I met Viola when she was still dancing with Merce. She then broke away and developed her own company. I did the lighting for most of her pieces.
There was a new piece. It was 45 minutes long and had a title of Opus. There was very little information in the title or the fairly abstract dance to help me with lighting clues. I asked Viola what ideas she might have about the lighting. “Oh, I don’t know anything about lighting,” she said. Then I asked her if she could perform the work anywhere in the world where would that be? She knew exactly and enthusiastically. “On a warm, windy, wintery day at the Grand Canyon.” There was the lighting concept.
Viola also said to me……
She had made a solo for herself. She was wearing a long dark red dress. The music was the piano studies of Czerny being played but by someone practicing, stopping, repeating, speeding up, slowing down. I asked Viola about the light. She said it should be the way the light looks coming in the windows of the living room at 4 o’clock in a February Sunday afternoon right before you have to turn on the lights.
Beverly Emmons (Lighting Designer) has designed for Broadway, Off-B’way and Regional Theater, Dance and Opera both in the USA and abroad. Her Broadway credits include Annie Get Your Gun, Jekyll & Hyde, The Heiress, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, High Rollers, Stepping Out, The Elephant Man, A Day in Hollywood A Night in the Ukraine, The Dresser, Piaf and Doonesbury. Her lighting of Amadeus won a Tony award., Off B’way she lit Vagina Monologues and has designed many productions with Joseph Chaikin and Meredith Monk. For Robert Wilson, she has designed lighting for productions spanning 13 years; most notably in America, Einstein on the Beach and the Civil Wars Pt V. Ms Emmons’ designs for dance have included works for Lucinda Child, Trisha Brown, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. She has been awarded seven Tony nominations, the 1976 Lumen award, 1984 and 1986 Bessies, and a 1980 Obie for Distinguished Lighting, and several Maharam/American Theater Wing Design Awards. Additionally, she has created and curated TheLightingArchive.org and LightingDB.nypl.org; two websites that make historical lighting documents accessible to students and scholars on the Internet.
