LONDON – Adlib supplied lighting, sound and a multi-lingual crew for Spanish Flamenco dancer Sara Baras' two recent performances at London's Royal Albert Hall. The lighting crew led by Andy Rowe worked with Adlib's Tony Szabo (Australia), who led the sound team, including Hassane Siahi (France), Otto Kroyman (Germany), Scouser Marc Peers and Carlos Herreros from Spain, who also acted as interpreter.
The technical crew worked to a tight deadline, with a 1:30 a.m. load-in on the day of the first show.
The stage space was divided between a large dance floor downstage, a catwalk upstage, and the band in between.
The band and catwalk were sandwiched between a white cyc with a black gauze hung immediately in front of it and another black gauze in front of them, so they could be made to appear and disappear with lighting.
Baras' production brought the custom dancefloor with them, into which was integrated 20 ambient mics to capture the rhythm, energy and emotion of Baras' footwork and dancing.
Lighting faced many galvanizing elements, including that of fitting an intricate theatrical rig into a space with limited over stage rigging.
Lighting director and operator Francisco sent the plot over, and Adlib worked to replicate what would normally be a theatre black-box rig on house fly bars into Albert Hall's unusual space.
The seven trusses as near as possible mimicked where the theatre fly bars would be, so lighting positions were available to cover the layout of the stage and its different sections.
The moving lights consisted of six Vari*Lite 3000Q (Quiet) Spots, seven Martin MAC 2000 Performance and eight VL500s, dotted around the overhead rig.
For generics, there were 37 Source Four Profiles fitted with assorted lenses including 15/30 zooms, 25/50s zooms and 19s, 28 x 1200W fresnels and 18 2K fresnels. There were also 32 1K cyc floods, 16 PAR 64 single cans and 4 Coemar Versatile effects.
Adlib supplied a new grandMA2 console for the show, four Avolites ART2000 dimming and distro racks to drive the generic and moving fixtures, plus all cabling and data distribution systems.
In addition to the white backdrop and gauzes, Adlib supplied a full set of black legs. Silhouettes of the dancers on the catwalk were created with use of the backlit cyc projecting through the gauzes.
The band members were revealed with down-lighting at strategic moments, and then concealed at others while the lighting focused on the dance floor action.
Working with Rowe on lighting were Charlie Rushton, Stuart Grey, Rob Lister, Richard Babbington, Matt Robinson and Alex Johnston.
"For our team to spend a weekend working at several London venues was extremely pleasing," said Adlib's Client manager Phil Kielty. "To participate on such an exciting and different project at the Royal Albert Hall with a highly respected international star such as Sara Baras was a real challenge and privilege."
For more information, please visit www.adlibsolutions.co.uk .
