M. Vale

Lighting designer — performance & public space

MaraVale

I design light for stages, exhibition halls and streets after dark — from first colour sketch through to final focus and the cue stack a venue crew can run on its own.

Discipline
Theatre, dance, exhibition and civic lighting design
Based
Rotterdam — commissions across the EU and UK
Availability
Design slots open from March 2027
Contact
studio@maravale.works

Profile

Nine years designing and running light, split between freelance design and in-house venue work.

Light that holds a room together

My work starts with the question of what the audience should be able to see, and what should stay in the dark. The rest — rig, palette, control — follows from that answer.

I draft my own plots and paperwork, model intensity and colour before anything is hung, and keep rigs small enough to focus properly in the time a production actually has. On civic projects I work to glare and spill limits as hard constraints rather than afterthoughts. I like tech weeks where the operator finishes with a show file they understand.

  • Plot & paperwork
  • Colour scoring
  • Photometric modelling
  • Console programming
  • Touring adaptation
  • Dark-sky practice

Selected work

Full credit list and documentation sent on request.

Recent commissions

  • 2026

    Tideline

    Westerkade open-air stage · Lighting designer

    A 48-fixture temporary rig on a floating platform, with the evening intensity curve timed to the tide table and the harbour's own working lights treated as part of the palette.

  • 2025

    Ember Pavilion

    Noordkaap Biennale · Lighting and control design

    Warm-only palette held between 2200K and 2700K, with zero upward spill toward the dunes; visitor-triggered scenes fading over four minutes so the pavilion never looked switched.

  • 2025

    Quiet Machines

    Harbour Hall, contemporary dance · Lighting designer

    One moving source and five mirrors carried the whole piece. Cue stack of 112 states, timecoded to the score and run nightly by a single operator.

  • 2024

    Night Verge

    Municipal footpath relighting study · Design lead

    Three kilometres of shared path relit for legibility rather than brightness, tested with on-site mock-ups at two mounting heights before the specification was signed off.

  • 2024

    Six Rooms

    Kade Theatre Company, touring · Associate lighting designer

    Rig and paperwork rebuilt so the show fitted six receiving houses, including two without a fly system, inside a ninety-minute changeover.

Warm amber and violet stage wash spreading across a crowded auditorium.
Tideline — opening wash, tech week
Narrow beams of light cutting through haze above an audience at night.
Ember Pavilion — beam study in haze
A single bright source throwing a hard shaft of light across a dark hall.
Quiet Machines — single-source state

Experience

Freelance design alongside in-house technical management.

Positions

  • 2023 — now

    Lighting designer, independent

    Studio Vale · Rotterdam

    • Design from concept to final focus for theatre, dance, exhibition and municipal clients, including all plots, sections, magic sheets and touring paperwork.
    • Specify rigs to the budget and crew hours available, and hand over documented show files with a written restore procedure.
  • 2020 — 2023

    Head of lighting

    Harbour Hall · 650-seat receiving house

    • Owned the repertory rig, maintenance schedule and inspection records; rebuilt the house plot to cut focus time for incoming companies.
    • Hosted visiting designers, ran recruitment and console training for casual crew, and managed consumables and replacement planning.
  • 2018 — 2020

    Lighting programmer and board operator

    Kade Theatre Company · touring

    • Programmed and operated six touring productions, adapting cue stacks to each venue's rig during get-in.
    • Maintained network and data distribution on the road, and kept a fault log that travelled with the show.
  • 2016 — 2018

    Lighting technician, seasonal

    Noordkaap Festival · outdoor stages

    • Rigged, cabled and tested four stages per season under weather and power constraints, working to the site's temporary electrical scheme.

Capabilities

Consoles and drafting tools used in production, not in passing.

Tools and methods

Design

  • Lighting plots, sections and elevations
  • Colour and intensity scoring
  • Photometric modelling and mock-ups
  • Focus and plotting sessions
  • Glare, spill and dark-sky review

Control

  • grandMA3 and grandMA2
  • ETC Eos family
  • DMX512, sACN and Art-Net networks
  • Timecode and MIDI cue triggering
  • Architectural scene controllers

Drawing & documentation

  • Vectorworks Spotlight
  • AutoCAD
  • Capture and Depence pre-visualisation
  • Magic sheets, cue synopses, cable schedules
  • Touring packs and venue adaptations

Working method

  • Rig budgeting and hire negotiation
  • Crew briefing and console handover
  • Working at height and rigging practice
  • Accessibility and audience-comfort review
  • Dutch and English, fluent in both

Education & training

Qualifications

  • 2016

    MA Scenography, lighting pathway

    Royal Academy of Theatre Arts

    Final research project on low-intensity design for small stages.

  • 2014

    BSc Technical Theatre

    Hogeschool Noordkaap

  • 2025

    Working at height and rigging refresher

    Certificate · renewed every two years

  • 2024

    Dark-sky and outdoor lighting practice

    Short course · specification and measurement

  • 2023

    ETC Eos advanced programming

    Manufacturer training

Availability

Getting in touch

Design slots open from March 2027, with earlier dates kept free for focus weeks, pre-visualisation blocks and short technical residencies. Write with the dates, venue and what the piece needs to do, and I will reply with a scope and a fee range.

Email
studio@maravale.works
Working radius
Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, UK and Nordics
Languages
Dutch, English
On request
Portfolio, documentation stills and references