ALCHEMY 5 for Roberto Bolle

The show ‘Bolle and Friends‘, which took place last July 13th in the beautiful Piazza della Santissima Annunziata in Florence, showed Roberto Bolle – the undisputed protagonist of world dance – at the height of his art in a scenographic and lighting context that exalted his performances; solo and in the ‘pax de deux’ with the best international dancers.

The Interview to Valerio Tiberi

Valerio Tiberi, Lighting Designer linked to the étoile by a ten-year artistic association, described how he used the new ALCHEMY 5 Fresnel LED wash moving head to light up ‘Roberto Bolle and Friends’.

“Roberto Bolle is an all-round artist, with skills in every field; it is stimulating to talk of lighting with him, because he likes to experiment with new technologies and is open to artistic solutions that are capable of creating emotions by lighting.

I created the lighting design with Roberto Bolle, obviously, trying to give it a theatrical connotation, even though the ballet took place in an outdoor space; the choice of the ALCHEMY 5 was dictated precisely by its “theatricality”, which I consider one of its most important qualities, both as technical features and look.
In this case the projectors were visible, and not hidden as sometimes happens in the theater. And the ALCHEMY 5 also gives me an aesthetic idea of a real theatrical projector, obviously with all the qualities of a hypermodern technology.

I used 16 ALCHEMY 5 units arranged on four parallel trusses, mainly in backlight, for a flood light, and also for special details at center stage, to highlight the dancers; the ALCHEMYs worked on the dancers, not on the set design. I chose them precisely because of their quality of light on the person, for their faithfully reproduction of natural skin tones.

With ALCHEMY you can accurately choose color temperature and a variety of colors, even unsaturated. I almost always worked with the pastel nuances that proved to be perfect for this ballet performance, enhancing every ‘pas de deux’ of the exhibition.

I used various gel emulations, ready to use, crossfading between any two of them with the linear balance function of the ALCHEMY 5, controlled directly from the console. For the first time, I was able to switch from one gel to another, not via a color wheel but fully linearly, with a cross-fade time that I freely set.

Having direct access to a quantity of built-in gel filters emulations and pre-set functions means a remarkable ease of use, and a great rapidity when you design the lighting. When you work outdoors – as in ‘Roberto Bolle and Friends’ – you work at night and at some point you have to stop, unlike what happens when you work indoors in a theater.

Therefore, the time factor becomes even more important. These features of the ALCHEMY have been really useful to me.”