- To mark Montreal’s 375th anniversary and the Festival Montreal Completement Cirque, The 7 Fingers presented the immersive production, “Vice & Vertu,” at the city’s Societe des Arts Technologiques (SAT). The 7 Fingers used MA Lighting dot2 XL-F and XL-B consoles to control lighting for the kaleidoscope of circus, theater, comedy, video projections, burlesque and music acts that comprised the show.
The production ran for one month and was staged in two different main venues inside SAT. The audience moved from one area to the next with the artists accompanying them as sets were transformed into a red light club, cabaret, radio station and mafia backroom.
“The production played out in three different zones on two levels, each with its own challenge,” said Jean Laurin, lighting designer of Blue Hour Design. “The first floor was the biggest room and also had a low ceiling. We had to cover a lot of space for acting and for acrobatic numbers and used a big conventional and LED kit with a few moving lights. On the second floor the action was in a big dome space, which is mainly a 360º projection room and is rarely used for circus performances. We came up with a system of towers along the outside perimeter of the room adding a single point in the roof to hang a lighting position. To be less intrusive to the video projections all around the lighting design had to be very discrete.”
Laurin deployed one dot2 console in the main room and one in the dome.
“Being a grandMA2 user and knowing that all of our programmers were too, I thought the dot2 would be perfect for the production,” said Laurin. “The console was easy to integrate and everyone learned it the first day. The fact that this show had some moving lights but a lot of LED fixtures was the perfect match. Space was also a concern so the small footprint of the console was a real asset. MA Lighting’s reliability and the support of Alex Monast at A.C.T Lighting meant a lot to the overall experience with the dot2 as well.”
