Someone asked me this past week about how I prepare for a dance show.  I love a good question.  

Obviously, there a few production meetings during which the choreographer and I discuss the piece.  I try to find some photography or other visual art to show that can serve as a conversation starter and/or to give an idea of where I’d like to take the piece.  It’s remarkably hard to talk about light in a way that that is effective.  I attend rehearsals, video a later run that the choreographer feels ok about and then I go home and do so very tedious work- I notate the movement.  

Some pieces have a million entrances and exits and you need to notate them all (and what wing they come from or go to).  Some have a million hits in the music the dance ties to and I need to notate that as well.  Then I need to actually notate the geometry in a way that helps me remember. 

Here’s a sample from a collaboration with the choreographer Josie Mosely.  She was doing a piece in a full length evening choreographed Erik Skinner and Daniel Kirk and I was lucky enough to light her piece.  If you’re not already familiar with her and her work- look her up.  She’s brilliant and one of the coolest people I’ve ever met.

Here are my (admittedly rather spare) notes from the piece.  I do dance notation in a spreadsheet with four columns.  First column is for the light cue numbers, second usually is for the movement itself, the third is either a description of the cue I want to do or some note of what I need to remember when cueing.  The fourth column is for timing- whether that be measures or seconds for timecode or some such thing. 

I like to start with even numbers in my cueing because I spent some years as a stage manager in dance before I became a lighting designer, and I hated the additional syllables of point cues.  Obviously, I’ll put them in if I need to, but I’d rather start with space already left for things that I haven’t yet thought of.  As you look over the notes, please don’t mistake any of my language here as being an apt description of what was happening from an artistic point of view.  These are just notes to jog my memory while cueing and to pass along to the SM.  I didn’t do too bad of a job with the notes from that point of view.  Even though I lit this piece about twelve years ago, I can still see the choreo in my mind.  

I loved getting to light this work because it was so clear.  It needed relatively little from me- just some care and undivided attention to support the deep emotion that Josie had crafted into a dance.  

Hopefully this example gives you a starting point for your own work if you needed one.  I drew from other SMs and LDs at the beginning of my career to make this approach that works for me.  There is certainly no right or wrong- only what works for you and the piece.  

How do you notate your work to be ready for cueing?  Whatever discipline you work in- I would love to hear from you in the comments.