Kid Koala's NUFONIA MUST FALL, Directed by K.K. Barrett, to Make US Premiere at BAM This Fall

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 unfolds as a film animated live on stage, with Kid Koala and Canada's dynamic Afiara Quartet performing the soundtrack.

The production runs September 17-19 at 7:30 p.m. at the BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St). Tickets start at $25.

The 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 Afiara 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.

Created by Eric San (Kid Koala), Nufonia Must Fall features set design by Benjamin Gerlis, puppet design by Clea Minaker, Patrick Martel, Félix Boisvert, and Karina Bleau, director of photography AJ Korkidakis, music by Kid Koala and musical direction by Vid Cousins.

Nufonia Must Fall made its world premiere June 7-9, 2015 at the Luminato Festival in Toronto. After this New York premiere at BAM, the work will tour the US with venues including:

Segerstrom Center for The Arts
January 22-23, 2016
Costa Mesa, CA

CAP at UCLA
January 29, 2016
Los Angeles, CA

Bing Concert Hall
February 4, 2016
Stanford, CA

Institute of Contemporary Art
February 19-20, 2016
Boston, MA

OZ Arts
March 4-5, 2016
Nashville, TN

University Musical Society UMS
March 11, 2016
Ann Arbor, MI

Walker Art Center
April 1-2, 2016
Minneapolis, MN

OCCC
April 8, 2016
Oklahoma City, OK

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Kid Koala is a world-renowned scratch DJ, music producer, and award-winning graphic novelist. He has released five solo albums and has toured with the likes of Radiohead, the Beastie Boys, Arcade Fire, Money Mark, A Tribe Called Quest, Mike Patton, DJ Shadow, and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. He has contributed to scores for the films Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Looper, and The Great Gatsby. He has composed music for the National Film Board of Canada, the Cartoon Network, Sesame Street, and Adult Swim. In addition to Nufonia Must Fall and Space Cadet, he recently created a score to the short film Minotaur.

Production designer K.K. Barrett started his artistic career as a noise musician and painter before moving into film and music videos. Through close relationships with a handful of directors who share his penchant for personal and intimate narratives, he's built a diverse body of work including Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette, David O Russell's surreal I Heart Huckabees, Michel Gondry's Human Nature, and Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. He has collaborated with director Spike Jonze on several multi-award winning feature films including Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Her (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award in Production Design.). Barrett has been twice honored with the MTV Video Music Award for Best Art Direction: for Beck's "New Pollution" (1996) and for Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight" (1997), and earned two Silver Clio Awards.

The Afiara Quartet is a dynamic and award-winning ensemble. After residencies at The Juilliard School and San Francisco State University, the Afiara is currently the Fellowship Quartet at the Royal Conservatory of Music. The ensemble is winner of the Young Canadian Musicians Award, Concert Artist Guild, Munich ARD, and Banff International String Quartet Competitions, including the latter's Szekely Prize for the best interpretation of Beethoven. Afiara has performed throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia, at such venues as Carnegie Hall's Zankel and Weill Halls, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Library of Congress in DC, Sao Paulo's Museum of Modern Art, Pro Musica of San Miguel de Allende, London's Wigmore Hall, Austria's Esterhazy Palace, Munich's Prinz Regenten Theatre, Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw, and the Royal Library in Copenhagen.

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, and BAMcafe are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). Both locations house Greenlight Bookstore at BAM kiosks. BAM Fisher, located at 321 Ashland Place, is the newest addition to the BAM campus and houses the Judith and Alan Fishman Space and Rita K. Hillman Studio. BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn's only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafe, operated by Great Performances, offers a dinner menu prior to BAM Howard Gilman Opera House evening performances. BAMcafe also features an eclectic mix of live music for BAMcafe Live on Friday and Saturday nights with a bar menu available starting at 6pm. For ticket information, call BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100, or visit BAM.org.

Photo Credit: AJ Korkidakis

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