Okay, so I’m back from Munich – and London and Edinburgh, too – and I can sit m’self down to write up the many, many pages of notes I took during the wonderfully fascinating talks and panels. That’s going to take a little time.
There’s also a couple of hundred pictures from my phonecam lurking unprocessed in iPhoto, waiting to be sieved into Light & Dark. That will also take a wee while.
A quick summary of the conference, then: it was amazing. Plenty of new stuff to learn, different fields of lighting to consider, but the biggest mind-explosion for me was simply to meet so many of those (all puns intended) leading lights who, until now, have been names in books and theatre programmes.
Time for a quick met-roll:
- Nick Schlieper
- Rick Fisher
- Ken Billington
- Richard Pilbrow
- Sue Gibson
- Geoff Spain
- Roger Simonsz
- Ian Dow
- David Taylor
- Jeremy Collins, Mike Goldberg and Dave Wilkins of Selecon
To talk, eat and drink with these and many more was the most hugely valuable experience for me. I’ve been massively down on the prospects for making a career out of lighting, but Showlight really opened my eyes to the potential of other countries and fields of practice beyond theatre in the UK.
And, of course, there were a bunch of other students from all over the world – Rose Bruford, Central School, and the Beyeische Theaterakademie in Munich among others: very interesting to hear about the different approaches to teaching lighting and technical theatre, and it was great to meet everyone.
More coming soon – keep an eye on the Showlight category.
