TORONTO — David Byrne and Nelly Furtado are among the artists who will present the world premiere of Contemporary Color — a live performance featuring 10 colour guard teams from across North America — at this year’s Luminato Festival in Toronto.
Conceived by Byrne (who performed in If I Loved You at Luminato last year), the show is scheduled for June 22 and 23 at the Air Canada Centre. It will then be staged at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on June 27 and 28.
The unique show involves 10 high school colour guard teams (including one from Longueuil, Quebec) along with Byrne, Furtado, Kelis, St. Vincent, How to Dress Well, Devonté Hynes, Nico Muhly + Ira Glass and tUnE-yArDs.
The performers will be backed by a 15-piece band.
Colour guard teams combine military tradition with athleticism and acrobatics using flags, rifles and sabres.
Byrne, formerly of Talking Heads, saw video of Winter Guard International’s World Championship in 2008 and was “stunned” by what he saw.
“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?,” he said, in a release.
“Contemporary Color is the artistic culmination of my interest in color guard as a piece of Americana and as a competitive art form.”
The show was commissioned by Luminato and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Tickets for the general public go on sale Jan. 26.
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