New Zealand - Lighting designer Jo Kilgour created the lighting design for Hatupatu / Kurungaituku: a forbidden love, a new aerial dance work produced by Aotearoa’s kaupapa Māori theatre company, Taki Rua Productions. The work, written by creative director Tānemahuta Gray and Kapa Haka by Wētini Mītai-Ngātai, premiered at the Tãwhiri Warehouse in Wellington as part of the 2024 Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts.
Eighteen Robe T1 PCs and 10 x LEDWash 600 wash beams made up an integral part of Jo’s lighting rig, which was supplied to this production by Wellington-based rental company, Grouse Lighting, and project managed by Cameron Nicholls with the assistance of Riley Gibson.
The immersive storytelling was presented in traverse, with the audience standing either side of a central 1.5m-high runway stage, relating the tale of warrior Hatupatu and bird woman Kurungaituku in a daring and dramatic anti-gravitational collage of movement, action, and visceral emotion.
A ‘spine’ truss running the length of the runway in the roof and scaffolding structures either side was used to facilitate the people flying, so finding workable lighting positions was challenging. Upstage at one end was a rear projection screen, with four roof trusses flown parallel to the spine (two either side) along the length of the space to provide additional lighting positions. Jo worked collaboratively with set designer John Verryt.
For lighting, she needed a solution that was powerful, offered plenty of options and achieved with physically compact fixtures, so she immediately thought of Grouse and their Robe T1 PC luminaires which she’d utilised on a couple of previous projects.
The design process included a pilot workshop staged at Tãwhiri Warehouse in November 2023 with the full set design and a quarter of the then-specified lights, so Jo could establish what worked and what was practical.
The T1 PC’s zoom made it a popular choice for the “boom” positions which were mounted on the scaffolding structures only 2.8m either side of the runway stage. To ensure accurate and complete control of the output, she utilised the internal beam shaper (barn doors) to accurately shutter light off the climbers, the audience, and the projection screen.
The 10 x LEDWash 600s were rigged overhead and used almost like house lights, for general uniform wash coverage of the space, bathing it in pleasant light.
The 75-minute show was accompanied by a soundtrack composed by Paddy Free. The captivating video images designed by Artificial Imagination included a lot of content from Rotorua, where the story is set.
After Wellington, the show toured to Auckland’s Q Theatre, then played at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand in Christchurch before finishing up at the Energy Events Centre in Rotorua.
