Taiwan’s National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying) brings Ayrton Khamsin-S to Turandot revival

When Taiwan’s National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying) hosted a revival of the German/Taiwanese co-production of Puccini’s Turandot earlier this year, Mr Chien-hao Kuo, lighting designer and head of lighting, boldly chose to replace all the discharge moving lights of the original design with LED fixtures.

 

He carefully selected 26 Ayrton Khamsin-S profiles which were supplied to the venue from its rental stock by Hispot Workshop of Taipei, Taiwan, a company which has been dedicated to theatre design and equipment rental for over twenty-six years. Mr Kuo’s choice was a considered one as he had used Ayrton Khamsin-S on several operas in the past and knew them to be both powerful and quiet.

Ayrton Khamsin-S fixtures provide drama and nuance for Turandot at National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying)

Ayrton Khamsin-S played a pivotal role at the heart of Mr Kuo’s design by creating leading image effects and using the gobo flow to match the media content. “I kept the fixtures busy in colour changing, gobo rotating and graphic animation,” he says. “All functions were set to work for hours, and we never had to reset the system when the show was in process.”

Khamsin-S’s reliability was also an important factor as Turandot’s stage set design included a semi-circular cyclorama and central slope feature. “Because of these stage features, once the lights were rigged, it would be difficult to access them for any further readjustment,” explains Mr Kuo. “We therefore decided that all the overheads would be Khamsin-S moving lights because it is a very stable fixture. And once they were rigged above the stage, it was very easy to achieve both clean shutter cuts and smooth washes.”

Because Ayrton Khamsin-S is brighter than the fixtures in the original design, and the LED colours are different from those in the discharge units, Mr. Kuo took time to adjust the intensity and colours to correspond with the original look of the production. “In this production, digital media took up the largest proportion of the design, with the lighting forming a balance between the stage and video concepts. Khamsin’s electronic dimmer is very precise and allowed me to make fine adjustments that created a proper bridge between the two.”

National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying) is a sleek, wave-shaped, 3.3-hectare (8.15 acre) building which, as the world’s largest single-roof performing arts centre, provided a majestic setting for this internationally popular classic opera. The original co-production between the National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying) and Deutsche Oper am Rhein premiered in Theater Duisburg, Germany in December 2015, before receiving its Asian premiere at the Weiwuying Opera House in April 2019. The lighting design was a joint creation between Volker Weinhart for Germany and Mr Kuo for Taiwan. This latest revival in August 2020 enjoyed huge success, with a simultaneous live broadcast on Weiwuying’s official YouTube channel that also allowed 50,000 people across the world to enjoy the experience together, without borders.

Photographer © Tat Keng TEY

For more information on Ayrton Khamsin-S and Khamsin-TC, and the full range of LED lighting fixtures, visit www.ayrton.eu

Photos: All photos credited as © Image provided by National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying)

About Ayrton:

AYRTON is specialized in developing intelligent LED light products for Entertainment and Architectural applications.

Based south of Paris, France, the AYRTON Headquarters and Research & Development centre combine and organize the highest competence in engineering, software, electronics and optics, with the aim to create highly innovative fixtures.

AYRTON fixtures are created to answer any demanding installation and criteria, and are distributed through devoted and exclusive worldwide teams. AYRTON uses reliable, flexible and avant-garde technologies linked to innovative design, to provide AYRTON customers with a wide range of pioneer lighting solutions for installation in Stages, TV Studios, Show-venues and Architectural schemes.

For more information contact: 

Ayrton
2 rue Vitruve
91140 Villebon-Sur-Yvette
France

Tel: + 33 (0) 1 83 75 12 00
Fax:  +33 (0) 1 85 74 59 59
Email: sales@ayrton.eu
Web: www.ayrton.eu

For press enquiries:

Julie Harper
Julie Harper PR & Marketing
Tel: +44 (0)1323 416810
Mobile: +44 (0)7990 974388
Email: julie@joolzharper.co.uk

Tom Kenny chooses Ayrton Khamsin-S for the iHeartCountry Festival 2020

Lighting designer Tom Kenny chose Ayrton Khamsin-S profiles as key lights in his design for this year’s iHeartCountry Festival, presented by Capital One, which was live streamed globally and broadcast on iHeartMedia’s country radio stations on 23 October. Bandit Lites supplied 24 of Ayrton’s Khamsin-S fixtures for this 7th annual celebration of country music which was rescheduled from its original slot in May at the Frank Erwin Centre in Austin, Texas, and relocated to The Steel Mill in Nashville, Tennessee.

Kenny is a lighting designer with over 40 years of experience on both sides of the Atlantic who moves easily between lighting live music and television spectaculars. His client list includes rock superstars like Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, David Byrne, Eric Clapton, David Bowie and The Who, and his television credits number a multiplicity of music award shows, documentaries and TV specials.

“I’d always wanted to use Ayrton’s new fixtures, having used their effects lighting many times before, yet never had the chance until now,” Kenny says. “So when Bandit Lites approached me with the Khamsin-S, I jumped at the opportunity.”

The Khamsin-S fixtures were installed in the overhead grid of The Steel Mill’s 200ft x 79ft studio from where Kenny used them for back, front and key lighting of the bands and as ‘scenery’ for single artists.

Ayrton Khamsin-S puts on a performance with Tom Kenny on the iHeartCountry Festival in Nashville.

“The Khamsins were amazing in all aspects: the colour, power, speed and colour temperature were all perfect for television lighting – the temperatures in particular were just beautiful,” says Kenny. “Every lamp was perfect on set up and stayed perfect without any adjustment.

“I’m very fortunate that many manufacturers ask me to try out their latest fixtures on my TV shows. I like trying new products and can be relied upon to give them an honest opinion. The Khamsins are just fabulous lights and I was really impressed with them.”

The iHeartCountry Festival line up included veteran and new country stars from Dierks Bentley and Lady A to Kelsea Ballerini and Dustin Lynch, and Kenny made sure the Khamsin-S fixtures were kept busy throughout the day and night.

Kenny was also impressed with the output of the Khamsin, despite The Steel Mill’s throw distance being shorter than he is used to. “You could see the Khamsins had lots of power and depth to spare even though the trim height at The Steel Mill is only 25ft. They were up against a grid of very powerful other products and lots of heavy smoke effects, but they cut their way through everything with ease. They kept their colour and shape and performed wonderfully under the stress. They are just gorgeous and I’m going to start spec’ing them on many more shows.”

 

This is something that pleases the Festival’s lighting vendors, Bandit Lites, a long-time advocate of Ayrton. “Mike Golden and I were really pleased that Tom spec’d Khamsin-S on the recent iHeart event at the Steel Mill,” says Dizzy Gosnell, Production Director at Bandit Lites who points out: “The missing link for lighting companies has been the availability of a high output LED powered profile head, and the Ayrton Khamsin-S really ticks all the boxes for us at Bandit with its features. Of course, not having a bulb in there to ‘go brown on you’ is a major deal for companies and designers alike. And add to that the thumping output coming out of the front end, great beam width capacity, colour mixing, good framing, 540º pan, good CRI for video, to name just a few. We’re really happy that we have the Khamsin-S in our arsenal at Bandit.”

Photos: all photos credited to © Getty Images for iHeartMedia

For more information on Ayrton and its full range of LED lighting fixtures, visit www.ayrton.eu

 

 

About Ayrton:

AYRTON is specialized in developing intelligent LED light products for Entertainment and Architectural applications.

Based south of Paris, France, the AYRTON Headquarters and Research & Development centre combine and organize the highest competence in engineering, software, electronics and optics, with the aim to create highly innovative fixtures.

AYRTON fixtures are created to answer any demanding installation and criteria, and are distributed through devoted and exclusive worldwide teams. AYRTON uses reliable, flexible and avant-garde technologies linked to innovative design, to provide AYRTON customers with a wide range of pioneer lighting solutions for installation in Stages, TV Studios, Show-venues and Architectural schemes.

For more information contact: 

Ayrton
2 rue Vitruve
91140 Villebon-Sur-Yvette
France

Tel: + 33 (0) 1 83 75 12 00
Fax:  +33 (0) 1 85 74 59 59
Email: sales@ayrton.eu
Web: www.ayrton.eu

For press enquiries:

Julie Harper
Julie Harper PR & Marketing
Tel: +44 (0)1323 416810
Mobile: +44 (0)7990 974388
Email: julie@joolzharper.co.uk