On Friday 19 September, The Centre for the Less Good Idea presents The Open Moment | Thinking in Lighting.
This Open Moment follows a four-day mentorship led by renowned lighting designer, Urs Schönebaum, where seven selected participants are taken through a close and considered engagement with lighting for performance and other stage-based works.
In addition to exercises in seeing and perceiving, lighting with objects, bodies, and set design, the participants will be working with short extracts from scripts and staged works pulled through from SO Academy’s Thinking In Writing and Thinking In Directing mentorships.
The Open Moment will take the form of a public showing and will be an opportunity for an audience to witness and participate in the material and approaches explored throughout the mentorship.
Thinking in Lighting sees SO | The Academy for the Less Good Idea continuing its series of Thinking In mentorships, designed to address the fundamentals of theatre-making, and with the intention to create, incubate and stage new works from scratch.
The Thinking in Lighting participants are: Gavin Krastin, Joel Leonard, Hallie Haller, Melony Eksteen, Phumeza Primrose Damane, Phala Ookeditse Phala and Dimakatso Motholo-Miya.
DATE | FRIDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2025
TIME | 19H00
VENUE | THE CENTRE SPACE, THE CENTRE FOR THE LESS GOOD IDEA, ARTS ON MAIN, 264 FOX STREET, MABONENG
DURATION | 60-90 MINUTES
TICKETS | R150
BOOKINGS | www.lessgoodidea.com/bookings
Urs Schönebaum studied photography in Munich before working with Max Keller as a part of the lighting department of Münchner Kammerspiele. In1998 he started being assistant stage director for productions at Grand Theatre de Genève, Lincoln Center New York and Münchner Kammerspiele until 2000, when he took up work as a lighting designer for opera, theater, dance, art installations, and performances.
He has participated in over 200 productions at major theatres with stage directors like Thomas Ostermeier, La Fura dels Baus, Sacha Waltz, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet, Michael Haneke, Pierre Audi, Claus Guth, Laurent Pelly, Barbara Lluch, Barry Kosky and was a long-time collaborator of Robert Wilson.
Schönebaum’s work also includes lighting designs for art projects with Vanessa Beecroft, Anselm Kiefer, Dan Graham, Taryn Simon, Soundwalk Collective, William Kentridge, Anne Imhof and Marina Abramović.
Since 2012, he has worked as a set designer and stage director. He designed and directed the operas Jetzt, What Next? and Happy Happy for the Opera National de Montpellier. He directed and designed the 2nd Act of the Walküre Project at Staatsoper Stuttgart. His set and lighting designs include Bomarzo at Teatro Real, Aus Licht at Holland Festival, Apocalypse Arabe, and Ritorno de Ulisse in Patria at Festival d’Aix en Provence, Klangwolke 22 in Linz, Inside Light at the Park Avenue Armory New York, Bastarda! at La Monnaie Brusseles and La Regenta at the Matadero in Madrid.
Image | Zivanai Matangi
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