Week 4 - Vibe

I had the pleasure of watching the Vibe Hip Hop Dance Competition at the Bren earlier. It was a pretty awesome show but I must say I was disappointed in the lighting. First things first – the lighting was not done by professionals. The lighting was done by the show’s DJs and they tried to make things look flashy but definitely failed.

They had two projectors on either side of the stage to give people a better view of what was on stage. Fortunately for me I came early and already had good seats. Unfortunately for those who would have needed the projectors, the DJs placed the projectors next to the stage so they were pretty much useless to those who already had a bad view. Now with something as emotionally driven as dance, I think lighting designers have a ton to play with here. Unfortunately, the DJs dropped the ball by going with the same attempt at starting the dances in an “epic” fashion. They would start the lights a few seconds after the music had started and always with this slow fade into green light. The problem with this was they would often miss some opening moves as they waited for the light to fade in. Also, they went with a lot of lower front light which created a lot of shadow on the dancers faces. Luckily the lighting didn’t ruin the amazing dancing going on stage. I just wish I could have had better things to say about the lighting.