FRONTERA

Animals of Distinction (Canada)/Fly Pan Am (Canada)/United Visual Artists (UK)

This powerhouse multimedia performance unites post-rock masters Fly Pan Am with choreographer Dana Gingras and her Animals of Distinction dance company. If you saw the Gingras co-creation monumental at PuSh 2016, you surely remember its spectacular fusion of sound and motion; here, again, are live music and dance in the service of metaphor. The guiding ideas are borders and surveillance: how do they define us, and when do we dare challenge them?

“Fly Pan Am is not afraid to flirt with the bizarre in reaching for the sublime, and the result is challenging music of considerable integrity.”

—Copper Press

The scenography, by United Visual Artists, is stark and suggestive; space is defined by light alone. Amid pulsing flashes and towering vertical rays, ten human figures dance—at times alone, at times with each other, at times against each other. Their wild gestures are a response to the propulsive music, to the commands of the lighting and to things less easy to define; it’s a large-scale struggle between impulse and design. The shafts of illumination are as beautiful as they are imposing; at times, they imprison the dancers like bars, but they cannot defeat human vitality. FRONTERA is a work of awe and resistance in equal measure — an adventure for the eyes, the ears and the mind.

“Gingras’ 25 year career has moved across mediums and artistic practices and has established her as a game-changing, boundary-pushing artist.”

—The Suburban

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