People Get Ready takes an unorthodox approach to live performance. One of the band's co-founders, Steven Reker, studied dance in college and joined David Byrne on tour a few years ago as a guitarist and dancer. The relationship between music and movement lies at the core of People Get Ready's live shows, which blur the line between concerts and dance performances.
The band often plans residencies at art spaces, turning its concerts into longer-term performance-art pieces; All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen cited People Get Ready's Specific Ocean at 2012's CMJ Music Marathon as one of his Top 10 concerts of 2012.
What's surprising about People Get Ready's music, though, is that it sounds complete; listening to the band's records, it doesn't feel like some key component is missing. Dance plays a significant role in the group's creative process, but the songs are still crafted tightly enough to stand on their own. When the band performs, then, movement acts as an additional — but still integral — dimension of the experience.
Here, People Get Ready's members talk with World Cafe host David Dye about the unique challenges of creating music and dance side-by-side, and play songs from their recent self-titled album.
Copyright 2020 XPN. To see more, visit XPN. 9(MDA1MjI2NzUxMDEyNzQyMTY5MjQ2YzkwNA004))