COPENHAGEN, Denmark – This spring, the Royal Danish Opera staged
Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet,
Swan Lake, in a new production under the direction of Nikolaj Hübbe, Chief of the
Danish Opera, and Silja Schandorff, Director. Staged for the first time almost 150
years ago, countless versions of the tragic love story of Swan Lake have since been
shown in theatres across the globe. To bring new life to the classic piece for the
Royal Danish Opera (RDO), Hübbe and Schandorff called upon Finnish Designer, Mikki
Kunttu to develop an original lighting, video and set design. Kunttu’s minimalistic
set design meant that every element played a significant role in bringing the the
production to life, including HARMAN Martin Professional’s VC-Strips and MAC Viper
Profile lighting fixtures.

Kunttu has worked with the Royal Danish Opera on similar productions in the past.
However, this is the first time he has developed every aspect of the lighting, video
and set design in an RDO production. The first challenge presented itself to Kunttu
early on in the design process: how creative was he allowed to get within the
context of the Swan Lake ballet? Ballet as a genre is traditionally connected with
elements such as landscape-painted backdrops and projections with illustrations.
Kunttu and his team wanted to challenge tradition with a new approach, but first
Kunttu immersed himself in the Swan Lake story.

“I needed to get to the core of the story to understand what makes it so successful
decade after decade,” said Kunttu. “Only after doing that was I able to form my own
vision and felt comfortable presenting it to the rest of the team. Once I’m
satisfied that I’ve done my basic work, I’m ready to get creative.”

As an experienced lighting and set designer in genres ranging from concerts to
theatre and TV, Kunttu always looks for and tries to represent the essence in his
designs. His methodology is much the same whether designing for a concert or a
ballet.

“Often you’re hoping to evoke the same kind of emotions regardless of the
application you’re designing for,” said Kunttu. “That part is the same – your
toolbox just varies slightly in the different fields.”

In the case of Swan Lake, the traditional elements gradually disappeared from the
design and the basic idea of mixing video, set and lighting design was conceived.
This idea was so strong and had so much potential that there was no need for
anything else.

“One of the secrets is being able to see what you don’t need and then make the bold
choice to remove them from the production,” said Kunttu.

One of the main challenges in ballet is that the stage floor needs to be kept free
of scenographic elements to leave space for the dancers. Normally, you would frame
the stage with legs and borders, but Kunttu wanted to overcome this somehow and
convert the legs and border to become one of the performers. He envisioned a dynamic
structure flying above the stage – being able to travel in the air like feathers but
at the same time possessing a dark and heavy undertone. He wanted it to represent
the darker side in the story and work as its own character.

Thus, Kunttu and his team developed a cut-out structure with an abstract shape to
sometimes reference elements in the story, such as a castle. The appearance of the
structure depended on the video content projected onto it and through it as well as
how the structure was lit.

Once the structure design was in place, Kunttu’s vision for the lighting design
quickly developed. He used eight towers of MAC Viper Profiles to add dimensionality
and create a space without directly lighting the dancers. MAC III Washes, Profiles
and Performances were used to add volume and heavy color to the production.

Kunttu had gotten a chance to test the MAC Viper Profiles before specifying them for
Swan Lake, and he was immediately fond of them.

“I am really impressed with the MAC Viper Profiles,” said Kunttu. “It delivers a
fantastic quality of light and an amazing output. It’s silent, the optics are great
and there’s so much punch for a lamp this small.

32 VC-Strips of 4 meters each were also part of the production. In the first lake
scene the fixtures served purely as set elements with no content displayed on them.
They were then lowered all the way down to stage level with the dancers moving
around them as if they were trees, symbolizing the swans’ journey through the dark
forests towards the lake. In the second act, Kunttu used the fixtures as living
pixels resembling stars above the Swan Lake.

“This is a creative video tool with a lot of potential,” said Kunttu. “It fits
perfectly into a production like this, where it can take on several functions both
as a lighting fixture, as a set piece and a video surface.”

Martin Equipment

· MAC Viper Profile, 48 pcs.

· MAC III Performance, Profile and Wash, 30 pcs.

· VC-Strips, 320 pcs. (16x1, 25 mm built into 32 pcs. 4 m strips)

· P3-300 Controller, 1 pc.

To watch the trailer video for the Swan Lake production, please visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQnNcpWAk7M&feature=youtu.be

To watch a behind the scenes video, please visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-HU9wYKBOM&feature=youtu.be

To read the full story, please visit:

http://www.martin.com/en-US/View-Case?pid=13699&id=217&itemId=CaseStory:...

For more information on Mikki Kunttu, please visit: http://www.mikkikunttu.com/

As a world leader in the creation of dynamic lighting solutions for the
entertainment, architectural, and commercial sectors, Martin lighting and video
systems are renowned the world over. Martin also offers a range of advanced lighting
controllers and media servers, as well as a complete line of smoke machines as a
complement to intelligent lighting. Martin operates the industry’s most complete and
capable distributor network with local partners in nearly 100 countries. Founded in
1987 and based in Aarhus, Denmark, Martin is the lighting division of global
infotainment and audio company HARMAN International Industries. For more information
please visit: www.martin.com> http:www.martin.com

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