Meet Craig Bushman | Lighting designer for dance and technical director for the Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, CO

We had the good fortune of connecting with Craig Bushman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Craig, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
While there were a few career choices that I considered, the most appealing ones to me were in the arts. The first “job” that I wanted to do (when I was about 6 years old) was to be a stand up comedian. I acted in every show I could get into from 5th grade through high school. I played bassoon and upright bass in the school orchestra when I wasn’t acting. I moved into creative writing when I “retired” from acting at 17. I still wanted to have a hand in performances, so I started working with the backstage crew and was drawn to lighting in particular. Throughout college, as I was working on my degree in English literature and creative writing, I thought that I would be a writer, maybe an English professor. But a series of events led me to work in lighting design for dance. It was quite by accident that it unfolded the way that it did, but I can’t imagine a more interesting way to make my way through the world. I get to help choreographers complete their vision and shape the way an audience sees a show. 

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My work is not a standalone medium…I need bodies to reflect the light back. The job for me is to support the concept of the choreographer while still bringing my own artistic choices to the table. Some choreographers have a very clear vision of what they want to see…colors, angles, intensities and shapes of light, while others rely on me to create the environment. Learning how to develop my own aesthetic and intuition about what a piece needs has been a fun and interesting part of the journey. It was probably a decade of working in a variety of venues with an array of other artists to truly find my voice and my place in it all. Luckily, I’ve had the good fortune to work with some very understanding and supportive people along the way, which was so beneficial to my experience.

Around here, often the lighting designer is the stage manager and the tech director all at once. I’m usually the only one in the booth during a show…triggering light cues with one hand and sound and video with the other. It’s important to me that dancers onstage know that they don’t have to worry about the lights and music being there when they need it. Being precise and consistent are key and I like that practice. Other stage managers will understand…it really appeals to the control freak/perfectionist in me. I think I have (or have developed) a brain for this kind of work. I usually have only a few days to learn a show and I generally have a different show each week. It’s a fair bit of studying before even getting into the theater, but each week by the 2nd show I run cues from memory without even looking at my cue sheets. Maybe others do that, too, though…I don’t know. I don’t know other designers who’s workload is much like mine.

I’ve been very lucky to have met the people that I have, which has made my journey easy, in retrospect. The dance world feels pretty small and interconnected. Having worked for the Colorado Dance Festival back when it existed, at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Perry-Mansfield, or out on tour with Doug Varone and Dancers and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, it feels like there’s just a tight-knit community of people who work in dance around the country. And there’s only a couple degrees of separation between all of us. It’s not where I expected to spend the bulk of my life, but it’s a pretty great way to spend the time, I think.

My current challenge is learning how to incorporate LED lighting into my design language. They’re different creatures from incandescent lights and after 3 decades of getting so comfortable with the old technology, it’s stretching my left brain (learning how to program them efficiently) and my right brain (there are so many color options to choose from all the time whenever I want!). I never thought that there would be such a shift in technology over the course of my career, but things are changing and I’m doing my best to keep up with it. I’m a long way from the meagre inventory I had to work with back in my early days and I’m grateful to have the chance to work with something new this far down the road. 

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
That really depends on the friend and what they like to do. There are so many things to do all along the front range no matter what someone is into. I like trying to find new things that I can experience for the first time along with my guests. I’ve had the pleasure of taking a few out of town friends to their first ever concert at Red Rocks, which is always a treat. And I do love introducing people to The Ethiopian Restaurant on Colfax and Detroit..it’s good for vegetarians and omnivores alike if you’ve got the time. If they want a drink, The Thin Man is the one of the best neighborhood bars that I know. And there’s such an amazing array of local ice cream places from Sweet Action, The Little Man, Liks, and Sweet Cow. It’s difficult to have a favorite when there’s such a wealth of options…I really like ice cream.

For art, I’m a fan of everything from the big shows at DCPA to the unique and usually hilarious work of Buntport Theater. The Museum of Contemporary, and The Redline Gallery are great. And I’ve become a huge fan of the Mission Ballroom…it’s a perfectly sized venue, it’s so easy to navigate, it’s got great sound and the coolest mirror ball I’ve ever seen.

And I always take my visiting friends to The Dairy Arts Center…there’s almost always something interesting to see there whether it’s theater, dance, arthouse cinema, music, or the galleries. It’s just got a whole lot of art in one cool place.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are so many, actually…but I’ll narrow it down to a few. First, Bob Shannon. He was the technical director for the dance department at CU-Boulder and offered a lighting design class for non-majors that I took as an elective in my semester there. Bob taught me to look at the color of things and how they interact with the colors around them…how the color of light can affect the color of skin, a costume, or a prop. He taught me that the first job of a lighting designer is to support and enhance the choreography and not overtake it.

Then there’s JP Osnes, who was the tech director at Macky Auditorium. We worked together there as well as the Colorado Dance Festival. JP taught me to peel back the layers of a performance, to find the meaning in it, and to think about what worked or didn’t work about it. He taught me through many discussions that a key value of any art is the discussions that it engenders. A specific piece or an entire medium of artistic expression may not be for everyone…it may not be for anyone but the artist. But art created with some kernel of truth, be it small and hidden or blatantly obvious, will affect someone. And good performance will last far longer in conversation about it afterwards than it takes to happen onstage.

Katie Elliott, the artistic director of 3rd Law Dance/Theater has been a friend since we were teenagers and an artistic collaborator for the last 20-some years. She brought me into her company very early on and has always supported my growth as an artist. She has always supported me in finding my own artistic voice and allowed me to bring it to each of her shows. Whether she gives me a conceptual path to follow or lets me run wild with whatever ideas I want to bring to the table, working with her has been an exceptional journey that I will always be grateful that I get to share.

And, finally, The Dairy Arts Center. My career started there shortly after I graduated in 1992. Last October, we celebrated the Dairy’s 30th anniversary and I’m the only person still working there that was there back at the beginning. Having that place as a home base for my work while getting to build its inventory of equipment to my specifications has been a treat and a privilege.

Website: http://thedairy.org/

Image Credits
Photos 1-5 by Heather Gray/Gray Area Dance Photography 6 & 7 by Craig Bushman