The video includes footage from the multimedia dance work FRONTERA by Animals Of Distinction, created in collaboration with United Visual Artists and Fly Pan Am. Watch: “Grid / Wall”
Fly Pan Am’s viscerally sculpted and starkly evocative music for the acclaimed multi-media contemporary dance opus FRONTERA was originally created and performed live in collaboration with choreographer Dana Gingras and the Animals Of Distinction dance company, with scenography by United Visual Artists. The sound design and musical score juxtaposes foreboding electronics with minimalist motorik avant-rock—now captured in a superb studio recording by producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and being released as Frontera on Deluxe 180gram vinyl, CD and Digital on 21 May 2021 via Constellation. “Grid / Wall” opened the dance production and is also the album’s opening track.
Montréal creative/design duo Huot & Vallentin have created a video for “Grid / Wall” (which premiered today via Beats Per Minute) that showcases the FRONTERA multi-media work: a company of 10 dancers interpreted Gingras’ poignant and powerful choreography about borders and surveillance, resistance and separation, solidarity and cooperation, bodies blocked and restrained, monitored and pursued, hiding and escaping, yearning and overcoming. Lighting design by UVA and Fly Pan Am performing loud and live on stage completed the experience.
“When I heard that Fly Pan Am were back together I knew immediately that this is who I wanted for the music for Frontera. The balance they strike between complexity, dynamics and driving rhythm made them one of my favourite bands of the 0s. Plus the always-present tension of self-conscious intellectualism and raw physical power of their project made them ideal partners for scoring for dance. Working with FPA and the dancers together in the studio was never dull. And through this we forged a soundtrack that expands upon FPA’s complex arrangements and infuses the choreography with texture and urgency.” – Dana Gingras, Choreographer
“The music for Grid / Wall, like the rest of the record, was created in reaction to the choreography and the moving light structures that make up the space in which Frontera exists. Our main goal was to support the various physical, mental and emotional states experienced and portrayed by the dancers in reaction to these ever changing borders.” – Fly Pan Am