It's rare to be a choreographer with a rock band, or a rock band with a choreographer, but that's much of what makes People Get Ready unique. Steven Reker is a graceful dancer who sometimes straps his guitar around his waist and spins while the neck of the guitar hammers the floor, blurting bits of feedback and drone.
On record, People Get Ready are more quirky in a Talking Heads way than as jarring as they can be live. In this video the band dances to its own music, in particular the opening track to Physiques, a song called "Rainbow." Reker wrote to me to tell me that "'Rainbow' is the 'kissing cousin' video to 'Physiques,' the other music video we filmed in the Arizona desert. Ty Flowers, the director and editor, used this slit-scan technique that makes our bodies look like they are slipping in and out of reality or merging with each other — sometimes it looks like a dancing exquisite corpse of sorts. All the movements are improvised and the song is inspired by Richard Brautigan's novella In Watermelon Sugar. It's like glimpsing an alternate reality or at least an invitation to do so."
The band is filled with talent, including singer Jen Goma, who is also in A Sunny Day in Glasgow. She was recently named Best Vocalist (Female) by The Village Voice. Reker was just announced as the winner of the American Dance Institute's Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography. They play at Lincoln Center Friday.
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