Zvezdara Theatre Belgrade Invests in Robe Zvezdara Theatre in downtown Belgrade is the first theatre in Serbia to take delivery of Robe lights since Light and Sound Design (LSD) took on distributorship of the brand in late 2023. The 300-capacity space now owns four Robe LEDBeam 350 moving lights and four T11 Profiles. Zvezdara Theatre was opened in 1984 and quickly became a prominent cultural hub, renowned for promoting contemporary (then) Yugoslav writers and their works. It gained recognition for championing innovative and thought-provoking drama, comedy, and music, and for offering high-quality, modern theatrical expressions that reflect the realities of Serbian life and community. Lighting designer Aleksa Cosic, who has been working there for just over a year, is delighted with the Robe products. When he arrived, the theatre was already in the process of transitioning to LED lighting in stages. He is one of four regular LDs who work on lighting the theatre's many productions, all of whom attended open days staged after LSD took on the Robe distribution. After seeing the Robe products in action there, the next move was to take some of the theatre's existing conventional fixtures to LSD and test them side-by-side with the Robe options in one of LSD's large demo areas. Here, they specifically compared a 2,000W profile to Robe's T11, which has a 350W equivalent multispectral light source. They compared every measurable parameter of the T11, concluding it was more powerful than any of their 2-5kW range sources several times over, and with no heat output. Cosic adds he was impressed by the quality of the light, flat beam field, the sharpness and accuracy of the framing shutters, and the hybrid design, which means, utilising different lens options, it can be a profile, a PC, or a Fresnel fixture. The T11 doesn't need any gel or colour correction filters, can be transformed into a gobo projector with motorized rotation, and "it's a massively more adaptable and useful luminaire that consumes an eighth of the power of the old Fresnel," Cosic notes. The LEDBeam 350s were purchased for their versatility and multi-purposefulness, and Cosic likes that one LEDBeam 350 can wash the whole stage there or be zoomed in to pinpoint and focus on a single item. DMX-controlled moving lights in a theatre are still relatively rare in Serbia, as there is still a proliferation of classic dimmed light sources and control boards that have been in place since the last century. The fact that lighting techs do not need to use a ladder to adjust any of the Robe products also means that the lighting department can work substantially quicker to light and tweak during rehearsals and tech sessions. 
|
