Busy Israeli lighting and audio rental specialist Mor Kol is supplying Robe moving lights for the current Shimon Buskila tour, one of the country’s best known and most popular singer / songwriters.
Twelve new Pointes were bought especially for the start of the tour and they join 12 of Mor Kol’s existing stock of MMX Spots right at the essence of the eye-catching lighting scheme designed by Amit Freeman, himself a rising star on the ever-active Israeli live performance scene.
Tel Aviv based freelance LD Amit has worked with the artist for the last five years and his tours will typically last 2 – 3 years playing several high profile gigs per month in a variety of venues, for which the lighting needs to be adaptable and scalable to deal with the different stage spaces.
Shimon Buskila has an incredible connection with his audiences and his performances are highly interactive, with lighting playing an important role assisting this process in a live context.
He uses Robe a lot in his work and wanted both Pointes and MMX Spots on the tour for their quality optics and selection of gobos.
The Pointes are all positioned on the floor – dotted around in between the 10-piece band, with eight MMXs overhead on trusses and another four on the floor for cross lighting. This gives Amit plenty of options and a near infinite amount of colour, gobo and effects combinations.
“I love the way – especially with the Pointe – that I can zoom right out with a gobo look and it still looks incredible,” enthuses Amit who uses plenty of imaginative gobo work in the show.
His first encounter with Pointes was a concert in Berlin two years ago, when he used 48 to light a performance by Shiri Maimon, also a well-known Israeli singer and frequent collaborator with Shimon Buskila.
Since then, he’s tried to incorporate Pointes into all of his designs.
Thanks to the very proactive sales and marketing campaign by Robe’s Israeli distributor Danor Theatre Systems, it was only a short while before the Pointes started becoming readily available in Israel!
For the Buskila show that we caught at the packed out Hangar 11 venue in Tel Aviv’s dockland district, the artist’s special guest was another favourite, actress and singer Miri Mesika.
“This new generation of Robe lights – since the LEDWash 600 – has really taken the brand into a new league” comments Amit, ‘Subtleties like dimming curves have really been worked on and refined” adding that he also really loved their precursor ranges, workhorse fixtures like the ColorWash and ColorSpot 1200 and 700 series.
From the rental company perspective, Ilan Mor, who founded Mor Kol when he was 21 and fresh out of the army in 1995, has seen the company grow steadily and is now one of the ‘ones-to-watch’ on the Israeli rental scene.
His first Robe investments were actually in the ColorSpot and Wash series around 10 years ago, and more recently these – still going strong – were replaced with 24 x MMX Spots and now 12 Pointes … shortly to be followed by more Pointes if current plans solidify!
“Robe is absolutely rock solid as a rental item” he states, “plus the service and support from Danor is fantastic – they are there 24/7 if needed, and I have enjoyed a working relationship with them right from the start of my company”.
Photos by Louise Stickland
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