Transatlantica

The first step on the creative process of Transatlântica was to understand what would be the role of the lighting design. There was a clear narrative of a woman crossing spaces and bareers though time, coming back to her ancestors and to the history of her present. The lighting, therefore, established a linear narrative of a movement that was limited by the light, starting as a side light positioned on the floor. As the movement develops itself, the space opens up and reflects a performance that is pushing the space borders along with a woman expanding her body over them, over the world. Her memories, or even the warmth within her, appear every time she relates to the water on the stage. The light, there, is also warm and touches her body only after reflected by the water. The light has a water texture and the movement of the light responds to the way she touches this same water.

The stage had the constant presence of an ice block, that worked like a dancing lens on the stage, multiplying the light with all its possible optical phenomena. The light was the element between the performer and the water. It crossed everything spreading colors, refraction, reflection and the dance between these aspects and the emotional state of the scene.

The space had enormous windows on the sides and a constant presence of daylight coming from the back of the stage. Both interferences were incorporated in the play, using the sunlight on the back as a cyclorama light, and the opening of the window as a final moment in which all the borders are broken by the performer when she breaks the ice, exploding also the space and the wall around her. The light, here, supports a clear narrative that was ready to be told.