Moving lights from Robe’s latest ROBIN MMX and DL Series ranges were utilised by Lighting Designer Michael Grundner for the world premiere of “Moses – The Ten Commandments” a new musical extravaganza by Michael Kunze and Dieter Falk being staged at the Theatre St. Gallen in Switzerland.
The creative brief for Grundner’s lighting design was to mimic the style and genre of the show – ‘contemporary rock and pop with gospel elements’ – for which the Theatre decided to purchase the new system of Robe moving lights.
The package comprised eight MMX Spots, two DLS Profile, two DLX Spots and 16 DLF Wash fixtures, all of which were specified by the Theatre’s Head of Lighting, Andreas Enzler and his Deputy Andreas Volk … on the recommendation of Grundner among others, and were delivered via Robe’s Swiss distributor, Audio Tech.
They decided on Robe because they sought a versatile, energy saving moving light rig containing high light output fixtures with excellent optics and fast movement. The rig also had to be cost efficient to run – and Robe’s DL and MMX ranges fitted the bill perfectly with their ‘smaller, lighter, brighter’ design concept.
The DL range is fast becoming a popular choice for theatre productions offering a number of important and relevant features like full tungsten emulation, completely shadow free LED lightsources and silent running.
Michael Grundner has been using and specifying Robe products in his work for some time, which includes a raft of musicals, corporate event designs and concerts worldwide for José Carreras – for whom he has been the LD since 2011.
The new fixtures are distributed between the Theatre’s advanced, front and rear house lighting bars.
The DLS’s framing shutters are a big plus, with individual control of each shutter blade position and angle, together with rotation of the complete framing module. As well as providing either a sharp or soft frame for the projected image, the system can produce new effects through pre-programmed shutter blade shape and movement sequences. As with the Robe entire DL luminaire range, the associated LED source is ultra smooth and shadow free.
The Award winning DLF is a perfect companion to the DLX, and is based on the same RGBW LED module, with a fabulously smooth output via the front fresnel lens. Mechanical features include a newly designed linear motorized zoom of 5.5° – 60° and a diffusion filter that extends the zoom up to 75°! An internal barn door module can be used for creating different shapes, while advanced software features include RGBW or CMY colour mixing, a set of calibrated whites, CTO, tungsten lamp emulation (amber shift) and more.
The DLX Spot uses a unique new RGBW LED light source resulting in colour outputs brighter than most 1200 Watt discharge units … with an average eco-friendly power consumption of only 250 Watts. A myriad of effects can be produced using a combination of the static and rotating gobo wheels with custom replaceable positions, plus variable frost, three-faceted prism, superfast iris and more… including full range theatrical grade dimming and variable strobe.
The new technology of Robe’s MMX Spot gives it a light output similar to most existing 1200W luminaires plus neat features like hot-spot control. Its key feature -the ‘Dual Graphics Wheel’ – presents two fully controllable contra-rotating plates that can be positioned anywhere in the light path to produce amazing visual effects.
In the Moses production, the fixtures are used to create a plethora of different effects and looks in a performance replete with colour and drama reproducing numerous locations and environments involved in the biblical epic charting the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.
Lighting was programmed by Andreas Volk and Vera Ostfalk and is being operated by Vera Ostfalk, Andreas Volk and Andreas Enzler using an ETC Eos console.
A high profile list of production credits also include Video Designer Sven Ortel, Set Designer Francis O’Connor and Costume Designer Joan O’Cleary, and the Director is Martin Duncan.
The show is currently scheduled to run until summer 2014, with the possibility of a further extension.
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