with the dancers crouching near the ground. I wanted to show my sources, not claim I invented everything, though my jerky improv versions weren’t much like the originals in any case.
Talking Heads recorded another record, Speaking in Tongues , that was made using a very similar process to Remain in Light , though this time without Eno’s involvement. In thinking of what kind of performance and tour
would follow, I decided to apply my insights from Japan, Bali, and the gospel church. This show would be mapped out from beginning to end.
DAV I D BY R N E | 53
In retrospect, the earlier tour with a big band had been a work in pro-
gress. My movements during rehearsals gradually became more formal as I
realized which improvisations worked in which sections of which songs. It
was a kind of organic choreography, like what I’d done on the video, but now involving more people and for a whole show. I storyboarded the whole thing,
sometimes not knowing which song would go with which staging idea. The
songs got assigned to the staging and lighting ideas later, as did details of the movements.J
We decided that we’d all wear neutral gray outfits this time. I had realized that people on stage can either stick out (if they wear white or sparkly outfits) or disappear (if they wear dark colors). With music shows, there is inevitably so much gear on stage—guitars, drums, keyboards, amps—that sometimes
the gear ends up being lit as much as the performers. To mitigate this a little bit I had all the metal hardware (cymbal stands and keyboard racks) painted
matte black so that it wouldn’t outshine the musicians. We hid the guitar
amps under the riders that the backing band played on, so those were invisible too. Wearing gray suits seemed to be the best of both worlds, and by planning it in advance, we knew there would at least be consistent lighting from night to night. Typically a musician or singer might decide to wear their white or black shirt on a given night, and they’d end up either glowing brighter than everyone else or be rendered invisible. We avoided that problem.
J
54 | HOW MUSIC WORKS
On all of our previous tours we’d maintained the lighting dogma left over
from CBGB: white light, on at the top of the show and off at the end. But I
felt it was time to break away from that a little bit. I still confined the lighting to white, though now white in all its possibilities, permutations, and
combinations. There were no colored gels as such, but we did use fluores-
cent bulbs, movie lights, shadows, handheld lights, work lights, household
lamps, and floor lights—each of which had a particular quality of its own,
but were still what we might consider white . I brought in a lighting designer, Beverly Emmons, whose work I’d seen in a piece by the director Robert
Wilson. I showed her the storyboards and explained the concept, and she
knew exactly how to achieve the desired effects, which lighting instruments
to use, and how to rig them.
I had become excited by the downtown New York theater scene. Robert
Wilson, Mabou Mines, and the Wooster Group in particular were all experi-
menting with new ways of putting things on stage and presenting them,
experiments that to my eyes were close to the Asian theater forms and ritu-
als that had recently inspired me.K
What they were all doing was as exciting for me as when I’d first heard
pop music as an adolescent, or when the anything-goes attitude of the
punk and post-punk scene flourished. I invited JoAnne Akalaitis, one of the
directors involved with Mabou Mines, to look at our early rehearsals and
K
DAV I D BY R N E | 55
give me some notes. There was no staging or lighting yet, but I was curious
whether a more theatrical eye might see something I was missing, or sug-
gest a better way to do something.
To further complicate matters, I decided to make the show completely
transparent. I would show how everything was done and how it had been
Talking Heads recorded another record, Speaking in Tongues , that was made using a very similar process to Remain in Light , though this time without Eno’s involvement. In thinking of what kind of performance and tour
would follow, I decided to apply my insights from Japan, Bali, and the gospel church. This show would be mapped out from beginning to end.
DAV I D BY R N E | 53
In retrospect, the earlier tour with a big band had been a work in pro-
gress. My movements during rehearsals gradually became more formal as I
realized which improvisations worked in which sections of which songs. It
was a kind of organic choreography, like what I’d done on the video, but now involving more people and for a whole show. I storyboarded the whole thing,
sometimes not knowing which song would go with which staging idea. The
songs got assigned to the staging and lighting ideas later, as did details of the movements.J
We decided that we’d all wear neutral gray outfits this time. I had realized that people on stage can either stick out (if they wear white or sparkly outfits) or disappear (if they wear dark colors). With music shows, there is inevitably so much gear on stage—guitars, drums, keyboards, amps—that sometimes
the gear ends up being lit as much as the performers. To mitigate this a little bit I had all the metal hardware (cymbal stands and keyboard racks) painted
matte black so that it wouldn’t outshine the musicians. We hid the guitar
amps under the riders that the backing band played on, so those were invisible too. Wearing gray suits seemed to be the best of both worlds, and by planning it in advance, we knew there would at least be consistent lighting from night to night. Typically a musician or singer might decide to wear their white or black shirt on a given night, and they’d end up either glowing brighter than everyone else or be rendered invisible. We avoided that problem.
J
54 | HOW MUSIC WORKS
On all of our previous tours we’d maintained the lighting dogma left over
from CBGB: white light, on at the top of the show and off at the end. But I
felt it was time to break away from that a little bit. I still confined the lighting to white, though now white in all its possibilities, permutations, and
combinations. There were no colored gels as such, but we did use fluores-
cent bulbs, movie lights, shadows, handheld lights, work lights, household
lamps, and floor lights—each of which had a particular quality of its own,
but were still what we might consider white . I brought in a lighting designer, Beverly Emmons, whose work I’d seen in a piece by the director Robert
Wilson. I showed her the storyboards and explained the concept, and she
knew exactly how to achieve the desired effects, which lighting instruments
to use, and how to rig them.
I had become excited by the downtown New York theater scene. Robert
Wilson, Mabou Mines, and the Wooster Group in particular were all experi-
menting with new ways of putting things on stage and presenting them,
experiments that to my eyes were close to the Asian theater forms and ritu-
als that had recently inspired me.K
What they were all doing was as exciting for me as when I’d first heard
pop music as an adolescent, or when the anything-goes attitude of the
punk and post-punk scene flourished. I invited JoAnne Akalaitis, one of the
directors involved with Mabou Mines, to look at our early rehearsals and
K
DAV I D BY R N E | 55
give me some notes. There was no staging or lighting yet, but I was curious
whether a more theatrical eye might see something I was missing, or sug-
gest a better way to do something.
To further complicate matters, I decided to make the show completely
transparent. I would show how everything was done and how it had been
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