RHAPSODY IN HUES
Twirling batons, spinning sabres set to light up the ACC,
DAYTON, OHIO— First he’ll take Ohio, then he’ll take T.O.
It’s a steamy Saturday night in April and the University of Dayton Arena is filled to capacity for the final round of the 2015 Color Guard World Championships, where twirling batons, flashing sabres and people leaping combine with enough spangly leotards, eye makeup and glitter to furnish a dozen revivals of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
In one of the13,435 seats, on the aisle, about halfway back, sits David Byrne. If you didn’t know any better, you might think he was a proud parent of one of the contestants, so intently is his gaze fixed on the competition.
But the silver-haired 62-year-old, best known as the singer and guitarist in newwave band Talking Heads, is a man on a mission. He’s bringing the world of Color Guard to Luminato.
On June 22 and 23, Contemporary Color will erupt at the Air Canada Centre, a performance by 10 of the best Color Guard teams in North America, each paired with a musician and the whole thing flung on the giant canvas of that stadium.
But tonight, it’s Dayton and the air is thick with competition anxiety and the smell of thousands of chili dogs.
“Look at these kids,” whispers Byrne, amid cheering crowds.
“You can’t call them amateurs just because they mainly do this on the weekends or after school. Their dedication is on the same level as Olympic sports people.”
And he’s right. The members of Color Guard provide athletic dance routines during sporting events throughout the fall and winter at schools across North America (but mainly in the United States).
But then every spring, they put together their own creations — poetic, or political or symbolic, or just showbiz — and present them in this hardedged competition.
The finals moved at a breakneck pace: 30 entries in five and a half hours. One group every 10 minutes, with a short meal break in the middle.
Each group has 10 minutes precisely to set up, perform and move out. No exceptions.
“It’s sport and art engaging with the issues of the day,” says Byrne.
“So many different styles, so many different messages. Gender issues, women’s rights, violence in our society. They’ve got an awful lot to say about the world we live in.”
So does Byrne. That’s why he was drawn to these kids.
“Yeah, maybe they are the outliers of their schools. But I was an outlier too. And we make things happen. That’s why I’m here in Dayton. I’m the guy who’s opening the door and saying, ‘Look at this, people!’ ” says Byrne.
That’s his specialty. He wrote the score for Twyla Tharp’s The Catherine Wheel, turned a 19th-century Manhattan ferry terminal into a giant musical instrument for Playing the Building and told the life story of Imelda Marcos as a disco spectacle ( Here Lies Love) with the theatre turned into a giant club.
Having fallen for Color Guard, he enlisted the help of Nelly Furtado, How to Dress Well, Devonté Hynes, Zola Jesus, Nico Muhly and Ira Glass, St. Vincent, tUnE-yArDs, Lucius, and Ad-Rock + Money Mark to give the whole thing new musical life, not to mention considerable street cred.
The end result will yield10 acts over 100 minutes, featuring 350 performers and a 15-piece all-star band.
We ain’t in Dayton anymore, Dorothy.
But getting the 10 Color Guard companies he wanted to work with was just the beginning for Byrne when it came to creating this hybrid performance piece.
“The next step was finding the right musicians. Should I match similar styles and sensibilities? Or should I go for total contrast? Or maybe pair up people who wanted to say the same things but in different ways?”
He did all of the above, which is what makes the Luminato performance exciting.
On that night in Dayton, the allfemale Color Guard from Mechanicsburg High School in Mechanicsburg, Pa., brought incredible emotion and energy to a piece called Every 40 Seconds, based on the chilling statistic on how often a child is abducted.
“I saw them perform and thought, ‘My God, I am so glad this is who David matched me up with.’ They’re incredible,” says Tom Krell, the Chicago-born singer-songwriter who operates under the tongue-in-cheek alias How to Dress Well.
“When David called me up about two years ago and asked me to do this, I was like ‘What the f---?’ But when he comes up with an idea, you listen. He’s the man. And then once people knew I was with Mechanicsburg, I started hearing about them. My friend Doug Hines sent me a DM on Twitter and said, ‘Man, your group is amazing. You’re going to be so stoked by this.’ ”
And the more he learned, the more he liked them.
“People call Color Guard ‘the sport of the arts,’ but I think Mechanicsburg is the most artistic of them all. I think some of their stuff looks like a new take on Pina Bausch. It’s awesome.”
Krell set the group against a composition that features the Pacific Boychoir.
“I felt that what was needed was more time and more stillness, so I wrote a coda at the end to let things settle.”
And there’s a lot to let settle. Talking to Kristy Templin, the director of the Mechanicsburg Color Guard, you get a strong sense of where the spirit of the group is coming from.
“I was brought up in this activity. It was how I spent my summers and my weekends,” says Templin from her home in Pennsylvania.
“My mother created the Color Guard program at Mechanicsburg and was the director before me.
“Then after I experienced the loss of my mother, I put my energies here as a place to heal. Working with mental health and teenagers, that means the world to me.
“This is a really great place for kids who never fit in anywhere else, academics or sports, or the social whirl. This was a safe place where they could grow.”
Templin explains a typical year in the life of her group.
“We typically start up in the fall, structuring the music and looking at what we want to say thematically. We start a camp with the kids in November and December, then keep working right through the spring.”
For Templin, Krell and Byrne, the moment of truth is near: when the years of planning and creation either come together or don’t, when the Color Guards and musicians finally perform.
“This is the most delicate part of the process,” says Byrne, “where one’s work joins with someone else’s and it begins to become that third thing. The artists have poured their hearts and time into creating something new, and pushing the baby out into the world can be a fraught moment.”
Although he has a running order in mind, the final arc of the program will be determined when Byrne sees how all the pieces fit together.
There are also technical adjustments to be made.
“Mechanicsburg High School’s program features a wall through which the performers get snatched, but we realized it will obscure the view of the performing musicians,” says Byrne.
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.” Contemporary Color will be at the Air Canada Centre June 22 and 23 at 7 p.m. Go to luminatofestival.com for tickets and information.
“So many different styles, so many different messages. Gender issues, women’s rights, violence in our society. They’ve got an awful lot to say about the world we live in.” DAVID BYRNE OF COLOR GUARD