dbn Lighting from Manchester collaborated
in another exciting, innovative and off-the-wall production with producers Walk
The Plank to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the landmark Millennium
Centre in Cardiff Bay, Wales. dbn’s Stephen Page was asked to design lighting
for the spectacle, staged outside along the main concourse approach to the
Centre.
Staged on Saturday September 12,
the show, “Ar Waith Ar Daith” was a year in the planning and making and with
over 600 participants, the largest outdoor theatre production in Wales to date.
The show attracted crowds exceeding 12,000 who were enrapt as the age old tale
of Welsh history, myth, allegory and magic unfolded via a series of promenade
choreography, large format projections onto the side of the building,
gravity-defying aerial stunts, lantern processions, choral singing, dance
numbers and a truly exhilarating pyrotechnic finale.
The show was directed by Walk The
Plank’s Liz Pugh, with fellow co-founder John Wasell as creative producer. The work featured a specially-composed
soundtrack by BAFTA award winner composer John Rea.
“It was a fantastic project in
which to be involved, energising all the ingenuity of the Walk The Plank team,
and requiring a truly lateral approach to lighting. I enjoyed the many
challenges and being part of another great creative team delivering a show that
was shared and appreciated by so many people,” stated Stephen.
Ar Waith Ar Daith was designed to
celebrate the rich cultural heritage of Wales and in doing so placed the Wales
Millennium Centre as a focal point for a broad spectrum of creative
inspiration. The 200 metre performance space stretched from the Millennium
Centre right down to the waterfront in Cardiff Bay and features a series of
large concrete pillars – which could not be touched – and also included the
Welsh National Assembly and the Pierhead buildings at the further end of the
site.
Eleven custom combined lighting /
sound towers were built and distributed around the site rigged with assorted
fixtures, supported by a massive quantity of lights spread out along the floor.
A row of SGM P5 LED floods – one
of Stephen’s favourite fixtures for this type of outdoor application – were used as ‘foot lights’ running the length
of the site.
The towers were loaded with a
selection of fixtures including 21 x Clay Paky Mythos, 16 x Sharpy Washes, 16 x
Alpha Beam 700s and 12 x Sharpies, more P5s and Studio Due City Colors – dbn
has just invested in the latest 2.5K RGBW versions of these which really
rock! There were also four Alpha Beam 300s on each of the towers and around 40 x
PAR cans distributed between them.
Eight of the original version City
Colors were positioned on the floor adjacent to the Millennium Centre building and
used to back light the performance space.
The conundrums of lighting the
show – even for someone as experienced as Stephen with weaving luminescent
enchantment into epic outdoor events – were many!
The columns positioned all the way
down the performance space restricted the placement and focusing of equipment
which had to be factored in at every juncture. As there were so many community
members in the cast, the first absolutely full run through with everyone
involved was the show itself!
The main protagonist travelled up
and down the full length and width of the site in a motorised scenic tree.
Ar Waith Ar Daith was also
broadcast live on S4C just to ramp up the pressure that bit more for everyone
on the technical and creative production teams!
From a lighting perspective,
having to light for television as well as the live audience required special attention
to detail. A lot of the more subtle ‘live’ techniques had to be adapted to also
work on TV, whist not losing any of their dramatic resonance and as always
Stephen and the dbn team rose to the occasion, producing some beautiful, vivid
and theatrical results with resourceful lighting.
Working alongside Stephen from dbn
were Nick Buckley who co-ordinated a lot of the prep work on site and operated
lights for the show, plus Moss Everhard and Pete Isherwood. They were very ably
assisted by Becky Heslop and Josh Kroon, students from the Royal Welsh College
of Speech & Drama.
The dbn get-in commenced on the Tuesday
ahead of Saturday’s show, described by Ken Skates, the Welsh Deputy Minister
for Culture, Sport & Tourism as, “the best show I have ever seen outdoors
in Wales.”
