Lyon

Just got back from Lyon. It was third move of Tero Saarinen’s Next Of Kin and there was already some routine and we had the luxury of two setup days so things were not as bad as they could have been.

The challenge was that the stage opening was over 17m. Because of sight lines we were able to reduce it only to 14m or so. The depth of stage was not greater accordingly but was even smaller than in London. The cinemascope did justice for the piece visually but caused problems with the famous scrim because we had to spread the 10 quick release magnets to 14m. The opening in Helsinki was 9m…

All above is peace of cake compared to the fact that this was the first gig where I was in charge of the lights. The piece changed quite dramatically in Helsinki and also we used Robe instead of Vari*Lite. Now we were back in Vari*Lite but there was not much to clone. Mikki used the ballast strobe and animation disc in almost every cue. And of course because of hectic sessions before the premiere and in Helsinki the programming was a mess. Can’t blame Mikki – I got my part of the programming-timecode-show-live-thing.

The days in Vilnius before the premiere were insane. Still there should have been someone to clean the programming always after rehearsals. After 12h none of us were not up to it. I should have cleaned the show more in Helsinki before I started in Lyon. Or just explore a bit more how it was programmed. Well now the programming makes little bit more sense to me. Maybe I will book some ESP Vision studio time and do it again before next tour and redo everything.

After all the outcome was not bad. And everything was very smooth with great crew of the Biennale.

Jarmo standing by behind the curtain.

The famous sync/backup rack that almost works.

Lyon: the stomach of France. Waiting for another entrecote.

Jarmo grooving in ridiculously expensive jazz bar.

BTW You will not find show photos from here except of my own designs. To see photos of the show, check www.terosaarinen.com or www.flickr.com/photos/terosaarinen/