Part one of the 2016-17 multi-artist musical spectacular “Afrikaans is Groot’
produced by Coleske Artists was staged at Moreleta Park Church in Pretoria, South
Africa, featuring some of the best Afrikaans performers in the country. The show
will play at Cape Town’s Grandwest Arena in March 2017.
It featured another jaw-dropping lighting co-design by Joshua Cutts of Visual
Frontier and Chris Bolton of Keystone Productions.
Nearly 160 Robe moving lights – including the new Spiiders and Spikies – were
included on the rig.
The 12 brand new Spiiders came straight from customs clearance at OR Tambo
Airport in Johannesburg to the venue, together with 12 Robe Squares, all part of a
larger new Robe investment by leading South African rental company, MGG.
MGG was the full production technical supplier for the event which ran for 11 sold-
out shows at Moreleta.
Bolton and Cutts were first asked to design the 2015 edition as a visual team …
which yielded amazing results and took production values up several notches, so
they were asked back this year by Coleske, and again worked closely with MGG
general manager, the rock-solid Denzil Smith.
Cutts and Bolton started with the multi-level set design from this year created by
Dewet Meyer, which was a combination of scenic and inflatable elements with a mix
of LED video and projections.
Robe BMFL Blades were chosen as the main profile fixture, 12 on the advanced
truss for key lighting and specials with the rest upstage on the mother grid,
together with six BMFL WashBeams which were upstage inside one of the circular
trusses.
24 Robe LEDWash 1200s were dotted around the various trusses to provide a base
wash across the wide stage and set, with more on the advanced bar for audience
illumination, plus another 24 x LEDWash 600s also concentrated on illuminating the
audience.
The 36 x Spikies were on the sides in front of the set balconies where they could
create piercing back beam looks.
It was the first time that both Chris and Josh had used Spiiders on a gig, and the 12
fixtures were located in a row just upstage of the pros arch.
Another first was using the Robe Squares on a live show. These were positioned on
the balcony fronts both sides of stage.
Along the front of the stage in the footlights position were 24 x Robe CycFX8s,
which were pixel-mapped and integrated into the stage-wide matrix of lighting and
video pixels which also included the Squares and 36 x low res video panels. The
CycFX 8s were also invaluable for up-lighting faces.
The Robe picture was completed with four PATT 2013s to fill the space and add
some interesting shapes behind a set of moving LED doors upstage, which were part
of the set design and used for entrances and exits.
Coleske Artists is owned and was founded by Arnold Coleske and Brendon
Hargroves. Also central to the core team are creative director is Barry Pretorius
and technical director Ian Vos.
Afrikaans is Groot 2016-17 will play Cape Town for three shows.
