Tanja Rühl

Tanja Rühl is a freelance lighting designer and lighting supervisor. She was born and resides in Germany. In 1999, she began her theatrical engineering apprenticeship at Frankfurt Opera House. After completion of the apprenticeship with distinction, Tanja joined Ballet Frankfurt under the artistic direction of William Forsythe in 2002 as Assistant to the Lighting Supervisor. She was then appointed Lighting Supervisor with the newly founded Forsythe Company in 2005.
In 2006 she completed her master of theatrical engineering majoring in lighting. Since 2007 Tanja has been acting as the company's lighting designer, mostly in cooperation with her mentor Forsythe as well as with her colleague in the company’s lighting department. Being a member of Forsythe Productions, Tanja acts as technical and design consultant, collaborating with ballet and dance companies in matters of Forsythe license works.
Since 2014, she is working full time as freelance lighting designer, collaborating with choreographers, companies and artists throughout the world. As a designer she is still working with William Forsythe on his new works and on recreations of his existing repertoire. Productions she has created the original design for have been performed at Opéra Garnier in Paris, Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, Tate Modern in London, Kawasaki Arts Center in Japan, Jahrunderthalle in Bochum during Ruhrtriennale and Taichung National Theater in Taiwan.
In recent years she has already accompanied Iván Pérez in London in the Balletboyz production “Young Men”, as well as in the new creation »The Male Dancer« at the Paris Opera. In the season 2020|21, her lighting design for “Oscillation” marks the third collaboration with the choreographer.