Brent Clark Creates Special Space on Stage for Sarah McLachlan with CHAUVET Professional

	"I wanted this design to draw everything back to the center of the video wall," he says. "The idea was to create the feeling that you are falling into space." Photo: Ben Neely Photography

Brent Clark thought about video when crafting a lighting design for Sarah McLachlan on the 22-date USA leg of her Better Broken Tour, which began July 1 at the First Bank Amphitheatre outside Nashville and runs through mid-August.

"Sarah is a great artist and collaborator," Clark says. "I love lighting her shows; it allows me to paint and get into the mood of the songs. For this show, I had this video of curves in mind. "It had everything being round and kinda soft but extremely tough. So, the idea started with how do I create an environment where things can be soft, but also have a toughness to them?"

Ultimately, this vision led to an immersive design featuring an arch that runs across mid-stage, framing the video wall, which is sometimes partially obscured, adding an element of mystery to the scene.

Lighting fixtures line the stage and its neighboring flown truss structures, which appear, in Clark's words, "to reach out and kind of hug the stage." This effect is enhanced by Clark's deft use of fog around the arch. "I was just trying to frame Sarah in a different way," he says. "I wanted to create a sense of depth, and the arch really helped me achieve it."

Displaying content from the Ultimate Dream Machine, the video wall framed by the arch adds a fascinating ethereal element to the show, while contributing to the visual identity of each tune in the 20-song set.

Also playing a key role in Clark's design are 14 CHAUVET Professional STRIKE Array 1 fixtures, which, like the rest of the rig, were supplied by Christie Lites. Positioned along inner truss circles and downstage, the fixtures, with their intense warm white light and tungsten-like red shift dimming, are well-suited for the open, embracing mood the designer was after.

"There are a lot of reasons I love the STRIKE fixtures for this tour," Clark says. "I really appreciate the big circle look they have. That, along with their brightness and color temperature, really complements the design very well."

The effect of these and every other fixture in the rig is enhanced by the way Clark set up his risers, angling them downward. "I wanted the band to see everyone in the audience," Clark says. "The risers are offset for camera purposes. Given where the piano sits, it gets hard to get a good clean shot of Sarah, so we played with the riser placement to give us the cleanest shots possible.

"I wanted this design to draw everything back to the center of the video wall," he says. "The idea was to create the feeling that you are falling into space."