ZlomVas student theatre festival – commentary | Dare To Light – lighting for non-technical professionals

ZlomVas student theatre festival – commentary

June 15, 2011 in ideas

Visiting the ZlomVas student festival has become a tradition for me since I studied in the Prague Theatre Academy myself. I managed to see a couple of performances this year again and was then helping the lighting design jury in their decision.

Marlow. Foto: http://www.studiomarta.cz/galerie/marlow.html

Compared to last year’s festival, I was positively surprised by ZlomVas 2011. While a year ago there were still pieces with one monotonous lighting state thrown on top of the performance one hour before opening, all shows that I managed to see this year had at least given a thought about lighting as a part of the performance, whether it actually worked or not.

With student performances is always a gamble of either having a technical line at your school or affording to hire a technician from the stage budget. The first one might end up quite experimental, the other one a commission work distanced from the performance.

I am very happy with the decision of the lighting design jury to give a prize to the JAMU students for Marlow. The lighting design in Marlow is creative and attentive to details – the lights here are not only to serve the function of making the actor visible, but also to create meanings, atmosphere and different spaces. With a lot of fast paced scene changes and sharp focuses that the nature of the play demands, the lighting crew definitely deserves recognition for their work.