Alumni
Shine a Light
by Deirdre kelly
photography by Kaitlyn Krestiankova
Arun Srinivasan (BFA ’94) usually doesn’t get top billing and doesn’t get applause. But he’s the reason so many of Canada’s dance performances and shows command attention. As one of the country’s leading lighting designers, he plays a role as crucial as that of any director or actor. Srinivasan doesn’t just illuminate a production. He shapes and frames it, easing the transitions between scenes and the narrative potential of the overall visual presentation.
“It’s easy to make things look cool with light, but that’s not what I want to do,” Srinivasan says. “I’m there to support the story, the mood, the moving bodies onstage. I’m there to help the audience see what it needs to see.”
The recipient of 10 Dora Mavor Moore nominations for his work in dance, theatre and opera, he has lit shows at Soulpepper, Crow’s Theatre, Canadian Stage and Factory Theatre. He has also served as resident lighting designer at York’s Theatre and Dance departments, among other Faculties. Srinivasan’s additional dance credentials encompass collaborations with such York-educated performers and choreographers as Yvonne Ng (MA ’18, BFA ’87), Lata Pada (MA ’96) and Peter Chin (BFA ’85).
The program at York exposed us to everything, from sets to costumes and lighting, of course, which is what I knew I would concentrate on
Currently, Srinivasan is at the Stratford Festival, lighting the North American premiere production of Wendy and Peter Pan. This is his fourth season at Stratford, where last year he received critical acclaim for the lighting design he did for Love’s Labour’s Lost. The Globe and Mail said “his gradually dimming lighting design” enhanced the production. This year promises to be just as noteworthy.
“This new show has so many elements that I enjoy – multiple sets, choreography and actors who fly. This will be my first time lighting people in the air and I’m so excited. I just love all the bells and whistles. I do like bold lighting.”
Very much a butterfly of the theatre, Srinivasan is drawn to bright lights. He remembers the first time they made a life-altering impression on him, while attending Albert Campbell Collegiate in Toronto’s Scarborough district. This is where he – the son of South Asian immigrants from India – grew up, along with an older sister also involved in the arts. Srinivasan had joined his high school’s sound and lighting crew, primarily performing grunt work such as assembling and hanging gels and lights for assemblies and school shows.
However, it wasn’t until an inspiring high school teacher, Jane Deluzio, took him and his classmates to see The Phantom of the Opera in downtown Toronto that he realized there was more to lighting than mere technical tasks. That school trip included a backstage tour of the entire production, including the dramatic lighting design. “I saw that and I was hooked,” he says. “I went back to my school and I didn’t just light our final show. I took it over. I meticulously designed it, light by light. I knew then that that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”
He enrolled at York after high school, because of the reputation of its Theatre Department, and focused on lighting as part of a multi-faceted education in the performing arts. “I loved it,” he says. “The program at York exposed us to everything, from sets to costumes and lighting, of course, which is what I knew I would concentrate on.”
Post graduation, Srinivasan volunteered at local theatres, where he apprenticed for free to hone his skills. He also gave freely of his time at a Toronto dance festival, where he quickly earned a following, eventually lighting the shows of several prominent Canadian choreographers, among them Danny Grossman, a former York faculty member, and Robert Desrosiers, a former ballet dancer who went on to helm his own contemporary dance company.
Srinivasan’s seamless collaboration with Desrosiers led to an extraordinary level of trust, with the choreographer granting him complete artistic freedom to craft the visually stunning lighting designs that became a hallmark of Desrosiers Dance Theatre’s critically acclaimed performances.
“I became known as the lighting designer for dance, which I didn’t mind even though my original plan was to light theatre. I love big-budget shows, I will admit. But dance is different. The budgets tend to be much smaller and the work is a shorter duration. But there’s also so much beauty and creativity there. And I’ve learned a lot lighting dance, where unlike in theatre, the lighting isn’t as much overhead as directed from the sides, which is a whole other challenge.”
Slowly, as the accolades for his dance work mounted, theatre came calling, which is how he ended up at Stratford for the first time in 2020. “I didn’t contact them, they contacted me and at first I was shocked. I always wanted to be at Stratford where there’s so much artistic freedom. The first word whenever you ask if you could do something new is never ‘no.’ It’s more, ‘let’s see what we can do.’ ”
After Stratford, Srinivasan heads to Sweden, where he’ll do a residency for No Woman’s Land, a 2023 show by Toronto’s Jaberi Dance Theatre. Srinivasan did the original lighting design, but for the European premiere, taking place outside Stockholm on Sept. 7 (and the anticipated European tour that may follow), he’s handing it over to a local designer to implement and manage, in accordance with his detailed instructions.
Teaching others how to do lighting is something he’s grown accustomed to, having served as an instructor for lighting design at York and elsewhere.
“I always tell students that we’re painting with light,” he says. “I also tell them not to over-dazzle, because sometimes less is more. If the lighting is ever the star of a show, then we haven’t done the job right.” ■
