let's talk first about contemporary color what the heck is it that's a
really good question my first intro into contemporary color was that I went to a
big American high school not too dissimilar from Friday Night Lights
except for it was in a bigger town in Dallas Texas and what I know about
contemporary color from those days is that they weren't the football team they
weren't the cheerleaders they weren't the high school band they were this
really kind of bizarre underground subculture of I guess what stemmed from
a military stick dance but then really flowered into its own its own world so I
I knew about their color guard because they would be rehearsing on the lawn and
throwing the the toy rifles and waving the flag liberation work the way it
worked in various artists were teamed up with different color guard teams and
these color guard teams had already had this routine that they've been working
on that they'd refine that was again their performance the dance the throwing
of the rifles in the flags and essentially what I did is get a video of
their dance and then restore it so you reverse engineer the color guard yeah
exactly and it was a bizarre challenge because like a lot of dances go
different very different tempos in different time signatures and moments of
reprieve
and my particular team is based on the idea of a lunatic and somebody in a
mental institution so yes but I'm thrilled to work with them and
apparently they stay in character
the entire time they where they have all dyed their hair read for the part not I
don't think that's any slight on gingers I think it's just part of part of the
aesthetic and the director of the color guard is also a fashion designers are
he's designed all the costumes and with any luck I will be wearing one of the
costumes they asked me to dye my hair red but I said I couldn't because it's
was already falling out from the white hair
let's talk about your lyrics because there is one of the ways I describes a
visit to myself in my head is carrying terrible events you often found the
sweetest when you're most scary theater when I was in high school and I remember
one of the tenets of that being if you have something really have some big big
anger to express herself
big moment to explore a lot of time it's it's a lot creepier to whisper that to
scream in another class I want to ask about your stage a couple of times in
which blows my mind as it blows my mind if everybody it's it's it's
choreographed how have you folks seen as I hope some of you doing
you doing with their choreography any be partisan but what did you tell her you
wanted I mean for someone like me she will perhaps think about what will look
good in my body in what I'll be actually be able to inhabit as someone who's not
a trained dancer and her most one of the most interesting things about her is
that she loves to work with novices who have no dance baggage from what I
understand about the way anybody work sometimes is that she will essentially
listen to a piece of music and suggests words that are like poetry and she
relies on a concept that she calls first thought best thought so she works with
incredible dancers will say a word like insular and then someone will react to
it and the way that is instinctual
go through a number of words and a number of reactions by the dancers and
then whittle it down and codify until it's a piece so it's ultimately very
collaborative
I'm not aware this could just be my ignorance about the dance world but I'm
not aware of any other choreographer who works in that specific way to me it felt
like the movement is another another layer of rhythm and ideas on top of the
words on top of the music on top of the drugs it's just one more mind blowing
thing you're throwing out of the same time also I mean that's how our brain
works if we stand in some victori victorious posed for an hour this way
people like to do yoga we start to feel victorious I mean it
it's it's as neurological for me as it is for the audience to polls in your
work between control and chaos because you're through the years and the guitar
comes out of nowhere like you or your your choreographed shows now you're also
completely in control but you can go haywire at the end like he did in Austin
or whatever it is you must think a lot about control versus both in your music
I think a lot about control I don't think very much brought chaos that just
comes in Loch Ness monster