I was about to give up on my first try but it didn’t work and i’m working on it circus of terrorSuso Silva’s company Premiering again in Alicante on September 6last show, Requiem: The Last Symphony. Alicante Juanjo Llorens -4 Max award winner and a Talia– He is responsible for the lighting of almost all the productions of this dark and hooligan circus company, except for the first: Asylum, Cursed Cabaret, Apocalypse and now, Lament. None of them led him to the aforementioned awards but he continues I’m addicted to circus lights -“it’s like rock and roll,” he states – a discipline he combines with other theatre, music and dance projects.
Versatility led Llorens (Alicante, 1967) to work in Circus of Fear in 2012: “mental hospital this was my first collaboration and at first i almost threw the towel. Suddenly a code appeared that he did not understand. I came from a very theatrical world and Going to the circus was a huge shock to me.. One day, I said that I did not see myself as competent to do this task. To show and creators They asked me how many days I haven’t slept It was four o’clock between the rehearsals and the nightly programming. They told me, “Sleep, sleep for 24 hours, we’ll talk.” I slept and I’ve been with them for eleven years”He jokes, grateful for the trust placed in him by Silva and Manuel González of Productores de Sonrisas.
“At first I was looking for a theatrical light, I don’t want to disturb the public, but this is not possible in a tent.with. When I understood the code, I understood what it means to make a circus. If an artist stands up You have to disturb the audience, like a rock and roll concert and it’s okay to put your hand over your eyes for a moment to see something. Obviously, you can’t spend 5 minutes with a spotlight on your face, but every number has a light and a stop so the eye goes elsewhere,” explains the man from Alicante.
Requiem: The Final Symphony is Suso Silva’s farewell to the stage as interpreter of the 2003 National Circus Award, but the performances will continue to create,” and all demonstrations It’s where Llorens developed the characters of the Horrors brand, which he sees as “Suso’s personal hallmark”. He saved the audience – the youth – lost in the circus with a bloody aesthetic and horror. But still a great circus show with songs. music, dance, acrobatics and lots of humor. It was this aesthetic that caught the public’s attention and had a huge following.”
If you have to choose a color to define this contemporary circus, it chooses illuminator. “Red, undoubted or very dark blues and also contrast, chiaroscuro”. But every To show it has its own light: “Its origin was more theatrical, mental hospital It was a colder, fluorescent old asylum. Cabaret more festive, Apocalypse bigger and Bacchanalia more cabaret. The idea is to also tell the story in different lights. because also if the light is too monotonous the viewer gets bored”, he confirms.
Versatility and recognition
crying He is one of the stage lighting directors. most recognized from the country. You can focus a piece of dance With two people like Asun did with Noales Delicatessenor illuminate one musical like choir boys (Talia 2023 award). He earned his Max with: death and virgin (2021), The interesting thing about the dog in the middle of the night (2019), about mice and men (2013) and Function to be performed (2011). He also designed Amaral toursgiant concerts Wizink Center or premieres Goya Awards With Juan Luis Iborra. He states that the cinema did not appeal to him very much, “but if they offer it to me, of course I will.”
“I think the nice thing is here, not to lock yourself in one language. You learn to use things from small things to large spaces that you suddenly have to downsize,” he says, after emphasizing the importance of lighting on stage “because light is a dramaturgy, it tells and takes you to the mood you want. When the curtain opens eyes go where the first spotlight comes on and from here on you have to give continuity to the show, not to illuminate it for free. It’s nice to put a good light on, but then you have to light the actors as well.”
Juanjo Llorens loves everything he does. “The circus gives me more freedom and the energy of a tent without a theatre.A place where everything has to be more polite and there is more protocol to follow. People go crazy when they enter the tenta, directly. But then I go back to the theater and I don’t find it boring at all. they are different emotionsis thinking.
After that LamentLlorens will continue the circus –Rock Circus And circular– Getting ready until Christmas a show that will take you to china It premiered in December at the National Theater in Shanghai and later at the Teatro Español in Madrid.