Choreographers love diagonal formations and movements. Choreographers also tend to think, when they think lighting, in terms of shapes and colors. This sometimes makes collaboration difficult as lighting designers primarily think in terms of angles, with coverage following, and they understand color to be an interaction of all the chroma elements of the environment (including the habituation of the viewer). What this comes down to, tho, is there are moments when I'd love to have a light or a pair shining along the exact path the dancer is following. It just becomes tough because the path ends are both visible to the audience -- so the lighting instruments would also be visible (and possibly in the way). Hitting a similar angle with a series of lights from above gets much of that effect, but masking tends to run parallel with the proscenium, again. Which means an instrument hung downstage will have a hard time shooting far upstage and along the appropriate angle. But more practically, you run out of instruments. A full dance has a LOT of moves, and trying to hit each one with a dedicated set of lights rapidly uses up any practical inventory. You are better off picking your battles; go for general lights that work for most of the show, and a few specials for moments you really, really want to make unique. I'm a minimalist, myself. I love the look of a soloist on a dark stage in the pool of a single spot from overhead. Similarly, I've done a long diagonal movement by a whole group of dancers lit from one instrument plopped down on the edge of the stage on a floor stand. Re background; a cyc is nice because you get color but it has seemingly infinite depth (if lit right!) And if it is smooth, it tends to fade out of the audience's perception; they focus on the dancers, treating that upstage expanse as a sort of negative space. That said, lots of what is the full stage picture will drop out in a photograph. Dynamic range of film is so much less than that of the human eye, and the camera does not have depth perception. Nor is it generally sensitive to motion. So a picture will not quite capture what the actual dance looked like. Was rolling up some scraps of marly this morning (we use scraps to cover cables). Was tempted to borrow one and scan it for texture!