Northern Lights • Hugh Conacher
“Northern Lights: dynamic displays of multicoloured luminosity appearing in the day or night sky in high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.” The Canadian Encyclopedia
When I see a body move through theatrical space, it leaves a trail in my mind’s eye; the image lingers, slowly fading away.
How do I capture stories in the moving body in the same way that I capture them in the natural world? Motion Capture uses dance to draw parallels from the natural world around us. The result is reminiscent of moving water or the Northern Lights.
In this series, I document a journey through time and in movement. I integrate light with live performance and hold the evanescent beauty of dancer’s movements through space, conveying the body’s momentum and elegance.
Artwork sizes:
MotionCapture1 2020 30” x 240” Archival Digital Print
MotionCapture2 2020 30” x 144” Archival Digital Print
MotionCapture3 2020 30” x 96.5” Archival Digital Print
MotionCapture4 2020 30” x 186” Archival Digital Print
MotionCapture5 2023 30”x120″ Archival Digital Print
Biography: Hugh Conacher is a lighting and multi-media designer, and a photographer, whose practice is based in live performance. He has collaborated with choreographers, directors, visual artists, and dance and theatre companies throughout Canada and around the world, in venues large and small.
Canadian artists and companies include the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, the Citadel Theatre, Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the National Arts Centre, Mirvish Productions, QDance, Gearshifting Performance Works, Theatre Projects Manitoba, Freya Björg Olafson and Wanda Koop, to name a few.
Hugh’s love of photography and extreme climates has taken him from the Arctic to the Antarctic in order to capture the changing beauty of these unique landscapes. His photographic work resides in private collections and has been published worldwide.
Hugh is a member of the Associated Designers of Canada and L’Association des professionnels des arts de la scène du Québec.