Kid Koala’s Nufonia Must Fall Live

Kid Koala’s Nufonia Must Fall Live

Montreal-based DJ, graphic artist, composer, and music producer Kid Koala presents a magical, multi-disciplinary adaptation of his graphic novel Nufonia Must Fall. Directed by the Oscar-nominated production designer K.K. Barrett (Her, Where the Wild Things Are, Lost in Translation, Being John Malkovich), Nufonia Must Fall Live unfolds as a film animated live on stage, with the soundtrack performed live by a string quartet; including two of Canada’s most dynamic ensembles, Afiara Quartet and Cecilia String Quartet.

The “mesmerizing” (Art Info) piece centers around a lonesome, music-obsessed, headphones-sporting robot on the verge of obsolescence who falls in love with a winsome office worker. After a chance encounter, their precarious courtship unfolds via real-time filming of more than a dozen miniature stage settings and a cast of meticulously crafted puppets and robots. Kid Koala and the string quartet perform his original score for piano, strings, and turntables. The result is an unforgettably heartwarming performance that provides a fresh look at contemporary relationships, technology, and existential relevance.

Nufonia Must Fall follows Kid Koala’s 2012 project Space Cadet Headphone Experience, which combined a piano, space pods, turntables, and 250 sets of headphones with an audio science fair/gallery for a fully immersive audience experience. In his most recent live experience, a “Satellite Concert” (2015), the audience helped create the program through the use of turntables, effects boxes, and small crates of color-coded vinyl records. Subtle lighting changes cued the audience to play along, resulting in dozens of harmonized turntables creating a unique, uplifting, dynamic evening of light and music.

Last Updated: January 27, 2016