Helena Rakovich is a Belarusian-born, Warsaw-based lighting designer with previous formal education in ballet. Her practice is particularly concerned with the neurophysiology of human vision and the exploration of movement as a quality of light and space. Helena’s selected works include Jubileusz at the Dramatic Theatre in Warsaw, Moby Dick at the Wrocław Pantomime Theatre, Idioci. Spass! at Barakah Theatre in Kraków, and Do kogo należy twoja cisza? at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, produced by the Puzyna Dialogue Foundation.
She has been a resident at, among others, the Warsaw Observatory of Culture, Bunker in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius. Her first experiences in lighting design developed through her formal training and early collaborations with Felice Ross and Krzysztof Warlikowski, Aleksander Prowaliński and Barbara Wiśniewska, as well as Monika Stolarska and Piotr Pacześniak.
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Helena Rakovich
01-226 Warsaw
+48 577 388 852
hela.rakovich@gmail.com
The Dramatic Theatre of the Capital City of Warsaw
I introduce this distinction through the visual language, helping the audience navigate the complex plot more easily. The action set in 1578 is lit with a chiaroscuro characteristic of Caravaggio’s paintings. The choice of Caravaggio as an inspiration refers both to that period in art history and to Jarman’s most recognisable film.
In the “punk” section of the performance, colours are introduced symbolically – the key framework for these meanings is Jarman’s treatise on colour, the author’s final work, created after he had lost his sight and become aware of the inevitability of his approaching death due to AIDS-related complications. The use of the colour blue is particularly significant in the performance.
Jarman’s final film, Blue (1993), is his artistic and personal testament – in the performance, blue functions as a tribute to the artist’s memory.
Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw
Haze became a tool of visualising silence and filling the pauses between phrases.
Barakah Theatre in Krakow
The performance draws on the film without moralising. It embraces the idea of the “inner idiot” as a state of perception based on a direct encounter with the world, close to that of a child, a monk, an athlete, an animal or an actor. Against the backdrop of sterile white latex set design, colours inspired by Mondrian’s palette begin to emerge. They break free from control, are reflected in the mirrored floor, blend into one another and spill beyond the boundaries of the stage. It was a joyful and liberating process to explore how I could allow light to become a free spirit, challenging the boundaries of my own decisions and intentions.
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Wroclaw Mime Theatre named after Henryk Tomaszewski
Apart from the novel’s plot and natural light, which was a major source of inspiration, the starting point for building the structure of the performance was the concept of a journey by ship. The performance began and ended on the narrative shore, while the climax took place somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Dramaturgically, we also worked on finding the brightest and darkest moments, both in the context of the hope, goodness and love present in individual scenes, and in relation to the rhythms of nature, which was incorporated into the script not as a backdrop to the characters’ actions, but as a kind of non-human actor.
Miszka, the stage manager Kasia’s dog, appears in the performance. For a long time, Miszka, her scene partner Janek Kochanowski and I searched for solutions for lighting their shared scene. In the end, we decided on muted, warm backlighting, a separate playing area for Miszka (we were very keen to avoid training her), and raising the light levels above the first rows of the audience, because Miszka enjoyed contact with the spectators, and looking attentively at their smiling faces clearly made her feel more comfortable on stage. We also took care to measure very precisely the amount of smoke in the scenes before and after her appearance, as well as the sound levels and the lighting at the
curtain call.
Jubilee
dir. Maciej Jaszczyński
2026
Do kogo należy twoja cisza?
dir. Bazhena Shamovich
2026
The Idiots. Spass!
dir. Jakub Zalasa
2025
Moby Dick
dir. Jakub Zalasa
2025
Education
Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw
Theatre Pedagogy
2027
University of Warsaw
Cultural Policy and Art Management
2025
University of Antwerp
Marketing & Management, History of Islam
2023
University of Łódź
Theatre Production and Event Organisation
2023
Ballet School No. 1 in Minsk
Choreography
2020
Skills
lighting design
set design
spatial composition
visual dramaturgy &
concept development
artistic research
embodied spatial awareness
projection mapping
real-time and generative visuals
technical drawings
lighting documentation
theatre production
technical and artistic collaboration
Software
TouchDesigner
Unity
Vectorworks Spotlight
Capture
Resolume Arena
QLab
AutoCAD
Laguages
polish
english
belarusian
russian
Europa (Nowy Teatr, Warsaw)
x Felice Ross
dir. Krzysztof Warlikowski
assistant lighting designer
2026
Schody, schody, schody (Collegium Nobilium Theatre, Warsaw)
x Wojciech Faruga
dir. Wojciech Faruga
assistant director
2025
The Best City in the World: An Opera About Warsaw (Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera, Warsaw)
x Aleksander Prowalinski
dir. Barbara Wiśniewska
assistant lighting designer
2025
Cezar nie umiera (Nowy Teatr, Warsaw)
dramaturgy
2025
Noc Szpilek (Teatr Nowy, Lódź)
x Monika Stolarska
dir. Piotr Pacześniak
assistant lighting designer
2025
Residencies
Artistic and research residency
Warsaw Observatory of Culture
2026
How to F**kwith Technology (and Get Away with It) in performing arts
Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius
2025
Behind the Curtain. Beyond Front@: Bridging Periphery
Bunker Slovenia
2024-2026
PROJECTS