The Vision Factory's Liam Griffiths Creates Dynamic Environment for Berlioz with CHAUVET Professional

	"By keeping the majority of the stage in negative space, every beam and silhouette becomes intentional and readable," Griffiths explains. Photo: @stephportphotos

The British DJ Jasper Attlee (aka "Berlioz") creates music best described as "Jazz House," combining the improv and acoustic qualities of jazz with the 4/4 rhythm and beats of downtempo deep house. Liam Griffiths, the team at The Vision Factory, and lighting op-programmer James Taylor provided a similarly original design for Berlioz's six-week multi-country tour.

The design makes use of dark space, which at times covers most of the stage, giving rise to an unsettling feeling, especially when set against the show's monochromatic color schemes and the foliage scenic pieces on the risers.

"By keeping the majority of the stage in negative space, every beam and silhouette becomes intentional and readable," Griffiths explains. "The performers then become graphic shapes rather than fully lit figures, which suited the tone of the set. This also gave the foliage risers something to play against. The plant silhouettes only read because they're backlit against black."

Adding to the intensity of the shadowy scene is the line of 20 CHAUVET Professional COLORado PXL Bar 16 motorized battens, which, like the rest of the rig, are supplied by Coloursound Experiment. A principal light source for the show, the PXL units are key to the backlighting and to creating the redolent monochromatic glow that lights the stage.

"Sticking to a single hue per look -- the deep reds and ambers, for example -- keeps everything visually cohesive and lets contrast and intensity do the storytelling instead of color change," says Griffiths, who then described how light angles help him achieve his vision:

"Lighting from below and behind rather than the traditional front/top wash is about reversing the usual visual logic instead of light falling onto the artists. In this design, it feels like light is rising up through and around the performers, almost like they're emerging out of the ground. It also lets the vertical beams double as a graphic architecture across the whole rig. Those long red shafts cutting up through the haze became a structural element as well."

Berlioz next appears on August 11 in Hellissandur, Iceland and August 28 in Dublin.