Multi award
winning Italian singer / songwriter and music producer Laura Pausini started
her 2016 world touring campaign in support of her new ‘Simili’ studio album
with a brand new lighting design created by Alain Corthout and Ignace D’Haese
from Belgian based creative visual design practice, Arf & Yes.
This includes
128 x Robe Pointes and 109 x BMFL WashBeams which are right at the centre of a
complex and eye-catching rig.
The tour kicked
off with 5 large stadium dates – all completely sold out – in Italy for which
the set and video was designed by Igor Ronchese from Tekset based in Paderno Dugnano. It
now continues in the U.S. where Pausini has a
massive following especially amongst the Hispanic population, and then Latin
America where she is also hugely popular. At the 27th Lo Nuestro
Awards in 2015 she stated that although being Italian, “half of my heart beats
Latino”.
It was the
Latino connection that also brought her into contact with Alain, who has
sprinkled his lighting flair and imagination on the live shows for a number of
high profile Latin music stars including Juanes, Alejandro Fernandez, Chayanne
and many more.
Alain and Ignace
were asked to pitch for the tour Pausini and her management loved their
proposal and they won the job, specifying the Pointes and BMFLs amongst other
fixtures.
The Pointes are
rigged on eight vertical ladders and four trussing towers upstage – 16 Pointes
per ladder and 32 Pointes per tower. They are used for epic wide-stage looks
and retina-burning sweeps and effects across the performance area and out into
the audience.
Eighty-five BMFL
WashBeams are positioned on 5 ‘V’-shaped trusses used as backlight, with 24
used as filler and key lighting for the band.
These fixtures
were specified ‘Because you can never go wrong with Pointes or BMFLs” states
Alain.
He likes the
intense brightness of the BMFLs, plus the frost filter and the speed of all the
parameters.
A keen Pointe
user for the last three years since the fixture was launched, these are his
go-to well-priced lightweight fixtures available almost everywhere, which he
uses repeatedly in spot and beam modes and also as follow spots!
Alain is out on
the road himself with Laura Pausini. It’s an effervescent, lively and very
up-tempo show, lots of fun and drama needing plenty of fast moving visuals to
keep pace with the performance. “It’s great to hit every musical accent on the
show with a lighting one and these
are numerous!”
Pausini herself
takes a keen interest in the show presentation. She spends a lot of time with
Alain and looks into the details of all the programming, “She really does want
to see every single cue,” he relates.
Lighting
equipment was supplied in Italy by Agora. The vendor in the U.S. is Clearwing
and for the 7 shows in Mexico it will be Audio Systems del Norte from Monterrey.
Alain, a
lighting professional for the last 20 years, is known for his lateral thinking
and off-beat approach to lighting and visual design – a feature of the creative
tour de force that is Ghent based Arf
& Yes. He has been using Robe products regularly in his work for the last 4
years.
http://www.robe.cz
Photos : Camilla Alibrandi
