Lighting Designer, Vladimir Lyubimov specified Astera Titan Tubes as a key lighting feature for a series of concerts by acclaimed Russian rock musician, singer and poet, Svetlana Surganova.
The most recent of these took place at Crocus City Hall in the Krasnogorsky District of Moscow, staged in the autumn – during a brief period when concerts and large gatherings were permitted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Surganova i Orkestr (Surganova & Orchestra) – among the most popular touring acts in Russia – presented their In Contrast programme to a full live audience at the venue after the show was moved at short notice from the famous 1930 Club in Moscow, to the larger 7,300-capacity Crocus City Hall.
Having planned to use their most recent touring lighting and stage design from the start of 2020, the creative team were left facing the challenge of making their production work in the new space.
Astera Titan Tubes were deployed to create three layers of depth – some were sitting on their floor mount stands and positioned around Surganova and her six-piece band, while others were attached at different heights to an arc of eight upstage totem truss towers, with all these elements adding new visual dimensions to the stage. “16 Astera Titan Tubes does not sound like a lot of lights but this is more than enough to fill a standard stage area,” Lyubimov said.
Astera Titan Tubes were utilised in tandem with additional lighting fixtures and moving lights on the rig. “Titan Tubes helped me to redefine the space to become an intimate environment when needed and equally, create big and powerful scenography the next moment,” Lyubimov explained. “They are completely portable and quick and easy to install, and they can be used for multiple scenarios – the sky is the limit, which makes them an ultimate ‘tourable’ light source.”
For control, Titan Tubes were run in 16-pixel RGBW mode via the AsteraBox ART7 CRMX interface between lights and controller. Working to Svetlana Surganova’s creative brief to ‘maximise the emotion and feeling’ of the performance, Lyubimov found a litany of ways to utilise Titan Tubes. “The colours, transitions, pixel mapping, effects and the almost infinite possibilities for experimentation,” he remarked.
As a longterm Surganova i Orkestr (Surganova & Orchestra) collaborator, Russian rental company, ZavodShow provided technical support at a series of venues across the country. As of February 2021, live performances and events in Russia have resumed.