Mad Max Themed Concert & Ballet ‘Fury’ Looks Impressive & Intense
You remember the film Mad Max Fury Road, the mad chase through a post-apocalyptic desert that broke all sorts of cinematic rules and won a half a dozen Oscars? Well, producer & dance filmmaker Kate Duhamel has produced a live action version of it to be performed in the round, chalk full of San Francisco Ballet & King Lines dancers, using the state of the art sound system at The Midway, a ton of multimedia effects, and live music performed by rock/pop band Yassou. Are you following? It sounds incredible, because it is. The combination of artistry and multimedia is inventive, immersive, intensive, and plenty of other adjectives that start with the letter ‘i’, in fact I intend to use a lot of ‘i’ words in this preview.
When you cover as many events as I do, you rarely get very excited for a performance, but after hanging out at a Fury dance rehearsal and interviewing the band, I am legitimately inspired and excited for the show, and I’m not even being paid to say so.
The Midway, San Francisco, home to Fury for two nights
I visited Yassou during band rehearsal at Zoo Lab in Oakland. For the Fury show they are playing 2 guitars, a bass, 2 percussion setups a bunch of sythns, keyboards live with a vocalist. There will be 4 projection screens that surround the audience in the Midway, playing imagery that set the scenes. Vocalist Lilie Hoy informed me she will begin Fury by singing from within what is described as a ‘3D waterfall’, (which is how most of us would like to start a performance I imagine). Sets and visuals for Fury are designed by Creative Director, Luke Acret.
Hoy wrote the lyrics to the Fury Score and will sing them on stage alongside the dancers, so she is both literally and figuratively the voice of the Fury Show. I asked her about it, she said, “Mad Max to me, and to many, is a love story, it’s about how the heart can heal and still love, even though it’s been through these truly ridiculous and terrible situations.”
James Jackson of the band Yassou composed the soundtrack of the Fury show with lead singer Lilie Hoy, and Van Jackson Weaver Guitar, AJ Krumholz Guitar, Theo Quimby Piano, Patrick Aguirre Drums.
“Mad Max (Fury Road) to me, and to many, is a love story, it’s about how the heart can heal and still love, even though it’s been through these truly ridiculous and terrible situations.” – Fury vocalist Lilie Hoy
Hoy explained that there are deeply feminine and sisterly themes to Fury as well, where the captive women have to trust one another and the heroine Furiosa (Charlize Theron’s character) and follow her on their great escape, an escape from a bleak and desperate reality, across a barren and dangerous wasteland.
The dancers involved in Fury (to use more ‘i’ words) are fucking impressive. Under the direction of SFDanceworks choreographer Danielle Rowe, principal dancers of SF Ballet and Alonzo King Lines can seemingly do anything on their feet, we got to watch their rehearsal live and saw them create and move and tell a story with their bodies like nothing you’ve seen on the silver screen. The great thing about the upcoming Fury Show is that it’s performed in the round, the audience will be right on top of these world-class dancers, as they fight and love and run and dance their way through this modern post-apocalyptic story. We got a taste of it, and it was intense. (#iwordadjectives)
James Jackson on the theme of Fury and the inspiration behind his musical score that Yassou worked on for months: “It’s after the apocalypse, it’s a fight for survival, it involves the idea that if you keep chasing something you may get it, but sometimes, all along, everything they’ve been searching for existed right where you started”.
A quartet led by composer and violinist Kristian Dutton will also play original music, and the performance will not stop or let up for a solid hour, staying true to the pace and intensity of George Miller’s 2015 classic, Mad Max Fury Road.
Dutton on the Fury collaboration, “it’s a cool concept, bringing many worlds together, ballet, dancers, a band, an original soundtrack, set around a very modern movie…it has a multigenerational appeal”.
Fury #FuryShow
Friday, September 14th + Saturday, September 15th
@ The Midway, San Francisco
Tickets
furyshow.com
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