Dance 287 - Lighting for Choreography Fall 2023

  Inspiration is a heavy word. It can apply to so many things other than dance such as the inspiration to live, the inspiration to take care of yourself, the inspiration to take care of your responsibilities, the inspiration to enjoy your life, etc. The sun and smoke together in this photo is very inspiring to me and I will get to why. First I would like to highlight their compatibility and how the sun reveals the smoke as the areas in which the smoke is in the shade it is not nearly as visible. Simultaneously, the smoke reveals the sharp rays of the sun illuminating out from the center. The sun is my lifeline, I start my day watching it rise and try to catch it leaving daily. It provides me with care as it hugs my skin with warmth and reminds me of it's ability to scorn as it burns on hot days. The sun is something I can rely on to keep coming back and I like to let it rely on me to keep waking up every day and pushing through life. The smoke inspires me in its impermanence. It la...

  inspiration i'm always inspired by plants. i admire their life force and efficiency. Their life of expansion before decomposition is a beautiful reminder to continue reaching 360 degrees and to connect to our roots until the "end". They follow the sun, the ultimate light source for us as earthlings. These particular long leaves catching light and creating shadows in crevices brought me some peace after a day of rehearsal that included sliding and rolling on hard rocks outside. Each leaf with its own personality and imperfections reminds me that we all carry and move with history, conditionings that leave residue (visible or invisible). 

          These are photos of my staircase skylight window. I took one photo from the bottom of the staircase looking up and one from the top of the staircase. I also took 1 set of photos around 3 p.m. and the next set around 6:30 p.m. What's interesting to me is that when taking this photo at a different angle, it is difficult to decipher what the ceiling, floor, or context of this photo actually is. I like how I can't actually see out this window, I can only see the pure and simple brightness or non-brightness of light coming in. The hue of light that comes in and bounces off the walls into the space is inspiring, beautiful, and various each day. I'm inspired by the length, shape, and narrowness of light shining through because it feels ever-evolving, at every single moment and is specific to the space. Even though the staircase and window are narrow the light brings expansion and fading according to the time of day. The translucent film on the glass is like t...

  As we're gearing up for piece auditions for new slate, and getting into the groove of grad school, I've been trying to keep myself open to inspiration even in the most seemingly uninspired places and situations. The photo I chose is from this plain corner of my bedroom, with that plain boring tan paint, and plain mirror. One of the few parts of my apartment that doesn't have pops of color, art, plants or random tchotchkes to bring it to life. Even this picture, seems bland and uninteresting. But if you look for a while, you start to notice the layers and the patterns in how the light is entering the room from the opposite corner and reflects off the mirror. The different shadows from the vaulted ceiling, corner of the wall and mirror. How the corner of the light reflected on the right wall lines up with the corner of that "shelf" and the corner where the wall meets the ceiling. The gradient look of the light on the wall you see in the mirror. Boring, plain, but ...

  This is a picture I took during our most recent class when the other group was playing around with the lighting composition for their piece. I loved how saturated the red and pink were and with the grey color of the floor, it created a very sensual, romantic mood. The pink color was so saturated to the point it looked like a lighter red, but it really stood out as hot pink on camera. I thought it was interesting how the shins made the dancers appear red even though there were lights from above that made majority of the room pink. I also love how the rest of the floor that wasn't lit had a purple hue to it which added to that sensual feeling. I'm inspired to use this type of lighting if I ever create to jazz music or any piece that I want the audience to perceive as more romantic.

 For this weeks post, I took this picture of the light coming in from outside to create almost a projection on the wall. The picture, for me evoked this feeling of almost being watched? Or almost like an uninvited visitor making itself a guest inside my home and brought about a feeling of uneasiness. Also, this picture was taken at night, but my phone automatically went into night mode (iPhone thing) creating a morning light look, so it shows more than what my eyes would have normally seen, adding to that uneasiness. Beside that, it also looked pretty interesting because although it felt as if it was inside my home, it also felt like inside looking out as I see the shadows and shapes of what's outside the window. 

  I took this picture while in the car in my home town of Murrieta. I fid it inspiring how a singular light source is able to break off into so many rays to create such a mesmerizing image. I call it mesmerizing to capture the feeling of aww and peace that comes with the lighting. Without the rays, the clouds appear ominous and overwhelming over the dark mountains. However, the lines extending from the sun are somehow so sharp to penetrate the darkness yet gentle enough to provide a blissful feeling to the viewer. This combination of contradicting qualities alludes to the magical essence of the universe and how small we may feel when considering the source of such energy. 

  These pictures are from a beach day I had with my best friends earlier this summer. I chose these because I love the shadows on the sand and the waves caused by the setting sun, the warm glow on the horizon and the water, and the contrast of the silhouettes from the pier and my friend's body. He was sitting by the water, meditating, and I decided to take these pictures of him (I took a bunch more). He didn't realize I was doing it, until he started to walk back to where our stuff was in the last picture. My friends and I were looking through these right after and thought they were beautiful. But we started cracking up when we saw the last one, because it looks like one of those bigfoot sighting pictures you find on the internet. Though the composition is pretty and peaceful, the shape of my friend's silhouette looks pretty funny and suspicious.

  I took this picture on September 11th at 7:18pm when I was walking towards the front of a dance studio and I was enamored by how saturated the sunset was. Majority of the sky was dark except for this sliver of bright blood orange which made a beautiful contrast. I always appreciate the times I get to catch the sunset since I'm usually busy indoors around that time. There are some sunsets that give off a cooler tone such as violet, but this day's sunset was very warm.

These vintage Pin Ball Machines brighten the room and are personally fascinating and an enjoyable sensory experience to me. All the tiny bulbs that work together to provide energy and color give so much information to my eyes and brain. I also like the way the lights on the machines reflect onto peoples faces as they play. I know there are so many bells and whistles to make these machines light up and work, but they illuminate so much light its impossible for me not to be drawn to put a quarter or two in and start playing. Also the action of the ball shooting in, falling around and bouncing gives opportunity for more light to come into the space. I also love the way these machines of light transport me to other universes and moments in time.   

  i love the absence of light and how it's a portal to a different dimension of shape and movement. The subject can remain still, but depending on the source of light, the shadow creates a dance. Recently, i came across a video on Instagram where two children were asking their parents about atoms. They asked if everything is made of atoms and the adults stated "Yes, everything in existence is made of atoms." Quickly, the older child asks, "What about shadows?" which sort of stumped the adults because shadows are not made of atoms. With these photos, i'm most interested in the crossing of the shadows and the different depth that exists in each one separately as well as how they interact together.

  For this week's post I decided to post this spider that was outside my apartment. I thought it was interesting because the spider and the spider web being backlit created a silhouette of the spider as the light is shining through it, but it also made its color pop out more than it normally would. It also made the details of the spider web's design pop up a lot more. There's also a lot of negative spaces within the web design that are apparent with the way the light is hitting, and it makes me wonder if something has been in its web and distorted the design.