lighting and dance informing each other

I have been thinking about the improv session we did with the lighting MFA students and John Crawford's presentation. The collaborative possibilities between lighting, dance, and other media are really exciting! Here are two images from a partially improvisational dance I was in last spring where we, the dancers, made our own lighting. There was no light in the studio except for a pile of extension cords which were connected to two search lights sitting on the floor. Throughout the dance we were free to move the lights, and then we danced in relation to the new lighting. The audience was also affected by our lighting choices, as this performance happened in the round. There was no seating area- the viewers were invited to walk around the studio as they watched the piece. When we moved the lights, we sometimes caused them to move different location because moving the lights sometimes lit the viewers (and audience usually doesn't like to feel like they are performing too), or the light was beaming straight into their eyes. Some people suggested that it was interesting when this happened, as we became silhouettes to them. Others moved to watch the piece with a comfortable lighting angle. It was interesting as a dancer to be able to affect movement in the audience. Here are two examples of lighting effects we created with the search lights- a down spot and a side light effect.