Robe Installed at the Soweto Theatre, South Africa

Robe moving lights have been specified and installed at the new Soweto Theatre, a 150 million ZAR project bringing a thriving new venue, arts, and cultural space to the Jabulani district of Soweto in Gauteng, South Africa.

The 30 x ROBIN 300 LEDWashes and 12 ROBIN 600E Spots were specified by lighting designer Denis Hutchinson, who acted as lighting consultant for the whole project which has been three years in the making.

The fixtures will be used in the theatre's three performance spaces -- a 420-seat main pros arch auditorium and two studio venues of 180- and 90-seat capacities respectively.

The theatre's striking building was designed by Afritects headed by Lawrence Cithwe and Clara del Santiago. It is intended primarily as a receiving house for dance and drama productions, as well as producing some shows and serving as a production house to promote the arts in general.

DWR, (also Robe's South African distributor), won the tender to supply the bulk of the lighting package.

The pros arch in the main theatre space is 11m wide by seven meters high and the stage is nine meters deep. There is a counterweight bar system over the stage, and walkways to access everywhere front of house.

Hutchinson comments, "Robe is a very solid and reliable brand in my experience, and units certainly need to be robust in this environment, where they will be in almost daily use for many different scenarios."

Hutchinson thinks the intensity and colors of the LEDWash 300 are excellent and the compact size is ideal for all the spaces at the theatre, and he affectionately calls them "PAR can killers."

There was a desire to want to be as green as possible, and so the low power consumption of the LEDWash 300s and the 600E Spots was a positive.

Day-to-day, the new lighting system is being looked after by house lighting technician Nkululeko Mazibuko, who trained at Johannesburg's landmark Market Theatre, and has had considerable experience as a freelancer working on arts and music festivals where he has designed numerous shows and staged workshops and training.

DWR also supplied a number of generic lights, dimmers and a grandMA lite and two ultra-lite consoles for control.

The first production in the Soweto Theatre was The Suitcase, a duologue adapted by firebrand director James Ngcobo with musical direction by Hugh Masekela, choreographed by Gregory Maqoma.