Colour Sound flows with Tash Sultana
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The Australian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is wowing fans worldwide with the debut album Flow State and enigmatic one-person show.
Detroit based lighting designer Cam Anderson started working with Tash at the end of 2017 during a US tour, and evolved the current stage design with the artist to compliment the performance and style.
It includes a distinctive flown triangular truss upstage, together with a series of staggered video panels behind the centre-stage position which bring structure and form to the performance space. These elements were crafted working closely with Tash and her international production crew.
The resulting set is highly visual, and the rig can be up/down-scaled to deal with venues up to 6000-capacity and still fit expediently in one truck.
Cam then added wing trusses to reinforce the triangular shape, together with two side trusses on stage left and right.
When it came to populating the trusses with lighting units, he needed fixtures and positions to cover all eventualities, from intimate moments to ripping guitar solos and other dramatic and dynamic peaks, and “an arsenal of eye candy” to amaze the audience without taking the focus off Tash.
There were 18 Robe Spiiders on the rig - six on the main triangle, four on each of two short trusses that were sub-hung each side of it, and two a side on the side trusses.
For profiles, he chose Robe BMFL Spots. 18 of these alternated with the Spiiders on each of the same trusses - the main triangle, its sub-hung trusses and the two side ones.
On the front truss, key lighting came courtesy of 10 x Chauvet Rogue R2 Washes with 10 x Showtec 4-cell blinders for audience illumination.
All the trusses were lined and toned with Showtec 2-cell Moles - which offer DMX control and onboard dimmers, so no need to tour a separate dimmer rack! Another six were mounted on two short vertical truss sections located in the downstage corners, part of the floor package with another 6 x Rogue Washes.
Completing the lighting count was a Claypaky Sharpy sitting on top of each of the five video towers.
The video towers were made from 38 panels of Colour Sound’s new Unilumin Upad - III, 2.6mm LED screen - built into lightweight and practical touring frames, part of a million-pound investment in new LED video screen by the Northwest London based company this year.
(Jim Evans)
