Behind the Curtain
When I began the design process for Home and Away, I was struck by how clear of a vision that Sam, the choreographer for this piece, had right from the start. Typically, I find that the process for design, conceptually speaking, takes some time as both I and my counterpart go over exactly what a piece or a moment means at any given time. Not with Sam. Over Zoom, she laid out the terms right away- “This piece is about an eating disorder. What it means, how it can affect a person, how it can dictate the terms of their life”. And just like that, we were off to the races with a destination in mind.
The theme of my works for Home and Away has revolved around isolation, both physical and mental, and so it was a delight to try and reverse the idea- instead of being barred from seeing others, the dancer is trapped within their own mind.
The Team
Projection Designer: Timothy Swenson
Choreographers: Samantha Tilley
Lighting Designer: Francisca Losada Hernandez
Lighting Programmer: Molly Crandall
Dancers: Maya Calvo, Taylor Rose Williamson
Music: 'Paralyzed (Instrumental)' by Piano Dreamers
Photo Credits: Ken Smith, UBPG
Design Concept
Originally, when I got the design statement from Sam, my first reaction was to find some sort of apocalyptic wasteland. Trapped within a sort of hell of not their own design, fighting to wrestle control of their faculties once more. The early design work also follows this morbid trend, as I followed it up with a sort of illusory shadow, that would follow both the Silhouette dancer and the dancer downstage around, pulling the strings.
Design Iteration
The above did not last very long- I believe it was only a week before I got back in touch with Sam. The exact words were ‘lighten up a little’, but its what followed which got me to think about it differently. Think about design differently, honestly. Sam said something to the affect of ‘Just because an eating disorder is an illness, does not meant that the disorder is all there is to a person. It’s not all bad’.
As somebody who has never particularly had a mental illness, I was shocked at how quickly I had decided that the topic at hand was so desolate, and all-encompassing. I quickly came up with a more fitting design, and vowed to keep such thoughts in check going forward.
Moving on, the design changed little in the intervening weeks. After some basic edits to smooth out the transitions between colors, and to increase the size of the painting (as I was running into issues with image quality) I ended up with this.
It was made apparent by my mentors for the project that the color palette was remarkably similar to In No Time, and so I started going through various palette changes. The first in line was a shift to a sepia tone, but we both though it was too yellow for the pieve, and harkened back to the ‘desolate wastes’ concept a bit too much for comfort.
We finally settled on a palette swap to match the purple tie-dye shirts and sweaters worn as costumers by both dancers. Conceptually, I chopped the piece into smaller segments that could follow the dancers around. This served two purposes- for one, it meant that the silhouette dancer was not getting ‘cut off’ by the top of the projection as it shifted color, but also that it can represent the ever-present nature of a mental illness. Sometimes it abates, as the projection rises, and sometimes it crushes you. Much more nuanced than the early work.
For the final production, we raised the height of the projections above the head level of the front dancer to help minimize the effect of the silhouette dancer moving up and down stage, which vastly increased the length of her shadow.
