Stage Door News
Stage Door News
Toronto, ON – Pop stars sync steps with students in the world premiere of Contemporary Color, a live performance event conceived by David Byrne and commissioned by Luminato Festival and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). Taking over the Air Canada Centre as part of Luminato Festival on June 22 and 23 and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on June 27 and 28, this unprecedented project is an epic staging of sport, music and culture inspired by the wildly popular colour guard phenomenon.
Found in high schools, colleges and universities across North America, colour guard is a competitive art form that has evolved out of military tradition, fusing athletic team spectacle with pep rally spirit. Known today as one of the ‘marching arts’, elite dance teams of 20 to 40 performers bring sophisticated acrobatic routines to life with a variety of props like flags, rifles, and sabres, along with movement and dynamic music, to express a conceptual motif.
In Contemporary Color, 10 high school colour guard teams from across North America (including a Canadian team from Longueuil, QC) and 10 of today’s most incredible musicians pair off to create a soundtrack of new and original music for each group’s routine. Each artist performs live with their student team, accompanied by an all-star 15-piece band, on a 100 by 70 foot stage at the Air Canada Centre. The final result as orchestrated by David Byrne: more than 350 performers creating 100-minutes of non-stop sabre-spinning, flag-flipping, sequin-studded spectacle.
Participating artists include Talking Heads founder, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Luminato Festival alumnus Byrne; Canada’s own Nelly Furtado; and an extraordinary array of talent including How to Dress Well; Devonté Hynes; Kelis; Nico Muhly and Ira Glass; St. Vincent; tUnE-yArDs and more.
In 2008, Byrne agreed to lend a composition to a high school performance team - his only request was to see how the music was used. When he saw a DVD of the Winter Guard International’s World Championship (the Olympics of the colour guard world) with a dazzling lockstep routine set to his music, the creative seed for Contemporary Color was planted.
“I was stunned at what I was seeing,” Byrne recalls. “And being a musician, I naturally wondered to myself: what if these performances had really great live music? Wouldn’t that lift it to another level? Contemporary Color is the artistic culmination of my interest in color guard as a piece of Americana and as a competitive art form.”
With the support of co-commissioners Luminato Festival and BAM, and with the endorsement of WGI Sport of the Arts, Byrne began reaching out to some of his favorite artists and an array of North American colour guard teams. From there the epic arena-scale artistry of Contemporary Color began to take shape. Byrne’s directive to the diverse array of participating artists is to work alongside the creative heads of each colour guard team to produce a mind-blowing meld of original music and routine.
“Art meets sport meets music in Contemporary Color with some of the most exciting names in entertainment today. This show is like nothing we’ve ever done before and like nothing Toronto has ever seen before – it’s a spectacle for the entire family. This marks our first co-commission with one of the greatest performing arts institutions in the world, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. We are thrilled to welcome David Byrne back to the Festival. And it feels fitting to present our first major project at the Air Canada Centre this year as Toronto prepares to host the PanAm Games,” said Jorn Weisbrodt, Artistic Director, Luminato Festival.
“Contemporary Color isn’t about high or low art – it’s about how much fun you can have,” Weisbrodt continued. “It’s for those who watch the Super Bowl just for the half time show; who only eat the middle of their Oreo cookies; and who read the comics in the New Yorker first. We can’t wait to share it.”
Tickets for Contemporary Color in Toronto start at $39, and are available to Luminato Insiders (sign up at luminatofestival.com) during a pre-sale on January 23. Tickets will be on sale to the general public on January 26 and can be purchased at luminatofestival.com or by calling the Luminato Festival Box Office at 416-368-4TIX (4849) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday. Advance tickets are also available for Premium Seat Customers of MLSE from January 21 to 22 through ticketmaster.com.
Luminato Festival presents
Contemporary Color
June 22 and 23; 7 p.m. (doors at 6 p.m.)
Air Canada Centre (40 Bay St., Toronto)
$39 to $129; plus taxes and service charges
Tickets can be purchased online at luminatofestival.com or by calling 416-368-4TIX (4849)
Conceived by David Byrne
Commissioned by Luminato Festival and Brooklyn Academy of Music
With support from WGI Sport of the Arts
For more information visit luminatofestival.com
Twitter: @Luminato
Facebook: Luminato Festival
Instagram: @LuminatoFestival
Hashtag: #Luminato; #ContemporaryColor
2015-01-21
Toronto: Luminato presents the world premiere of "Contemporary Color" by David Byrne