SPECTACLE Copyright Lighting &Sound America December 2017 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html 62 • December 2017 • Lighting &Sound America T P%& !l La Perle is Franco Dragone’s most ambitious water show to date D"#By: Sharon Stancavage $ want to provide a little piece of eternity for the dards, and make them their own, so they don’t have re- region, a place of escape that any culture and invent the wheel. If something was good for the CE, it was ethnicity can understand and enjoy. I was so inspired good enough for us; we just had to supply the rules and by Dubai and it is an honor to introduce that vision to the show them that it was the consensus.” world,” explains Franco Dragone, founder and artistic The theatre has a mere 14 rows, but seats a total of director of Dragone Studio, when asked about La Perle , 1,250 patrons. “We wanted it to feel as if you were inside a his new water extravaganza in the United Arab Emirates. grotto or a cave, and we wanted to be able to change the Located in Al Habtoor city, La Perle takes place in the mood of the cave by using video projection,” Marcouiller only purpose-built theatre in the UAE. “In Dubai, there is reports. The lower levels of seating are irregular and based not a tradition of places where you go sit to see a live per - on the curves of the wet stage. “You have curves and lev - “Iformance; there are shows that are based on Arabic tradi - els, so the seating is made in that concept that people are tions and then you have rental spaces in convention cen - sitting on something like a grassy knoll where they sit ters. But there is no theatre dedicated to one show, espe - where they can,” he adds. “cially not that size. We are the first ones to get there with The wet stage area includes a 5.5m (18') wide, 8m any kind of large-scale theatre,” explains Jean Marcouiller, (26.2') deep dive pool in the middle of it. Simon Lemieux, La Perle ’s executive production manager and head of the production technical director, explains, “The whole stage, Dragone Studio. except the dry stage [a 26.8m (80.4') x 13.9m (39.9') rec - The theatre was designed by Dragone, with Jean tangle upstage], can become wet or can retract below and Rabasse as the theatre designer/show scenic designer, led then you just have the 8m well in the middle. It’s a flat sur - by the Dragone theatre development department. The face where we can put about 350mm (13.7 ") of water by architects at Khatib & Alami put everything on paper and transporting water from one tank to the other.” The wet the building was constructed by HLG (Habtoor Leighton stage can drain in a matter of seconds, thanks to a com - Group); both organizations are based in Dubai. The theatre plex draining system built into the theatre. e consultants were Auerbach Pollock Friedlander (APF), who “On this show, we went back to the basic of more real - n o g a r have worked with Dragone on several projects. The ven - istic water effects, like the waterfalls on each side of the D y b dors spanned the globe, including those in the Emirates, proscenium,” Marcouiller says. The waterfalls are an unex - e l r e the EU, and North America. Marcouiller continues: “The pected, stunning effect that did have one major issue. P a L : government leaders were very keen to help us do the “The big challenge was the bounce back into the audi - s o t o show, and get the proper certification. They were very ence; the waterfalls are almost at 17m (55.7') up and you h p l l A open to using common third country community stan - can make every kind of test and simulation that you want, lightingandsoundamerica.com • December 2017 • 63 SPECTACLE The lighting rig features a wide variety of units from Claypaky. but between the accumulation of the waterfall water com - reports Tait Stage Technologies Group CEO Mark Ager. bined with the draft of the theatre between the dry and the The artist fly system includes 20 rigging points; for every wet stage, you never know which way the water drop will three to four performers, there is a rigger. go. With water like this, you can never mock this up; you The scenic system is exponentially larger. “For the sce - turn it on and see what it is. I think we were lucky in that nic, there are 100-plus rigging points. We have 28 scenic the dry stage house has created a very good draw winches, but they vary from four-line winches to ten-line towards the stage, instead of pushing towards the audi - winches, depending on the scenic element,” says Tait ence.” Stage Technologies project manager Brian Malone. The The dive pool, the wet stage area, and effects were project used a variety of winches. “We had 48 BT290, 390, constructed by Ghesa, based in Madrid. Marcouiller and 490 winches that vary in speed up to 4m (13') per explains: “We’ve worked with Ghesa on events before and second for performer flying,” Malone adds. The grid height we know their rental equipment, so we didn’t mind work - is 30m (98'), which is similar to other Dragone shows. ing with them on this project. The water system for the Most of the system is controlled by Tait Stage pool and the water special effects were linked together to Technologies’ proprietary Maxis SI Digital Position Control the same supplier, and effectively, there are not that many System. “We’ve developed this over 10 years and it’s a full- people in the world that can do that.” feature, multi-user, complex system that allows multi-dimen - sional flying and other movements. In this case, we’re doing Staging a lot of two and three-dimensional flying, which is all pro - For the fly system, the rigging, and several of the major grammed into this motion system, and then controlled by scenic pieces, Dragone turned to TAIT Stage Technologies, our front end,” Ager explains. The automation system has located in London, another firm that has a long relation - been a challenge throughout the process. “They [Dragone ship with Dragone. “One of our fortes is providing high- Studio] have two years to develop what they’re going to do, performance flying systems and rigging systems. We tend so consequently, it’s a more complex show and a lot more to need to work at high speeds and high acceleration and effects are used throughout the show, simply because they with someone like Dragone, it’s 4m or 5m a second,” have more time to integrate them,” he adds. 64 • December 2017 • Lighting &Sound America While the way artistic director Franco Dragone works is are four 22m (72') high by 4m (13') wide doors that weigh legendary—much of the production is created extempora - 6.5 tons each, and they run on a rolling beam system. The neously during rehearsals—another aspect of the show 24-ton doors open and close in a mere 30 seconds. It’s makes it very different from standard theatrical fare. “In a quite a good reveal when you see the entire proscenium big musical, they’ll do a tech run, and start from the begin - just disappear into the wing.” The doors needed to be ning and run all the way through to the end, and that takes done in four pieces so that they could store offstage. two or three weeks. We do West End musicals, and they Although La Perle is filled with acrobatics and unexpect - will spend maybe the first two days getting four minutes ed elements, it also includes two traditional circus feats. into the show,” notes Ager. “The Wheel of Death is rigged using two of our CH:Is, That type of schedule does not work for La Perle . “In which is our intelligent chain hoist. With that, we can have acrobatic shows, you can’t do that,” Ager says. “You have variable speed control and synchronization. We synchro - to allow the acrobats to do their work out every day on nize the hoists with each other, so one doesn’t go off faster equipment, and they can only do it for a certain length of than the other and cause the effect to tip,” Malone time. If you have a Dragone show, where there are 20 peo - explains. ple doing somersaults in the air, they are probably going to The death (as in “death-defying”) theme continues with rehearse that for an hour and a half, and then they have to the Globe of Death act, using a rigged globe designed by break. They put the show together into acts, and then they Rabasse. “The Globe of Death effect is absolutely phenom - work out the changes. Of course, that does mean that it’s a enal, it’s the show-stopper for me,” Malone says. The lot harder to build up the final sequencing, because you effect is popular in circuses around the world, and has have to make sure everyone is in the right place. Basically, been re-imagined for La Perle . “Normally, this is a ground- you’re building the show in parallel, rather than series, supported apparatus, where the bottom stays static and which is a challenge.” then the top lifts. We do it differently,” Lemieux says.