Impressions from Yangshuo
Yangshuo, 17th June 2014
Today was mostly spent in meetings after having spent the first hour doing a site inspection walk with the client and project team. These meetings are generally very focussed and solution oriented. The progress is good, the overall team spirit is very positive, I am enjoying this project a lot. One of the things that was on my to do list while here was to go and see the lightshow which is played on the Yangshuo river against the dramatic mountain backdrop and which was artistically conceived by the same director who created the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. This show was created in 2004 and attracts literally thousands of people a nightly; I was told the show can hold near 3000 people, it surely looked like it! The point of interest for me being that the back drop mountains used in the show are literally around the project property that we are developing, so understanding what the public sees and how the illumination of the mountains is interacted in the show is important in developing my own lighting concept. Some banks of floodlights are located just aside our property and not surprisingly they blast their light right over the buildings when the show is on. Luckily it is only happens for short moments…
We went last night with a group from the project team that had not seen it and enjoyed it thoroughly. If the number of people watching the show was enormous, the number of people participating in the show was even more massive! About 800(!) actors participate in the display which at one point of time saw about 500 of them “walking” on the water! This is only possible in China, for sure; such massive undertaking which also saw more than 100 bamboo fishing boats at one point of time moving around with fire and other lighting effects, all perfectly coordinated, impressive! The show is called Impressions Liu Sanjie and runs nightly during the week and twice nightly in the weekend on the Lijiang Rover bank in Yangshuo and tells an old Chinese story and set on the music from apparently a movie of the same name.
I found it very educational and inspiring to watch, I always learn from these experiences, I am happy I saw it.
Light watch 5-102: Here are some “Impressions” from the show.
PS: The lighting of the backdrop does not come out well on my mobile phone pictures but in reality they come out well
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