Rafael Mendoza and Artiste Picasso in ballet gala
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Gala of Stars, Elisa and Friends featured performances by renowned figures in classical and contemporary dance from some of the most important ballet companies in the world such as the American Ballet Theatre, the Mariinsky Theatre, the Berlin State Ballet, and the Mikhailovsky Theatre.
Mendoza has served as lighting designer for the Elisa and Friends ballet gala for years, effectively from the beginning of the project, and has years of experience lighting ballet, dance and opera behind him. He comments: “Mexico, with its different dance expressions and genres, classical dance, Mexican folklore, contemporary dance and many that have been added in the last 40 years, all involve the wonderful human body expressing itself in different ways.
“I design lighting thinking about the body and movement, adding symbolism or other elements that, for example, in ballet is often defined in the script. Light often defines the space, defines the time, and defines interior or exterior places where you want to take the viewer. Colour is often chosen depending on those spaces or simply highlights the state of mind of the dancers, modelling the body by contrasting it through the beam angle and colour, generating drama and interest for the viewer.”
On Elisa and Friends, Mendoza had the opportunity to use the Artiste Picasso for the first time. “I was in search of new LED fixtures when I found Elation’s Artiste series and the Artiste Picasso,” he explains. “These luminaries have enchanted me with all the possibilities they offer and, above all, for the applications they can cover in the type of work I do. I studied the fixture, saw it perform and understood that they were the ideal fixtures for me to transition to LED technology. They have given me the possibility to use LED lighting for any dance genre due to its technical possibilities, color temperature options, high colour saturation and power. They are also very quiet.”
