Blog #4: Natural Studio Lighting

The other day during an early morning rehearsal, the sun rose over the Mesa Towers and shone through the window onto the floor of our studio. We were in the middle of the creation process and were working on individual tasks and creating phrases. For some reason, once that light came in through the window I felt drawn to it and once stepping into it, it seemed to make movement clear and the phrase came easily. That moment was fleeting, maybe 10 minutes, but it was such a nice experience. Natural light will always be something very special to me because it is only able to be experienced at certain times in the day. This is why when we talk about how the beginnings of theater had to learn to work with the different times of day, by performing a daytime scene when the sun was out then waiting until the sun set to come back and perform the night scene, is such an interesting process to me. Yes, it as a struggle and inconvenience not being able to control when and where the sun would be when you are trying to convey a certain environment, but how wonderful and powerful nature is that even with all this technology and progress we've made in lighting, some things like natural light coming through a window for 10 minutes cannot be easily and genuinely recreated.