In conjunction with the beginning of Russia’s longest school holiday, Moscow’s famous Olympisky Arena hosted a 2-week children’s project, Circus of Ded Moroz – 2 (Father Frost’s Circus), at the end of December 2013. In order to showcase a stunning, mystical fairy tale light show, Euroshow and lighting designer Alexey Zhuravlev deployed a world-class lighting system featuring HARMAN’s Martin fixtures.Euroshow supplied lighting fixtures for the event surrounding a large Christmas tree which included: 36 MAC Viper Profile, 20 MAC 2000 Wash XB, 12 MAC III Air FX, 48 MAC Aura, 96 MAC 101, five Atomic 3000 DMX, 30 RUSH MH3 Beam and three Jem Ready 365 Hazer fixtures.
The New Year’s project for children at Olympisky has gained a traditional status already, but for Zhuravlev, it was his debut. Producers of the event knew about Zhuravlev due to his successful work with numerous clubs and concerts, so they invited him to implement the basic idea of creating a dynamic event that children would love and remember.

The main story of the Circus of Ded Moroz - 2 was influenced by an enormous event – the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Fairy tale characters from different stories and different countries met each other on the arena space to compete for the highest sports prizes. This story needed a bright and colorful setting, something totally different from traditional theatrical drama.

Zhuravlev analyzed the individual elements of the script together with the director of the show, highlighting the key moments and offering an individual decoration for each. “I had a few ideas for this show,” explained Zhuravlev. “For example, I put the MAC 101’s around the arena at the bottom and made a ‘mirrored’ installation at the top, so that each fixture was above another fixture. This scheme allowed us to create a lot of different, interesting lighting pictures for numerous events.”

Because some events in the program featured aerialists in the space below the roof, it was necessary to change the lighting concept and make accents on the flights in midair. Zhuravlev chose the powerful MAC III AirFX fixtures based on a 1500W lamp and the new Jem Ready 365 fog generators in order to work with the challenges.

“It is my first work experience with MAC III AirFX”, Zhuravlev explained. “I had seen these fixtures before and I have known what I could get from them. Of course, I was attracted by their functionality to create midair and beam effects. MAC III AirFX is a perfect fixture to make magnificent decor for aerialists’ routines. Besides, these fixtures are very bright, so in other words, they were the perfect solution for this project.”

For the circus arena area, Zhuravlev deployed the MAC 2000 Wash XB, MAC Aura and MAC 101, along with the MAC Viper Profile with the gobo #1, which served as the main lighting tool.

“In the stage design we rarely use this gobo, but in this project it was very useful for me,” Zhuravlev said. “The action takes place in a circular arena, and it is very difficult to make smooth wash effects and stay within the borders, and I had to think about how not to confuse the audience. With gobo #1 of MAC Viper Profile, I could wash the necessary parts of the arena without compromising the main texture aspect.”

The MAC Viper also played a familiar role for Zhuravlev, creating bright and powerful projections that draw beautiful pictures on the surface.
“This fixture is very bright with excellent projection quality,” he continued. “Of course, I used this instrument at 100%. For example, when I needed to ‘move’ artists on the pavement in Sweden, I used gobo-imitating pavement, creating a very realistic effect. Another example is a traditional Russian theme, followed with the appearance of Samovar with cups. By the way, MAC Viper Profile has a very suitable gobo for this scene, as if designed especially for Russia.”