ABOUT THE ARTIST:
It’s not every musical ensemble that earns praise for their “”deft choreography.”” (Wall Street Journal). The Fourth Wall is no ordinary ensemble. Part new music group, part dance theatre company, part circus troupe, we are a hybrid arts ensemble committed to commissioning new interdisciplinary works and reimagining established repertoire to make music that leaps off the stage.
Though we most resemble a chamber music group, we have trained with Pilobolus Dance Theatre, and our process is highly collaborative. We work together to blend music, dance, and theatre elements into a seamless performance vocabulary. Our aim is not simply to interpret music, but to embody it.
The music we perform spans centuries and genres. Our movement vocabulary is an eclectic mix of modern dance technique, weight-sharing acrobatics, ballet, and circus-style apparatus manipulation. Rather than adhering to a formula, the creative process for each piece is unique, dictated by the character of the individual work.
ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE PIECE: Fruit Flies Like a Banana
Fruit Flies Like a Banana (FFLaB) is The Fourth Wall’s neo-vaudeville variety show described as “Serious music by seriously talented musicians in a show that doesn’t take itself seriously at all.” in a five-star review from CBC, Manitoba. The audience chooses the show order by picking cards from a deck and even determines parameters for some pieces created on the spot. Ranging from classics to commissions, stupid human tricks to standard repertoire, FFLaB is a constantly shifting show that keeps audiences engaged while allowing us to program a wide array of music.