Dutch-born Roderick Van Gelder’s approach to lighting is to visualise emotions by transforming the space and forms onstage. He has been achieving such transformations with increasing success over many years, working within the disciplines of contemporary dance, classical ballet, musical theatre, opera, rock and roll, and unusual outdoor spectacles.

His career has taken him around the world working with a long list of theatre, dance and opera companies in many capacities: from production manager and technical director to stage manager and lighting designer. 

In a major career move in 1990 he accepted a residency as production manager and lighting designer for Sydney Dance Company.  He lit Graeme Murphy’s King Roger, Nearly Beloved, Poppy, Bard Bits and Piano Sonata. Other works for Sydney Dance Company included Lucrecia (Alfred Williams) and Mooggrah (Stephen Page).

Since 1993 he lit productions throughout Australia and Asia such as: Sandsiren for the Australian Ballet, A Midsummernight’s Dream in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide and a range of corporate productions.  He was Technical Manager for Baryshnikov’s Australian and New Zealand 1996 tour and the opera Aïda in Singapore in the same year. 

After accepting the position of Technical Manager at the Hordern Pavilion and Royal Hall of Industries in 1998, Roderick became interested in risk management and occupational health and safety for the entertainment industry.

In 2015 Roderick returned to the performing arts and lighting design.  He lit a range of production for Hunters Hill Theatre and the Australian College for Theatre and Television (now AFTT).  He designed the lighting for the collaborations between Ken Unsworth and Australian Dance Artists. 

Other production included ‘Forge’ for Annalouise Paul, ‘Early Ones’ and ‘Buddah’s Wife’ for Eileen Kramer, ‘Three Voices’ for Sonya Holowell and Elia Bosshard and ‘The Other Woman’ for Lisa Schouw, “Siren, Simply Devinyls” for Lesley ‘Max’ Anton, “Vertical Fields” Elia Bosshard. 

Earlier this year he lit ‘Somewhere between hello and goodbye’, a collaboration between Lisa Schouw, Chrissie Koltai and Anca Frankenhauser.
More recently he designed ‘Minky opens a Gallery’ and ‘Altered Love’, both for Sydney Fringe 2019.