A Symphony of Color
Studio Visit with Brandon Stirling Baker
January 15, 2025
,This winter, the annual New Combinations program includes Resident Choreographer Justin Peck's 25th work for NYCB, Mystic Familiar. Among the artists whose work is essential to bringing this new ballet to life is one of Peck's most frequent partners-in-art: Lighting Designer Brandon Stirling Baker. This will be Baker's 14th work for the company, after The Times Are Racing, Partita, Law of Mosaics and others; and, it will be his 33rd collaboration with Peck, following, most recently, the Tony Award-winning Illinoise, for which Baker was also nominated.
What does the work of a lighting designer entail, and what is the secret to this lastingly fruitful collaborative relationship with Peck in particular? We caught up with Baker at the theater and asked him about how he came to this role, his artistic practice, and more.
Please tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to focus on lighting design.
I grew up in Los Angeles in a community full of artists. My background was originally in music and illustration. I remember watching a show as a young teenager and thinking to myself that light can be a bridge between the world of music and the world of visual art; light can be a visual frame for a dance but also provide a symphony of color. This discovery inspired me to dedicate my life to working with light.
How did you come to work with NYCB?
I moved to New York in 2010 for a unique program called the Gilbert V. Hemsley Lighting Internship. This program directly introduced me to New York City Ballet and I immediately fell in love with ballet and this company. Everything about this art form was inspiring to me—the music, the history, the repertory, and, of course, the artists. It’s important to note that the Hemsley program was co-founded by Mark Stanley, resident lighting designer at NYCB. His work with this program has deeply changed my life and the lives of so many young designers working today.
Please describe your aesthetic in your own words.
Working with light is a lot like dreaming with your eyes open. I am always discovering new ways of developing my craft in this art form. It’s a lifelong process of discovery and I never assume that I have the answer at the beginning of every collaboration.
This is your 33rd collaboration with Justin Peck—congratulations! How did this relationship come to be?
Justin and I have been through so much together. We’ve been working together for 15 years, and every project feels like a new discovery. Our first collaboration was with the New York Choreographic Institute in 2010, and we made our Lincoln Center debut together in 2012 with Year of the Rabbit on New York City Ballet. We’ve gone on to do many more works since then, but I think what makes our partnership so meaningful is that Justin has a lot of trust in his collaborators; he really inspires me to create some of my best work. The greatest gift of this long-term collaboration is that every ballet we do together feels like home.
What is your process like when working on a new piece with Peck?
We always begin with the music. When I listen to music, I listen for color. I strongly believe that the instrumentation and orchestrations in a musical score can teach us everything we need to know about how light should exist in a ballet. It’s the north star, you could say. After I study the music, I spend a lot of time with Justin in the rehearsal studio, where I study the architecture of the choreography and how it relates to both the music and physical space. Justin and I speak a lot of about the visual world of the dance and how color can support this. We often think big picture and then over time, in the studio, we get more detailed with our creative thoughts. What is very rare and unique about our process is that often in the studio we speak about almost everything but the lighting. We are always thinking about the big picture and the visual landscape of a dance. To me that is the most important ingredient in our collaboration.
Can you describe the role of lighting designer as you see it, and share what you think audiences might not realize about your work?
A lighting designer provides a point of view. Light can influence what you see and how you see it. Light can help inform the style of a dance and contribute to the identity of a work. For example, if you speak of George Balanchine’s Serenade, many people immediately think of the iconic opening image of dancers holding their hand up in the air toward the directional moonlight. The light in that ballet is now forever a part of the identity of that ballet and I believe is essential to our memory of this work. What most people don’t know is that a lighting designer's work is done without any privacy; it's perhaps the only visual artform that does not have the opportunity to try out ideas in private. Our work is created in a large theater in front of the dancers, orchestra, stage crew and company staff. We often create this work in a very short period of time. I think there is something equally exciting and beautiful about this process, creating something new with great urgency that can disappear in the blink of an eye.
Behind the scenes photos © Erin Baiano. Portrait by Ella Spruill © New York City Ballet.