hi the transformation from the rehearsal
room to the show
that’s what captured my imagination
nearly 20 years ago and I’m here to talk
to you about lighting design for live
performance and the journey that brings
me here to you today I’m Pritam Kumar
I’m an actor I’m a lighting designer I’m
a director I’m a teacher apparently a
chef I think life’s too short not to do
everything that you want to do and do it
well when I started out the industry
needed somebody who would work with
light there’s just not that many people
doing it so I took it upon myself to be
this designer this executor of shows
this operator of shows and you know it
paid better than being an actor because
as an actor you paid with being on stage
somehow that fills your stomach so when
I graduated from my law degree I had to
choose I had somehow made it out of what
I thought was a lifeless soulless law
education with my head intact and when I
got out I chose theater because of that
sense of accomplishment that came with
it because of that camaraderie that that
you have when you are part of a
production and that that pure magic it’s
really hard to explain what that is I
mean if you’ve done it you’d know it
people say that it’s it’s the theater
bug nobody’s ever seen it yet but rumors
say that it’s very small and very
annoying and it’s very addictive so not
that pictures are going to be able to
convey this special something for you
but I thought I’d share with you some
image
is from work that I’ve done before yeah
that’s a production called
the Dark Lord that’s by Remini Vijay
Kumar it was this huge set that we had
and it you know the challenge in the
lighting was to be able to guide people
to the story that was happening in
different places sometimes in more than
one place at any given time so that was
a challenge as well as multiple skin
tones and things like that this is uh
you can see a little bit more of the set
another image from the same show this is
a picture from a play called a brief
history of your hair by Deepika Arwen
the play was in two parts the first part
set in reality and the second part in a
sort of magical land and this was from
that second half another one from the
same show it looks like they’re
suspended that you can’t really see the
flow but it’s sold smoke and mirror
folks this is another one by Rukmini
Vijay Kumar this piece is called mala
and the piece I mean the show has four
pieces in it and this was one of the
pieces that explores just that with Thea
in but not him for whoever’s familiar
with it I wasn’t until I started
lighting but not him so this explored
just the movement aspect of but not him
and we work closely to find a sort of
collaboration between how we can show
that movement vocabulary interestingly
through light another one from that show
this is a picture from a show called
untitled by a shank Purushottam it was a
play about gender and it was a drama it
was it had its dark moments
the black-and-white certainly helps
bring that out can me and the other one
please
that was a judge in the play I thought
that worked really well for a judge this
is from a play called white Zac it’s
about a very troubled soldier who who’s
losing his mind
and you can see him sort of hiding
lurking in the shadow beneath and that’s
his wife who he eventually kills in the
play and that’s also an issue picter who
is a very fine lighting designer himself
may have the next one please this was a
set by buncee call it’s the same show
the backdrop of the set was like a giant
painting it was just a giant canvas and
so we had to find ways to light it
interestingly it was also made to be
like the let the wall of a tavern where
the characters would go in to drink so
when they were inside how do you you
know they would be dancing they’d be
singing they’d be drinking that be
merriment how do we bring that out right
Thanks so while all this stuff looks
great in pictures and you don’t really
see what goes on behind it the work has
its problems right the dreams are big
but there’s never any money the problems
with auditoria are the same it’s poorly
designed it’s poorly staffed it’s
equipped very badly nobody wants to move
anything around so I’ve noticed that as
a community as an industry we give much
more importance to becoming actors or
dancers or musicians or choreographers
or directors because these are like you
know sort of the things they come higher
up in the credit roll you know so I
think it’s a bit shallow because if
we’re producing on
we people with that kind of skill set
eventually they’re going to start
producing work and they’re going to need
people in spaces that enable them to do
that work and that means lighting
designers and sound engineers and set
builders and costume and makeup and
technology artists what it so while I
can’t answer how the industry is going
to deal with that for myself I had to
evolve my craft I had to update my
technology I had to start thinking of
creating my own work because despite the
fact that I’m fairly self taught and I’m
learnt on the job
kind of guy I have a lot to share and I
I just it just didn’t feel right to just
up and leave because I felt like the
time had come for me to evolve because I
know that the industry at some place
requires people who do the kind of work
that I do and there are very few people
who do it I also remember that when I
tried to study technical theatre it was
a choice between you know you could take
a loan and you could go or you could
apply to a funding agency and try to get
a scholarship or something like that but
taking a loan seems like loading the
bullet in the gun yourself because how
on earth are you going to pay back a
giant fat loan and if couldn’t study
technical theater and you’re going to
come back and work in the arts hub
you’re never going to pay it back and
you know even funding bodies they prefer
somebody who’s going to be more front
and center in terms of who they give out
their scholarships to so it’s uphill
it’s difficult to learn technical
theater so I decided that I’m going to
give it all the way whatever I knew I
was going to share and there are just a
handful of lighting designers in this
country and all of us learn from being
on the job some from studying it but
largely from being on the job we work
with touring in
companies we sometimes store with them
we travel abroad which shows we borrow
we adapt the use we copy whatever it
takes to make it more relevant for us so
that we can be more able lighting
designers here or technology artists
here so while it is still difficult to
study technical theater in India I
thought that there had to be some place
where people could go to learn this
stuff it’s not rocket science but it’s
made to seem like it’s rocket science
which is weird so I came upon this idea
to start a workshop called reading light
reading light and Tinka light but Tinka
light we will talk about in just a
minute reading light was the first in
the city I think for its scale not that
a lighting workshop hadn’t hadn’t
happened before but certainly not on the
scale and perhaps a first for the
country because it was a standalone
independent comprehensive lighting
workshop for live performance that that
give you everything you need it to
bravely step into a show you had all the
fundamentals the theories the tips the
tricks the most important one the
numbers to all the vendors whatever you
need it from light to sound two
generators two projectors or whatever
this is the kind of stuff that you know
people in the know never give up because
they feel like this is their world and
they need to protect it
but I felt that that’s exactly what had
to be given away apart from that of
course and make life difficult for them
which is good good challenge is a good
thing apart from that of course the
workshop simulated what a show feels
like from the time that it’s in a
rehearsal to the time that it gets to a
show
so performers were called in they would
show the participants a piece and the
participants would then design
lighting around that and they would of
course execute it eventually which we’ll
see in just a minute
during the workshop it was I had to be
very conscious of the fact that I didn’t
want to go into this technical jargon
because I feel like that’s the thing
that makes people feel like this isn’t
for me you know this is some heavy stuff
you know I I can’t deal with it but it
isn’t it really isn’t if you break it
down if you have the patience if you
just tell somebody if you have if you
answer a few questions pretty much
anybody can do it so I try to create an
environment that causes curiosity rather
than confusion during the workshops and
the response has been great you know I
really didn’t expect it I had two
batches of it last month and we were
sold out and not just that there were
multiple calls coming in from others who
were running other sorts of theater or
dance workshops who were saying you know
can you do it again can you customize
the content so that it be relevant for
our group or whatever and it’s amazing
because it proved to me that there was a
that there was a gap and people had
difficulty in finding ways to fill it
and you know it was it continues to be a
success and there will be more of these
workshops but just to give you an idea
of what it might have looked like here
are some images from the workshop some
participants with rapt attention
listening to every word I have to say
next one please
that’s Salman Sharif he’s he was the
actor who brought in a theater piece who
they were designing for that’s be a
bungler wala who’s to answer questions
about contemporary dance I don’t know if
you know about contemporary dance but it
can be quite abstract there’s a lot of
room for interpretation so for people
who had never design
polite before contemporary dance uses a
lot of collaboration between designer
and choreographer so in her case people
were like but why how when you and she
says this is her trying to answer
something that she probably didn’t have
an answer to next time please this is
what I look like when I attend a
rehearsal
my book is open I’m looking I’m watching
I’m writing and drawing stuff I’m
designing essentially and it was
heartening to see that that there were
others doing it and not me this was from
one of their presentations I don’t know
what’s happened to the image but this
was from one of the presentations that
the students did um yeah you can go to
the next one
something’s happened to these images
they’re all a bit condensed so yeah so
these are all different interpretations
of the same piece so we had multiple
designers working on the same piece and
the outcome was was great because you
got to see so many different ways in
which one piece could be lit and
therefore you’re extending its
interpretation especially when it comes
to contemporary dance the next one
please
this is Sal with this theater piece of
course again you know a lot more space
for drama he was performing a piece from
my H design his play I forget the title
he was presenting that could you have
the next one and the next and the next
yeah so I’m aware you know this is all a
very nice thing to do the world has
bigger problems but the arts itself is
quite nice and then you know you go into
a specialization like this it it’s just
it seems that much more like a thing
that you know some people will do but I
think it’s important that more people
start doing this kind of work because I
think what the world needs right now are
more artists and an artist who’s able to
harness technology can do incredible
things
with public art which can have profound
impacts on society because you can use
spaces and surfaces that that before
were just like little bits of like plain
wall or some concrete or something and
suddenly its come to life
so while reading light has come to life
Tinka light is still a dream Tinka light
is a much bigger dream it aims to be a
national resource center for the
exploration of stage technologies a
place where the latest technology is
harnessed for life performance for
collaborations for public art and it’ll
also train people to be able to better
manage performance spaces to be to set
standards for you know quality for
safety for responsibilities education so
on so forth it’ll also help certainly in
the construction of better performance
spaces because right now the trend is
that a vendor and an architect decide
what a performance space should be and
they’ve never done anything on that
stage that they’re going to build so it
seems a bit weird to me that they they
get to choose they get to make those
decisions around how a bunch of artists
are going to use this for years to come
so participants from grading light are
most welcome and as well as anybody else
to come forward and take part in Tinka
light projects and Tinka light projects
will entail right now as baby steps
anything from making your own light to
using sensors to harnessing Arduino or
Raspberry Pi or the Internet of Things
video mapping motion tracking you know
all this cool stuff that’s there right
now in the world we can do it we have
access but we’re just not doing it and
we will that’s going to change
but before I go I just need to tell you
about the new direction of my creative
work my personal creative work like in
that introduction some time ago I became
a chef which is strange I’m a
self-taught chef I made it to the top 50
at MasterChef India in 2016 thank you
TV still rules I think I think the nine
thousand people had applied that here
was something like and completely
unrelated ly a very nice very special
restaurant called grasshopper offered me
to come and take over as executive chef
again you know from no chef to executive
chef it’s so like quite it’s quite a
jump but I enjoyed it you know and I
spent a year there I was planning menus
I was cooking I was talking to diners
and bloggers and creaming up some dishes
some of which had no recipe because I
think my exploration and food is largely
technique based not recipe based so
being in the kitchen and working with my
with all my senses you know I like it it
brings me joy and I enjoy doing it and
it also busts a great gender stereotype
so but you know I had to stop this
restaurant job at some point because I
had too many shows lined up there was
some 20 productions over seven months
which is a lot and you know I I’ve had
to sort of stop myself and think about
what it is that I want to do and over
the next seven months I’m going to move
into a phase of creative exploration
where I’m going to look at the places
where I can intersect theater technology
and food and that’s not to say that I
want to make some fancy food and using
some fancy technology and present it
dramatically and job’s done but a more
nuanced way to
presented more seamless experience that
will get you to use more than just a few of your senses thank you
room to the show
that’s what captured my imagination
nearly 20 years ago and I’m here to talk
to you about lighting design for live
performance and the journey that brings
me here to you today I’m Pritam Kumar
I’m an actor I’m a lighting designer I’m
a director I’m a teacher apparently a
chef I think life’s too short not to do
everything that you want to do and do it
well when I started out the industry
needed somebody who would work with
light there’s just not that many people
doing it so I took it upon myself to be
this designer this executor of shows
this operator of shows and you know it
paid better than being an actor because
as an actor you paid with being on stage
somehow that fills your stomach so when
I graduated from my law degree I had to
choose I had somehow made it out of what
I thought was a lifeless soulless law
education with my head intact and when I
got out I chose theater because of that
sense of accomplishment that came with
it because of that camaraderie that that
you have when you are part of a
production and that that pure magic it’s
really hard to explain what that is I
mean if you’ve done it you’d know it
people say that it’s it’s the theater
bug nobody’s ever seen it yet but rumors
say that it’s very small and very
annoying and it’s very addictive so not
that pictures are going to be able to
convey this special something for you
but I thought I’d share with you some
image
is from work that I’ve done before yeah
that’s a production called
the Dark Lord that’s by Remini Vijay
Kumar it was this huge set that we had
and it you know the challenge in the
lighting was to be able to guide people
to the story that was happening in
different places sometimes in more than
one place at any given time so that was
a challenge as well as multiple skin
tones and things like that this is uh
you can see a little bit more of the set
another image from the same show this is
a picture from a play called a brief
history of your hair by Deepika Arwen
the play was in two parts the first part
set in reality and the second part in a
sort of magical land and this was from
that second half another one from the
same show it looks like they’re
suspended that you can’t really see the
flow but it’s sold smoke and mirror
folks this is another one by Rukmini
Vijay Kumar this piece is called mala
and the piece I mean the show has four
pieces in it and this was one of the
pieces that explores just that with Thea
in but not him for whoever’s familiar
with it I wasn’t until I started
lighting but not him so this explored
just the movement aspect of but not him
and we work closely to find a sort of
collaboration between how we can show
that movement vocabulary interestingly
through light another one from that show
this is a picture from a show called
untitled by a shank Purushottam it was a
play about gender and it was a drama it
was it had its dark moments
the black-and-white certainly helps
bring that out can me and the other one
please
that was a judge in the play I thought
that worked really well for a judge this
is from a play called white Zac it’s
about a very troubled soldier who who’s
losing his mind
and you can see him sort of hiding
lurking in the shadow beneath and that’s
his wife who he eventually kills in the
play and that’s also an issue picter who
is a very fine lighting designer himself
may have the next one please this was a
set by buncee call it’s the same show
the backdrop of the set was like a giant
painting it was just a giant canvas and
so we had to find ways to light it
interestingly it was also made to be
like the let the wall of a tavern where
the characters would go in to drink so
when they were inside how do you you
know they would be dancing they’d be
singing they’d be drinking that be
merriment how do we bring that out right
Thanks so while all this stuff looks
great in pictures and you don’t really
see what goes on behind it the work has
its problems right the dreams are big
but there’s never any money the problems
with auditoria are the same it’s poorly
designed it’s poorly staffed it’s
equipped very badly nobody wants to move
anything around so I’ve noticed that as
a community as an industry we give much
more importance to becoming actors or
dancers or musicians or choreographers
or directors because these are like you
know sort of the things they come higher
up in the credit roll you know so I
think it’s a bit shallow because if
we’re producing on
we people with that kind of skill set
eventually they’re going to start
producing work and they’re going to need
people in spaces that enable them to do
that work and that means lighting
designers and sound engineers and set
builders and costume and makeup and
technology artists what it so while I
can’t answer how the industry is going
to deal with that for myself I had to
evolve my craft I had to update my
technology I had to start thinking of
creating my own work because despite the
fact that I’m fairly self taught and I’m
learnt on the job
kind of guy I have a lot to share and I
I just it just didn’t feel right to just
up and leave because I felt like the
time had come for me to evolve because I
know that the industry at some place
requires people who do the kind of work
that I do and there are very few people
who do it I also remember that when I
tried to study technical theatre it was
a choice between you know you could take
a loan and you could go or you could
apply to a funding agency and try to get
a scholarship or something like that but
taking a loan seems like loading the
bullet in the gun yourself because how
on earth are you going to pay back a
giant fat loan and if couldn’t study
technical theater and you’re going to
come back and work in the arts hub
you’re never going to pay it back and
you know even funding bodies they prefer
somebody who’s going to be more front
and center in terms of who they give out
their scholarships to so it’s uphill
it’s difficult to learn technical
theater so I decided that I’m going to
give it all the way whatever I knew I
was going to share and there are just a
handful of lighting designers in this
country and all of us learn from being
on the job some from studying it but
largely from being on the job we work
with touring in
companies we sometimes store with them
we travel abroad which shows we borrow
we adapt the use we copy whatever it
takes to make it more relevant for us so
that we can be more able lighting
designers here or technology artists
here so while it is still difficult to
study technical theater in India I
thought that there had to be some place
where people could go to learn this
stuff it’s not rocket science but it’s
made to seem like it’s rocket science
which is weird so I came upon this idea
to start a workshop called reading light
reading light and Tinka light but Tinka
light we will talk about in just a
minute reading light was the first in
the city I think for its scale not that
a lighting workshop hadn’t hadn’t
happened before but certainly not on the
scale and perhaps a first for the
country because it was a standalone
independent comprehensive lighting
workshop for live performance that that
give you everything you need it to
bravely step into a show you had all the
fundamentals the theories the tips the
tricks the most important one the
numbers to all the vendors whatever you
need it from light to sound two
generators two projectors or whatever
this is the kind of stuff that you know
people in the know never give up because
they feel like this is their world and
they need to protect it
but I felt that that’s exactly what had
to be given away apart from that of
course and make life difficult for them
which is good good challenge is a good
thing apart from that of course the
workshop simulated what a show feels
like from the time that it’s in a
rehearsal to the time that it gets to a
show
so performers were called in they would
show the participants a piece and the
participants would then design
lighting around that and they would of
course execute it eventually which we’ll
see in just a minute
during the workshop it was I had to be
very conscious of the fact that I didn’t
want to go into this technical jargon
because I feel like that’s the thing
that makes people feel like this isn’t
for me you know this is some heavy stuff
you know I I can’t deal with it but it
isn’t it really isn’t if you break it
down if you have the patience if you
just tell somebody if you have if you
answer a few questions pretty much
anybody can do it so I try to create an
environment that causes curiosity rather
than confusion during the workshops and
the response has been great you know I
really didn’t expect it I had two
batches of it last month and we were
sold out and not just that there were
multiple calls coming in from others who
were running other sorts of theater or
dance workshops who were saying you know
can you do it again can you customize
the content so that it be relevant for
our group or whatever and it’s amazing
because it proved to me that there was a
that there was a gap and people had
difficulty in finding ways to fill it
and you know it was it continues to be a
success and there will be more of these
workshops but just to give you an idea
of what it might have looked like here
are some images from the workshop some
participants with rapt attention
listening to every word I have to say
next one please
that’s Salman Sharif he’s he was the
actor who brought in a theater piece who
they were designing for that’s be a
bungler wala who’s to answer questions
about contemporary dance I don’t know if
you know about contemporary dance but it
can be quite abstract there’s a lot of
room for interpretation so for people
who had never design
polite before contemporary dance uses a
lot of collaboration between designer
and choreographer so in her case people
were like but why how when you and she
says this is her trying to answer
something that she probably didn’t have
an answer to next time please this is
what I look like when I attend a
rehearsal
my book is open I’m looking I’m watching
I’m writing and drawing stuff I’m
designing essentially and it was
heartening to see that that there were
others doing it and not me this was from
one of their presentations I don’t know
what’s happened to the image but this
was from one of the presentations that
the students did um yeah you can go to
the next one
something’s happened to these images
they’re all a bit condensed so yeah so
these are all different interpretations
of the same piece so we had multiple
designers working on the same piece and
the outcome was was great because you
got to see so many different ways in
which one piece could be lit and
therefore you’re extending its
interpretation especially when it comes
to contemporary dance the next one
please
this is Sal with this theater piece of
course again you know a lot more space
for drama he was performing a piece from
my H design his play I forget the title
he was presenting that could you have
the next one and the next and the next
yeah so I’m aware you know this is all a
very nice thing to do the world has
bigger problems but the arts itself is
quite nice and then you know you go into
a specialization like this it it’s just
it seems that much more like a thing
that you know some people will do but I
think it’s important that more people
start doing this kind of work because I
think what the world needs right now are
more artists and an artist who’s able to
harness technology can do incredible
things
with public art which can have profound
impacts on society because you can use
spaces and surfaces that that before
were just like little bits of like plain
wall or some concrete or something and
suddenly its come to life
so while reading light has come to life
Tinka light is still a dream Tinka light
is a much bigger dream it aims to be a
national resource center for the
exploration of stage technologies a
place where the latest technology is
harnessed for life performance for
collaborations for public art and it’ll
also train people to be able to better
manage performance spaces to be to set
standards for you know quality for
safety for responsibilities education so
on so forth it’ll also help certainly in
the construction of better performance
spaces because right now the trend is
that a vendor and an architect decide
what a performance space should be and
they’ve never done anything on that
stage that they’re going to build so it
seems a bit weird to me that they they
get to choose they get to make those
decisions around how a bunch of artists
are going to use this for years to come
so participants from grading light are
most welcome and as well as anybody else
to come forward and take part in Tinka
light projects and Tinka light projects
will entail right now as baby steps
anything from making your own light to
using sensors to harnessing Arduino or
Raspberry Pi or the Internet of Things
video mapping motion tracking you know
all this cool stuff that’s there right
now in the world we can do it we have
access but we’re just not doing it and
we will that’s going to change
but before I go I just need to tell you
about the new direction of my creative
work my personal creative work like in
that introduction some time ago I became
a chef which is strange I’m a
self-taught chef I made it to the top 50
at MasterChef India in 2016 thank you
TV still rules I think I think the nine
thousand people had applied that here
was something like and completely
unrelated ly a very nice very special
restaurant called grasshopper offered me
to come and take over as executive chef
again you know from no chef to executive
chef it’s so like quite it’s quite a
jump but I enjoyed it you know and I
spent a year there I was planning menus
I was cooking I was talking to diners
and bloggers and creaming up some dishes
some of which had no recipe because I
think my exploration and food is largely
technique based not recipe based so
being in the kitchen and working with my
with all my senses you know I like it it
brings me joy and I enjoy doing it and
it also busts a great gender stereotype
so but you know I had to stop this
restaurant job at some point because I
had too many shows lined up there was
some 20 productions over seven months
which is a lot and you know I I’ve had
to sort of stop myself and think about
what it is that I want to do and over
the next seven months I’m going to move
into a phase of creative exploration
where I’m going to look at the places
where I can intersect theater technology
and food and that’s not to say that I
want to make some fancy food and using
some fancy technology and present it
dramatically and job’s done but a more
nuanced way to
presented more seamless experience that
will get you to use more than just a few of your senses thank you
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