Ellen Ruge

Ellen Ruge (born in Oslo in 1960) is a Norwegian lighting designer, currently living in Sweden.

Ellen Ruge was educated at the photo school Fotoskolan in Stockholm and the video academy Videoakademin in Gothenburg, and she now lives in Sweden. She has been active as a lighting designer in Stockholm and abroad since the mid-1980es.

In Norway she has collaborated with Eirik Stubø several times, including Hedda Gabler, Black Battles with Dog, and I am the Wind, but she has also worked with Ole Anders Tandberg (En vanlig dag i helvete* (An Ordinary Day in Hell) and A Midsummer Night's Dream, to mention a few of her productions.

In 2012 she has been responsible for the lighting design of The Return of Ulysses at The Norwegian Opera, opening in May, and for I Disappear by Arne Lygre at The National Theatre, opening in August 2012.

*Not yet translated into English. The title within parentheses is the Norwegian title's literal meaning.

Information

(Objekt ID 1752)
Object type Person
Functions Lighting designer
Nationality Norwegian
Gender Female
More

Ellen Ruge won The Hedda Award 2009 in the category of best visual design for her lighting design for Rosmersholm at The National Theatre.

The Hedda jury gave the following reason:

"For almost ten years the winner of the year has made her totally distinct mark on a number of very different, but always meaningful productions. Not only because she uses her medium in a sparing manner, creating rooms and landscapes, while triggering the imagination, but also because she finely tuned and intuitively takes part in creating a narrative, with and beside the text she is to illuminate.

Paradoxically she also masters the dark, the lack of light, to the full. Her talent is so diverse and original that her efforts in the performance becomes an independent work of art, while she expands as well as adds precision to the director's as well as the stage designer's intentions.

The award for best lighting design goes to Ellen Ruge for her part of the interpretation of Rosmersholm at The National Theatre."

Ellen Ruge also was nominated for The Hedda Award 2004 in the best visual design category for her lighting design for Winter Storage, produced by The National Theatre in 2003.

To read more about Ellen Ruge and to see photos of her work, please visit her webpage www.ellenruge.se.

Sources:

The Hedda Award

Ellen Ruge, www.ellenruge.se

Education

The photo school Fotoskolan in Stockholm

The video academy Videoakademin in Gothenburg (part of the Swedish adult educational association Folkuniversitetet)