Jennifer Tipton

Biography

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Tipton entered Cornell University in 1954 to study astrophysics but graduated in 1958 with a degree in English and a resolve to dance. She moved to New York where she studied at the Martha Graham School and eventually performed with the Lucas Hoving Company and the Merry-Go-Rounders. Along the way, Tipton became interested in how performances looked and especially how they were lit. To learn more, she took a course with lighting designer Thomas Skelton. This led to an apprenticeship that would eventually launch her career.

Tipton began by lighting what she understood best-dance. She has worked with the Paul Taylor Dance Company since 1965, when she created the lighting for Taylor’s Orbs. But it was her lighting of Jerome Robbins' high profile Celebrations: The Art of the Pas de Deux (1973) at Spoleto, Italy, that first won Tipton attention in theatrical circles. Over the years, she has become regarded as one of the most versatile lighting designers in dance. Her achievements range from the forceful, sculptured effects in Fait Accompli (Twyla Tharp, 1983) to the subtle, shimmering vision for In Memory of…(Jerome Robbins, 1985).
She has also maintained alliances with choreographers Dan Wagoner, Robert Joffrey, Eliot Feld, Mikhail Barshnikov, Jerome Robbins, Jiri Kylian, Dana Reitz, Trisha Brown, Christopher Wheeldon.

She has created lighting design for Alexei ballets produced for National Ballet of Canada (Romeo and Juliet) and ABT (The Nutcracker, Shostakovich Trilogy).

Tipton is well known for her work in theatre and opera. Her recent work in opera includes Salvatore Sciarrino's new opera Da Gelo A Gelo directed by Trisha Brown in Schwetzingen, Germany, Mozart's The Magic Flute at Santa Fe Opera directed by Tim Albery and Il Trovatore at the Chicago Lyric directed by David McVicar. In theater her recent work includes Marcus Gardley's Dance Of The Holy Ghosts: a play on memory at the Yale Repertory Theater directed by Liz Diamond and Hamlet for the Wooster Group which opened in Barcelona, Spain.

Since 1981, Tipton has been a Professor-Adjunct at the Yale University School of Drama.

Tipton's outstanding designs have won her numerous awards, including two Drama Desk Awards, a Joseph Jefferson Award, a Tony Award, two Obie Awards, and three Bessie Awards.She received the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2001, the Jerome Robbins Prize in 2003 and in April 2004 the Mayor's Award for Arts and Culture in New York City.

"Ninety-nine and nine-tenths percent of the audience is not aware of the lighting, " Tipton has stated, "… though 100 percent is affected by it."