Why Dance Studios Ask More of Lighting
Most ceilings are background. In a dance studio, the ceiling is part of the work.
Dancers look up during floor work, turns, and lifts. Mirrors line the walls and multiply every fixture overhead. A single room might host a morning class, an afternoon audition, and an evening performance, and the lighting has to serve all three without calling attention to itself.
That was the brief at the new home of the Martha Graham Dance Company, where Aquarii fixtures now light studios across the space.
A Permanent Home, at 100
The Martha Graham Dance Company turned 100 in 2026. For years before that, it had no single space large enough for its dancers, school, and staff, and often split rehearsals across locations around the city, according to The New York Times.
In May, the company moved onto the 11th floor of the Paramount Building at 1501 Broadway in Times Square. The $10 million renovation, led by MBB Architects, turned a warren of low-ceilinged offices into six studios. Crews removed false floors and uncovered hidden skylights.
The studios host rehearsals, classes, auditions, workshops, and photo shoots. One also works as a 150-seat black box theater with theatrical lighting and flexible seating.
Lighting Finished to Disappear
Aquarii supplied 53 fixtures for the project: 38 Zino and 15 Axceleron, installed across multiple studios.
The studios are white from floor to structure: walls, ceilings, and the exposed beams overhead. So every fixture was finished in custom RAL 9003 white to match. Against the ceilings, the pendants read as part of the architecture rather than equipment added to it.
In the finished rooms, the black theatrical instruments on the pipe grid are the visible layer. The Aquarii fixtures sit quietly between them, doing their work without competing for attention.
A custom finish is a small line on a spec sheet. In a room lined with mirrors, it shows from every angle.
Installing Lighting in a 1926 Landmark
The Paramount Building opened in 1926 as the headquarters of Paramount Pictures. Its Art Deco and Beaux-Arts structure was not built for dance studios, and a renovation like this one works with what the building gives it.
That is why the project used three mounting styles: pendant, yoke, and wall bracket. Together they let the fixtures follow the building’s beams, pipes, and walls instead of forcing one layout onto an irregular space.
Installation happened from scaffolding, high above the studio floors. Each yoke-mounted fixture was clamped to the pipe grid and leveled by hand before the crew moved to the next. In a room where dancers look up, a fixture hanging slightly off plumb is easy to notice.
Lighting That Serves the Work
When studio lighting works, no one talks about it. Dancers see their lines in the mirror. Teachers see their students. Audiences in the black box see the performance, not the ceiling. Thank you to our partners at the Dulanski Group, who brought this project to life, and to PHT Lighting and MBB Architects for their work on site. Congratulations to the Martha Graham Center on its new home.
For a century, the Graham company has explored what movement can say. For the rooms that hold it, the question is simpler: what should the light do, and what should it stay out of the way of?
Planning a studio, rehearsal space, or performance venue? Let’s start the conversation.
Photos courtesy of PHT Lighting