I can’t tell about this one at all.
David Byrne has invited some big time alty rockers, like Tune-Yards and St. Vincent, Kelis, Dev Hynes, Nelly Furtado and How to Dress Well (there will be more he claims) to Barclay center in Brooklyn (and also Canada but who cares about that) on June 27th and June 28th, to play in tandem with Color Guard teams. Color Guard team?
According to Wikipedia: ” Modern color guard has evolved over the years into a form of entertainment similar to dance theater. Color guard can be found in most American colleges, universities, high schools, and independent drum corps. Color guard uses props, along with movement, to express dynamic passages in the music accompanying the marching band show. Usually marching bands and color guards perform during football games at halftime, out of tradition. During competition the guard adds to the overall score of the band, but is also judged in its own category, usually called auxiliary.”
What Bryne is presenting is known as the Winter Guard: “Similar to outdoor color guard (marched with a drum corps or marching band), except the performances are indoors on gymnasium floors through the winter season. The traditional marching band music heard during fall season is replaced with a recording of various musical genres. The gymnasium floor typically is covered by an individually designed tarp (called a floor mat or floor by members) that generally reflects the show being performed on it. The members may perform barefoot, but wearing jazz shoes or modern dance shoes is also common. There are several winter guard circuits for participating in competitions during indoor season, including TIA (Tournament Indoor Association), WGI (Winter Guard International), and many more.”
So I gues David has found the top ten tens and is adding contemporary popular music.
I am seriously considering because.
1 – June 27th is a Saturday.
and
2 – The cheapest ticket is $25, which hits me as eminently reasonable for something I would only check out my great nieces doing with a gun a gun to my head.
Really, it does sound like fun, doesn’t it?
Here is what Byrne had to say (plus a video at the end)
“Some years ago, a Colorguard team wanted to use some music I’d written (from a theater piece I did with Robert Wilson, called The Forest) for one of their routines. I said, “Fine, no charge… you are a high school team after all.” But I asked that they send me documentation out of curiosity and for my archives. I eventually got a DVD of the whole World Championship competition. I watched, and was amazed and delighted to find myself in a new world that I didn’t know existed.
“What I was viewing is more properly referred to in that world as winterguard—as it takes place in the winter and spring—after fall football season, when the colorguard teams are more closely associated with drum lines and marching bands. Off season they do their own thing—still employing flags, rifles and sabers—but their routines are less about formation than about themes, emotion, concepts and visual spectacle. Over recent decades, the teams have evolved into something strange and wonderful; they’ve created a vibrant, innovative and original vernacular artform that is wildly popular across the whole North American continent, but is all but unknown in many of the big urban centers—like New York, where I live.
“Contemporary Color aims to remedy that situation. I was stunned at what I was seeing, and being a musician I naturally wondered to myself, “What if these performances had live music? Really great live music! Wouldn’t that be amazing? And wouldn’t that lift it to another level?” (Besides being fun for the musicians too!). The competitions these teams engage in already fill arenas with their fans and supporters, so I thought to myself, “Let’s take it from there!”
I approached BAM and Luminato Festival in Toronto about presenting this idea: 10 colorguard teams paired with 10 musical artists. Somewhat surprisingly, they said yes! So this summer, on two successive weekends in June, we’re going to bring all of this together in live shows at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and Air Canada Centre in Toronto. The musicians will be backed by an all-star band that will include a brass and string section.
Here they are (in no particular order):
Nelly Furtado
Kelis
St Vincent
How To Dress Well
Devonté Hynes
Nico Mulhy and Ira Glass
David Byrne
tUnE-yArDs + MORE!
This is sort of a crazy idea. We’re all slightly out of our comfort zone, but very excited—it’s an idea that seems natural and obvious too, so why not!? Please join us!”
