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Taipei Performing Arts Centre invests in Robe Spiiders

The Taipei Performing Arts Centre (TPAC), which contains three performance spaces - The Grand Theatre, the Globe Playhouse, and the Blue Box - has recently invested in forty Robe Spiider LED wash beam luminaires, which will help light an array of productions staged at the venue.

The Centre has around 150 full time employees, a third of whom are designated to work across assorted technical disciplines. TPAC senior technical officer Yi-Ming Liu (aka “Birdie”) was instrumental in picking the Spiiders, together with TPAC’s head of lighting, Pang-Yan Lin Ling, and others from the lighting team. Sustainability was a major consideration when getting these moving lights, as well as multi-functionality.

The Spiiders, recently delivered via Robe’s Asia Pacific subsidiary in Singapore, arranged by local Taiwan dealer DLHG, run by Jackson Yu, will be used in all three main performance spaces in this bustling producing and receiving house.

TPAC’s eye-catching contemporary building was designed by David Gianotten and Rem Koolhaas from the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and features different geometrical shapes offering a total space of 50,000 square metres.

The 800-seater Playhouse is sphere shaped, the asymmetrical shaped Grand Theatre has a 1500 capacity, and the Blue Box studio space can accommodate up to 840 and is fully flexible. The building is owned by the Taipei City Government’s Department of Cultural Affairs.

Knowing the type of luminaire needed to add to the approximately 2000 generic luminaires in place when TPAC opened in 2022 after a ten-year build period, Yi-Ming Liu and the lighting team created a spec for the ideal LED wash beam. The fixture was identified as the most useful addition for fulfilling lighting designs plus saving person-power and time when facilitating productions.

Some of the crew travelled to Robe’s factory in the Czech Republic to see the production process, further in depth demonstrations and to receive hands-on maintenance training. TPAC does not have in-house LDs but works with a range of freelancers who are commissioned to light their own productions on a per-project basis and are primarily from Taiwan. International and touring productions will often bring their own designers or lighting directors.

TPAC is the first theatre installation in Taiwan to feature Robe Spiiders in the rig. Yi-Ming Liu already knew Robe through his touring experiences, but his association goes back around twenty years or so, when he worked at the Ministry of Sound club in London, which had Robe in the house.

The shows staged at TPAC include Taiwanese dance and performance groups, drama, opera, musicals, a range of dynamic Asian co-productions and international works. The performance spaces are also used for commercial, industrial, business, and special events.

Pictured (left to right): Some of TPAC’s technical department team - Yi-Ming Liu (senior technical officer), Achun Kao (senior technical officer), Pang-Yan Lis (assistant manager, head of lighting), Kim Lin (senior technical officer), Ting-Nan Chen (senior technical associate). (Photos: Louise Stickland/Paul Clarke)

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