Ronja Rovardotter (Ronia the Robber’s Daughter) is a classic Swedish children’s tale
by Astrid Lindgren. A recent touring musical version in Denmark by Heltemus
Productions featured a new and fresh lighting design by Sune Verdier of b-ql.dk who
specified 14 of Robe’s DL7S Profiles, 24 x LEDWash 600+ fixtures and 12 x CycFX 8.
Verdier’s work encompasses music, festivals, concert touring and theatre. One of
the reasons his creativity was sought for this show was his experience in crossing
over and blending techniques from lighting these different genres and performance
disciplines.
Given plenty of scope, his starting point for this one was the wishes of director
Martin Svinkløv and set designer Jan de Neergaard to have an overall naturalistic
lighting treatment for the stage.
It started with a three month run at Lyngby Kulturhus Theatre in Copenhagen, then
took a 7 month break before embarking on the next leg playing two weeks at the
Docken venue, also in Copenhagen, followed by the three week national tour.
The touring segment had to fit into two trucks, so he needed a flexible, practical
and sensibly sized solution to cover all the fundamental lighting needs and be able
to add some depth and detail.
The lighting was essential to taking the audience on its journey which soft-touched
on several social issues as well as containing some seriously scary scenes, like the
nightscapes when the woods came alive with a myriad of creatures patrolling and
protecting their domain for errant humans!
Ten of the LEDWash 600+ fixtures were positioned on five side booms each side of
stage – one fixture per tower, with the other 14 rigged on the overhead bars.
The DL7Ss were all on the overhead bars and were used for top and back key’ing
and highlighting, and extensively for texturing the set. The stage was raked towards
the audience, revealing a floor based projection surface that was perfect for
intricate gobo work, and the DL7Ss worked constantly throughout the performance.
Upstage, the CycFX 8 LED battens washed up the back-cloth.
Verdier programmed and ran the show himself and worked closely with his chief LX
Emil Finsen.
It was the first time that he’s used any of these particular fixtures, but since
specifying 40 x BMFL Spots for the Arena stage at the 2016 Roskilde Festival,
Verdier has been using Robe increasingly.
These were also the first DL7S fixtures in Denmark, an investment made for the
tour by Copenhagen based rental company European Tour Productions (ETP) which
has also included Robe’s new Spiider LED wash beams … all delivered via Danish
distributor, Light Partner.
ETP has recently upgraded its moving light stock generally to include all the fixtures
on this tour plus DL4S Profiles, a major commitment for them and a new customer
in a buoyant Danish market.
Verdier wants to use all of these fixtures again and he already has two upcoming
shows for the same producers for which he will use ETP’s DL4S and the DL7S
Profiles again.
He is a freelance lighting designer, programmer, consultant and crew chief based in
Copenhagen and is the lighting specialist among four individuals working out of
creative practice b-ql.dk which is owned by Mikael Windfeldt.
