Even though Dead Can Dance hasn’t played in the United States since 2013’s Coachella festival, it doesn’t seem like much time has passed. Yet the experimental duo of Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard are returning from the extended break in April with Performing: A Celebration of Life & Works 1980-2020.
With the tour stretching throughout North and South America, Perry says they have multitudes of friends and family all over, so this outing is a homecoming of sorts. “It’s kind of mixed with music and downtime,” he says. “We’re going to be exploring, seeing some new places and visiting old friends.”
In assembling something epic, tribal and worldly within a theater setting for Life & Works, Dead Can Dance is extracting from 40 years’ worth of music, mixing in favorites like “The Carnival Is Over” and “Yulunga (Spirit Dance)” from 1993’s Into the Labyrinth and “The Host of Seraphim,” off 1988’s The Serpent’s Egg, plus some surprises. Gerrard and Perry have handpicked a setlist that includes songs they’ve never played live before and others left out of their extensive 2019 European tour following the release of their ninth album, 2018’s Dionysus. Mystical and hypnotic, the record is an atmospheric journey rooted in the Greek god of wine, dance, theater, and rituals that moves through several acts, or seasons, of nature.
Tina Eves 