Gloomy autumn Moscow to be laser coloured

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Today the third Moscow International Festival “The Circle of Light” opens in Moscow. Light designers and professionals in the sphere of 2D and 3D graphics use the architectural space of the city as an object for multimedia and light installation. The opening ceremony of the festival will take place in the Olympic complex of Luzhniki. The show of “Evolution of Fire” will be presented to the audience. Light performances will also take place in Tsaritsino Park and other sights of the city. The show will be performed daily in a cycle regime. Admission is free.

A daily multimedia show will be performed in the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow. It is devoted to the history and evolution of fire from the prehistoric period to up to date. The stage structure is a styled antique theatre, a predecessor of Olympic arenas. The sole fire-light symphony which takes about 25 minutes and involves artists and musicians consists of several pictures reflecting various historic eras. The show begins with an episode about the role of fire in the antique mythology. Flying drummers get off the ground; they beat out the heavy and threatening time which takes us many centuries backward.

The Roman Empire, a triumph of fire, festival of a fire circus, fire jugglers, circles of light on the arena, gladiators with fire swords, history development take shape in an episode with a light theatre.

The Middle Ages. A wide-scale performance with fire elements takes place, accompanied by the gothic orchestra. Reconstructed machines of Leonardo de Vinci, acrobats in original light costumes on them take us to the Renaissance. A striking mechanical episode which symbolizes coming of a new industrial era, the triumph of an assembly line is accompanied by dynamic light and video pictures. Artists with pyrotechnic and light equipment perform a unique show symbolizing a new era of light, an era of mortification of electricity. The final of the show gathers all participants of the performance. A bright pyrotechnic show which was born from antique flame at the beginning of the performance is on the stage. On the opening day of the festival the light and fire performance will be accompanied by great fireworks from the water.

The head of the Mass Media Department of Moscow, Vladimir Chernikov, spoke about the history of the show: “When the mayor (Sergey Sobyanin) took charge, at one of first meetings all participants paid attention to the fact that the city lacked light. I.e. street lights and so on. It is autumn, it gets dark and a bit uncomfortable. I think the platform which deserves attention is Tsaritsino. We want to show beauty of landscape architecture in this place because Tsaritsino is unique. We have gathered there various types of light design, the most modern. There will be video mapping, laser show, light stage model constructions and installations. A shadow show will be performed on 12 spheres. The whole park will be a fairy area. One cannot help admiring the beauty from the entrance, light paths, luminous bridges and so on.”

“We get several layers of art across to people,” the chief painter of Moscow, Tatyana Guk, says. “It is really beautiful, recognizable, it contributes to the image of Moscow. A high-professional product in the city sphere makes it attractive both for citizens and tourists.”

“For the first time the festival of light will have daily multimedia show which is free. It will involve artists, acrobats, circus artists, light, mapping, lasers, video, pyrotechnics, repeating every day,” the director of the opening and closing ceremony of the Moscow International Festival “The Circle of Light”, Vasily Sazonov. “More than 1000 people have been working on it for a year. 150 artists are involved into the show, more than 500 items of light and projection equipment which consumes 1.5 MW of electricity, a unique projection surface of 1 500 square meters will specially prepared video content, lasers. 40 trucks drove to Luzhniki to provide the wide-scale show technically. The second important event of our festival is the closing ceremony of the festival of light; it is connected with welcoming the Olympic Flame which will take place on the Red Square on October 6-8. Our festival couldn’t stand aside the event, and we are preparing a creative gift, a surprise which will be performed at the welcoming ceremony of the Olympic Flame on October 8th.”