TORONTO -- Next week, big-time musicians including Nelly Furtado, David Byrne, St. Vincent and the surviving members of the Beastie Boys will perform in Toronto alongside spinning rifles, sabres and flags.
It may sound like an honour guard ceremony, but it's actually a relatively unknown type of performance art.
Colour guard involves teams of dancers competing in gymnasiums and stadiums to music, sometimes along with a marching band. They often spin and twirl props, including flags and replica sabres and rifles.
Byrne, a founding member of Talking Heads, found out about it several years ago and decided to create "Contemporary Color."
The show, which will make its world premiere at the Air Canada Centre on Monday and Tuesday as part of the Luminato arts festival, sees 10 guard teams and 10 musical acts performing together.
Byrne said it all started when a high school guard asked to use a piece of his orchestral music. He told them they could use it free of charge as long as they sent him a video of what they were going to do with it.
Months later they sent him a DVD of the Winter Guard International championships.
"A door had opened to a world that I didn't know existed," he said.
"It is this combination of sports and arts and culture and performance and music. Sometimes there's a very serious message or subject in some of the programs that the groups come up with. There's a lot going on."
Byrne said he was also impressed that the art form was "very inclusive" and "takes in all sorts of people."
He figured if he was unaware of it, many others were as well, and that's why he created "Contemporary Color."
Other artists involved in the show include Ad-Rock and Money Mark of Beastie Boys fame, Lucius, and Nico Muhly and Ira Glass.
The artists are working with different colour guard teams to produce pieces with new, original music.
Furtado is working with Ventures colour guard from Kitchener, Ont.
"We're super excited about the opportunity," said Laura Kehn, the guard's program co-ordinator.
"Especially in Canada, a lot of people don't know what colour guard is. In the States it's a lot more popular because it's a program you can do through schools."
The Ventures have met with Furtado to create a design concept for their collaboration. They're performing to a top-secret new song from her upcoming album.
The theme of their piece is "'If you never jump, you'll never fly, if you don't take that leap of faith, you'll never get to your destination,"' said Kehn.
Byrne is working with Les Eclipses colour guard from Longueil, Que., and created a new song for their collaboration.
The tune "expresses the feeling of somebody who maybe feels a little bit put upon by the larger community or in their school and then finds a place where they feel they belong, which I think might be true of some of the folks in colour guard, and I have certainly been through that myself," he said.
The Luminato Festival runs June 19 to 28.
