Robe helps Perpetuum celebrate 40 at Ljubljana’s Cankarjev Dom

Popular Slovenian vocal group, Perpetuum Jazzile, celebrated their 40th anniversary with a series of high‐ profile shows at Ljubljana’s Cankarjev Dom, the country’s biggest theatre venue, asking Crt Birsa from design studio Blackout to create lighting suitable for the occasion.

With typical enthusiasm and imaginative zeal – plus the assistance of substantial quantities of Robe moving lights – Crt created an impressive visual showcase, working closely with Mark Pirc, brought in as video content creator and co‐show director with Aljaz Bastic for these special performances.

For this show, the basic elements of his programming from the last two years were taken as the starting point. Initial ideas for the 40th included a stage at 45% to the audience with a shallow thrust protruding in an arrow shape, and above that they wanted a circular truss, which Crt morphed into a triangular shape that more harmoniously mimics the shape of the deck below. He then filled the 8‐metre equilateral triangular truss above the performance space with lights rigged on sub trusses, creating a slightly Floydesque ‘monumental chandelier’ effect that provided multiple layers of lighting that could be stripped right back or fattened out, depending on the vibe of the song. The concept worked brilliantly and dovetailed beautifully with the other visual aspects including the angled stage and an upstage 16 x 6 metre LED screen.

The lighting kit was mostly supplied by Ljubljana‐based rental company, Intralite, with some pulled from the Cankerjev Dom’s house rig – which also features a lot of Robe fixtures. The numbers added up to 8 x Robe BMFLs, 24 x LEDBeam 150s, 16 x FORTES – part of a recent investment by Intralite – 10 x MegaPointes, 34 x Spiiders and 20 x ParFect 150s.

These luminaires constituted the majority of the lighting rig, together with 32 x LED strobes, 12 more LED PARs plus six of the venue’s own genuine Svobodas which were rigged on the triangle and created an ambience of their own.

Overall challenges included Crt persuading everyone on the merits of going with a triangular shape (rather than a circle) above the stage and getting the whole rig together with the LED screens at the right trim heights, because theatres do not have unlimited clearance. And, as always, time on site was tight! The get‐in for the first show started at midnight … and Crt finished finessing the focusing of audience ParFect 150s one minute before doors.

The visually assertive style of the show was a big hit with everyone, and Crt even found himself during programming paring some lighting back to ensure the artists stayed central to the picture and being reinforced proportionately by lighting and video. He enjoyed the collaborative process of working with Mark on the content, show directors Mark Pirc and Aljaz Bastic – Aljaz was also multi‐cam director.

Crt and his team at Blackout regularly specify Robe fixtures for their projects. The brand has a very strong presence in the Slovenian market thanks to the proactivity of Ljubljana‐based distributor, MK Light Sound.

www.robe.cz