NEW YORK — Taking its name from the non-violent Samoan independence movement, MAU is an ensemble of artists using minimalist choreography, staging and lighting to make a visual commentary about life, social change and death, and lighting from a Selecon 575W MSR Zoomspot plays a key role. Helen Todd, who has worked with MAU founder, artistic director and choreographer Lemi Ponifasio since 1993, has used the Selecon instrument for Tempest, a piece that chronicled the sweeping changes to traditional Pacific cultures, and for Requiem, a performance that dealt with spiritual reflections on violent death.
For both, Todd uses the Selecon 575W MSR Zoomspot fitted with a Pacific Dowser mechanical dimmer, which accompanies MAU on its tour to venues and festivals that have included Lincoln Center in New York to the Vienna Festival, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Holland Festival, Venice Biennale, London International Theatre Festival, Theatre Der Welt, Adelaide Festival and the Prague Quadrennial.
“I rely on the subtle and minutely accurate dimming action of these dowsers in order to engage the audience without drawing attention to what they are seeing, but rather the tension of unnoticeable change,” Todd said. “The hot-strike lamps allow me to focus and check plotting without losing precious time, and of course interchangeable lenses are perfect if you care for absolute accuracy in your plot. For touring I am delighted to find that increasingly these beautiful instruments are available in Europe and of course in the U.S.,” Todd said.
"With Tempest, I began with imagining shadows and black spaces as this work deals with disappearing people, individuals and cultures. I wanted stark and arresting contrasts, and I wanted to make the spaces appear and disappear seamlessly and magically, just as it happens in the political realities we are dealing with in our world today.
“The work Requiem requires a sacred space, for ceremony and remembrance,” Todd added. “It requires an edge of darkness that inspires prayer, or reflection on inflicted loss of life. I try to define territorial zones that shift us, hovering between reverence and fear, where humans and even angels should tread only tenderly.
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