My good friend Marisa Roth, who owns the Northwest Ballet Company, contacted me recently and asked if I’d be interested in shooting the dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker. I told her NO…heh…well, of COURSE I’d shoot it. This year, because the Bigfork Playhouse where they normally present this classic holiday event was undergoing renovations, it was held at the high school’s auditorium. The first run-through was with strobes and the second was without so they could see their lighting configurations for the show.
Capturing dance in images is not an easy thing to do. Strobes help to stop the action but there are no do-overs and a lot of the dancers BLINK when that intense light goes off. The theater is dark and everyone is moving, moving, moving and it helps to know the right instances to shoot a lift sequence or particular important event in the story. I’d never seen The Nutcracker so I was shooting handicapped. Nonetheless it was still fun.
