurist experiments which were real forerunners at a conceptual level, yet failed when put into practice. Or the gap between projects with great theoretical insight and poetic significance, such as those of Appia or Craig, and their realisation. It was only in much later years, during the second half of the century, that the right conditions transpired to enable the actual union of expressive aspirations and effective possibilities of implementation, as in the extremely important experiences of artists such as Josef Svoboda, Alwin Nikolais and Robert Wilson, to whom a chapter is dedicated. I have put the chapter Dramaturgy of Light between the section on founding events before the thirties and the section on recent experiences. It constitutes an exploration through the issues and an outline of the paths that light techniques in the theatre embarked on throughout the whole of the twentieth century, in the search for its own inner motivation and structural configurations. A section is dedicated to the ‘music of colours’, a subject which on the face of it seems extraneous to the theatre, because at certain times it has expressed important aspirations of structural research with regard to creating with light, even though it has

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mainly produced experiences of little significance from an artistic point of view. This is an important subject as it concerns the effort to identify various rules (constructive, compositional and dramaturgical) on which to base a possible expressive autonomy of light – autonomy that constitutes a necessary condition for light to enter, as Kandinsky put it, on an equal footing in relationships with other aspects of theatrical expression, such as speech, the body, sound and movement. Chromatic music was in this respect a benchmark for various artists (Balla, Kandinsky, Hirschfeld-Mack and many others) involved in the search for possible dramaturgies of light and its structural relationships, especially with sound, form, and movement. The altogether peculiar episode of the salle eclairante of Alexandre de Salzmann in Hellerau, designed to assert absolute light in theatre, with its own independent life, wasn’t irrelevant to the aspirations of chromatic music. In my opinion this episode represented an extreme reaction to the service status that light usually had in the theatre, in addition to a radical attempt to recover its spiritual values. Finally, it should be emphasised that this publication has arisen from observations made in a working environment, rather than from specific academic interests, given that it has been written by a theatre director and not a historian. It is therefore the result of convictions, motivations and emotional stimuli spurred on by observations ‘on the job’. For this reason, a distinct part of the book is dedicated to light in my own theatrical research, a subject I don’t want to give extra importance to in this context, other than to better explain the viewpoint that led me to looking at some experiences over others, and according to which problems were identified and their reading directed.Maybe it should be stated (though I’ll come back to this topic) that looking at the importance of light here is not the same as maintaining that light design must necessarily have a leading role in performance. This isn’t the point. Light – by its very essence – demands to have a poetic, constructive and dramatic role in theatre, on a par with other elements, such as the script,

the actors, and sound. However, this could correspond as much to solutions centred on the use of complex instrumentation, as to solutions that require the use of very little equipment. The issue isn’t about the amount of equipment used or its technological sophistication, or leading roles of light; it’s about the way light is used, the quality of its relationships with the other components on stage, and with the art it underpins. Regardless of technicalities.

prefaceactive light

«Alcune iniziative romane esaltano l’archeologia collocandola in uno spaziodi interferenza con altri territori […]. A questi eventi si deve aggiungere l’ap-porto diffuso dell’arte che reinterpreta forme e luoghi dell’archeologia at-traverso interventi site specific. Come nelle proiezioni di Jenny Holzer sulTeatro di Marcello o sulla Mole di Castel Sant’Angelo o nell’evento multi-mediale di Fabrizio Crisafulli che a Ponte Milvio evoca i suoni e i colori dellabattaglia di Massenzio».Giovanna Donini, Paesaggi dell’allestimento, testo introduttivo a Id. (acura di), L’architettura degli allestimenti, Kappa, Roma, 2010, p. 27

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Et molto meravigliosi da vedere,installazioni di luce sui ponti di Roma,2003. L’intervento a Ponte Milvio

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