The ballet Sacre directed by ballet director, Goyo Montero, took to the Staatstheater Nürnberg using Robert Juliat SpotMe for the first time, in conjunction with a Robert Juliat Victor followspot and Robert Juliat Maestro server.
Robert Juliat SpotMe is a 3D tracking tool for followspots and the only tracking device for performers on the market that puts the followspot operator in control by enabling ‘slave’ lighting fixtures to follow the movements of a followspot.
Karl Wiedemann, Team Leader Lighting Opera, said: “The requirement for this special production was to be able to control a ring of 40 moving lights hanging above the stage via a transmitter-receiver solution. We wanted to be able to track a dancer automatically with the moving lights, so that he could be seen to ‘play’ with the light. The truss ring containing the spotlights was suspended from eight point hoists and could therefore tilt in all axes.
“In order to use tracking at different positions of the traverse circle, we divided the 40 moving lights into four groups and assigned them several 3D positions,” said Karl. “We were able to control these groups via Robert Juliat’s SpotMe device. As an interface to our lighting console, we used the Robert Juliat Maestro Server, which translates the PosiStageNet (PSN) signals”.
The Robert Juliat Maestro server played a key role at the Staatstheater Nürnberg, as the lighting console was not PSN compatible. Maestro extends the capabilities of SpotMe by enabling it to operate with any DMX lighting control console, so the complementary dedicated server allowed real-time calculation of the movements of all the moving heads which were tracking the movements of the followspot.
