Severina on stage with DTS

The Croatian singer / actress Severina, considered a national pop icon in her country, has been touring the Balkans with her show ‘The Magic Tour’. She performed last 23rd November at the Štark Arena in Belgrad, offering her fans the best of a career that spans over 15 albums.

The interview to Crt Birsa, Lighting Designer of the Severina tour

Can you please tell us the idea of the set and lighting design.

“The set and stage design was shaped as a diamond. There is a 12 m long catwalk, that goes downhill, to let Severina come close to the audience.”

How did you arrange the DTS projectors, and how did you use them?

“12 CORE make the ‘diamond’: hang on the centre square trusses and 28 more units on the outer trusses. Also there are 6 CORE units on the downstage floor. I used them as main spot moving lights, to give a punch to the show.

I used the NICK NRG 1201 mainly as key lights and most of them hang on the main grid: 6 units were located on the towers to provide the key light for the orchestra that sits at the back of the wall and comes in when the LED wall moves up and uncovers the area behind.
3 more NICK NRG 1201 units for backlighting are set behind the car that comes out at the end of the show, and 4 of them are set in the stage hole.

18 RAPTORs are set behind the LED mash on the sides of the stage; I used them as a special, like a surprise coming from the back of the screen.
24 more RAPTORs hang on the trusses suspended above the audience: 16 on 2 trusses in front of the ‘diamond’, and 8 more above the FOH. These RAPTORs on the ambience trusses were used for extending the stage into the audience. So the stage looked bigger.”

Which features of the DTS projectors did you like most?

“The NICK NRG 1201 is a nice wash for key lights: it’s bright enough and has a helpful zoom. I like my decision to take this fixture for the key lights.

The CORE is very powerful, I like the zoom and the prisms, and the colors are nice.

Also the RAPTOR delivers a good beam. I like the fact that using prism and beam reducer gobo you can get very tiny and sharp prism projections.

Both CORE and RAPTOR are super fast and i like this, because I can make lights change their look very fast in dark and then turn them on in a different situation.”

How did this lighting setup come about? Did you have inputs from set designer and show director?

“Greta Godnic (set designer), Nejc Levstik (Show director) and me are the creators of the show. It was such a complex project that nobody knows who is author of which part; we just worked together.
I did the lighting and stage design in combination with Greta, and of course Nejc gave us inputs on what he wanted for some special songs.

‘The Magic Tour’ of Severina is a very powerful show with a lot of intense choreography; it was quite hard to put everything together with all elements (moving LED screen, car on stage, moving square truss in the centre, 7 m long table on the catwalk that comes down). But it was a very good experience managing everything and being part of the show.”

We thank Crt for his kind support.

Crt Birsa biography

Crt Birsa has been working in the lighting industry for the past 16 years and the past 10 years as a professional Lighting Designer.
He did tours with Manu Chao, 2CELLOS, Dubioza Kolektiv, Peter Bence, Dino Merlin, Severina and many many other artists; Crt also did all main TV shows in Slovenia over the past 5 years.
He worked in a range of venues worldwide, including Sydney Opera House, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Radio City Hall, Arena di Verona, Pula Amphitheatre, Royal Albert Hall.