culture
David Byrne Brings Colour to Luminato
The revered Talking Heads frontman wrings high art from the high school football field.
Contemporary Color – Luminato 2015 from 8 String Media on Vimeo.
Leave it to the legendary experimenter, David Byrne, to turn a fixture of North American high school pep rallies into a spectacle of multimedia performance art. And, as spectators at the Air Canada Centre witnessed on Monday and Tuesday nights, Contemporary Color delivers.
The idea for Byrne’s music, dance, and colour guard mash-up (which is headed to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center this weekend, on the heels of its Luminato debut), emerged when Byrne was asked to prepare music for a high school colour guard in 2008. He agreed, on the condition that he could watch what the performers were up to. The rest, as they say, is history.
Participating artists include Nelly Furtado, How to Dress Well, Blood Orange’s Devonté Hynes, Milkshaker-turned-saucier Kelis, Nico Muhly and Ira Glass, St. Vincent, tUnE-yArDs, and, of course, the one David Byrne himself.