Tonight, I was one of about ten people on the team of light manipulators in the Joshua Light Show performing at the Skirball Theater at NYU.
This evening, in the first show of the series, we performed with Evelyn Glennie and Zeena Parkins. The musicians improvised a very abstract set, moving among an orchestra’s worth of instruments. Being backstage, we can see a fainter version of the show that we are making live, that the audience sees on the other side of the screen, and also we could see occasional shadows of the performers depending on what they were playing. Their shadows indicated frenzied athletic performances. The light show team, with a mountain of projectors and light effecting equipment, sat behind the musicians and also behind a rear projection screen. We are all on headsets, so that we can discuss what we are doing and take directions from Joshua White, who is running his own set of lights and a big custom-built light spinner called ‘metal man’. This is a very big stage, hence, a very big light show. We get to interpret light by hand in company with a bunch of other people trying to compose together in a kind of group painting– with light. People on the team tend to gravitate to certain effects– liquid lights, reflectives, or lumia, convection plates, customized hydraulic flowing hot oil control gizmos, video feeders and troubleshooters. Like music, light show art appears in the moment and disappears into thin air and memory. A film or a recording is a different experience and has less dimension. Come see.
Tomorrow night, we accompany Terry Riley and his son Gyan. I am really looking forward to all these shows. Lou Reed. John Zorn. Milford Graves. And more.
http://joshualightshow.com/