Pirouette

An Elegant Chandelier with Mixed Materials Shows the Beauty of Duet Dance

THE BRIEF

A chandelier combines Taiwan traditional neon lighting craftsmanship and metal accessories

"Pirouette" represents the beauty of the duet dance of dancers and two materials. This work combines two materials to show the contract but harmony feeling of duet dance. The name means spinning in ballet.

Background

IDEATION & CONCDEPT

In the beginning, I imagined an environment where I want to put my lighting. It’s a wide living room with white walls and a wooden floor. There is a French window facing the sea. In that place, everyone can feel calm, peace, and serenity.

What kind of lighting could make space a little more energy and elegance? When starting thinking of what’s the main topic of this lamp, “dance” came to my mind. Dancing can present the strength and beauty of life. Since dancing has been my hobby since I was a child, I wanted to make a lamp expressing the beauty of the bodies of dancers. However, how to present the sense of rhythm became a big challenge for me. How could I make the work show the beauty of the moment that the dancer is dancing in an obscure but understandable way?

Itreration

SKETCH & PROTOTYPE

I chose a dance movie “Step-up Revolution” as the reference. The last duet dance in the movie showed the courage of dreaming and also the love between the main characters. I watched the video and pictured the scences I like. I turned main characters’ poses into lines to made the scenes into abstract mode but still remain its feeling of flowing. I sketched several scenes and chose the ones I prefered. I started making the sketches into 3D prototypes. I used the transparent pipe and aluminum wire to make the shape easily and freely. In this way, I could imitate the appearance of glass tube.

Iteration

PROCESS & MATERIALS

Copper

Since I want to present a duet dance, I chose copper to make some accessories with exquisite details. Also, I used copper wires to combine with glass tubes. I used different materials to present the harmony and collision in the duet dance. The combination of materials makes this lamp more unique.

Traditional Neon Lighting

Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases. In Taiwan, the neon lighting industry reached its peak in the 1990s. It takes many years to specialize in making glass tubes. However, since LED lighting has been popular, fewer people use traditional neon lighting.

Each neon piece was made by a master with more than 10 years of skill. It is unique and strong with a glass tube bent through at least 800 degrees of high temperature. It is both persevering and fragile. It can be used for 10 years, but it is possible to be broken once it is hit. It’s the reason why I chose it. It can show the beauty of strength and delicacy at the same time. Also, neon lighting is gentle but gorgeous, expressing the same atmosphere of dancing.