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Using the dark as a canvas and light as the brush the LUMA’s Theatre of
Light paints a story of how light occurs to humanity, and when combined
with hi-tech illuminated objects, is bringing to Rose-Hulman Institute
of Technology a “TechnoCircus” that provides an astonishing,
one-of-a-kind show.
LUMA’s latest show will be featured as part of
Rose-Hulman’s Performing Arts Series on Friday, Jan. 26, at 7 p.m. in
the college’s Hatfield Hall Theater. The show is sold out!
Creator/artistic director and show emcee Michael Marlin insists that
LUMA’s Theatre of Light isn’t your usual light show. Combining the
latest lighting technologies, various physical performance disciplines
and the colorful creations of famous kite designer/performer Marc
Ricketts, LUMA plunges theatergoers into a world where three dimensional
illuminated images paint a surreal world of light, color and motion.
Fireworks, carnival rides and computer screen savers appear out of
nowhere while phantom images of DNA stands, multiplying cells of light
and human ghosts create luminous mysteries.
"There is no reference point for LUMA because there’s no show like it
playing," said Marlin, a former comic juggler who dropped his first name
after forming LUMA in 1999. "Most other shows, whether it’s ‘Stomp,’
‘Blue Man Group’ or whatever, it’s all about the performers. That’s not
our intention. We want you to see the light."
Indeed, performers are totally hidden from the audience throughout
the 90-minute show, wearing black suits made from a "top-secret"
material. They maneuver brightly-lit props, execute rhythmic gymnastics
and puppetry, and even use illusion to depict everything luminous, from
creatures that lurk under the ocean to the aurora borealis, in a series
of vignettes.
Each LUMA vignette is about two minutes long and is accompanied by an
original score. The cast isn’t unveiled until the end of the show, which
performer George Schanz said always surprises the audience.
"There’s a lot that happens with a small amount of people," Schanz
said. "But with good planning and choreography, a small amount of people
can accomplish a lot."
Schanz, who has a background in dance, said he didn’t know what to
expect when he joined LUMA a year and a half ago. He had to learn how to
control the props and dance in the dark.
"The first time I saw what the show becomes I was like, ‘Whoa, this
is actually really cool,’" he said. "It was just a whole new experience
coming from being a stage dancer to a show like this, which was unlike
anything I’d ever done."
That people make the light move on stage, rather than machines,
Schanz said, is what separates LUMA from any other light show.
"I think it brings a slightly more personal aspect to the show," he
said. "It’s not just a computer shooting an image onto a stage. It
brings peoples’ emotions and feelings on to the stage as well."
The idea for LUMA was sparked on a camping trip Marlin took with a
friend in the Arizona desert during the early 1980s. As his friend
stared up at the splendor of the Milky Way, Marlin took a burning branch
from the campfire and swung it across the night sky. Marlin said the
moment made him aware of each person’s attraction to light.
Further inspiration came a few years later while visiting a volcano
on the island of Hawaii.
"I saw people staring at the lava like a deer in the headlights,"
said Marlin, who at the time was living in a self-built tree house on
the island. "I thought of how plant leaves grow toward the sunlight and
how all life is drawn to light. I thought the whole world would like to
see a show about light."
In the 1990s, Marlin began incorporating light shows into his comic
juggling act, which he performed throughout the world. The act
eventually blossomed into LUMA in 1999. To date, the traveling
exposition has performed in five continents and is currently exploring
an off-Broadway and Las Vegas production.
Marlin urges people attending the Rose-Hulman show to bring
flashlights, keychain lights and pen lights to the show –- in hopes of
maximizing the LUMA experience. The audience’s lights will be combined
with the performers in an illuminated free-for-all that will be fun and
exciting.
LUMA’s special Rose-Hulman show has been sponsored by the Indiana
Arts Council/Arts Illians, Duke Energy, First Financial Corporation and
Rose-Hulman’s Department of Physics and Optical Engineering. | 
