Florence + the Machine – September 2, 2022

evenko presents

Florence + the Machine

with Arlo Parks

The tour will celebrate the release of Florence Welch’s, highly acclaimed fifth album Dance Fever. Florence has shared three songs from the album—“My Love,” “King” and “Heaven is Here”—all of which arrived alongside videos by the acclaimed director Autumn de Wilde with choreography by Ryan Heffington.

Dance Fever was recorded in London over the course of the pandemic in anticipation of the world’s reopening. It conjures up what Florence missed most in the midst of lockdown—clubs, dancing at festivals, being in the whirl of movement and togetherness—and the hope of reunions to come.

Just before the pandemic Florence had become fascinated by choreomania, a Renaissance phenomenon in which groups of people—sometimes thousands—danced wildly to the point of exhaustion, collapse and death. The imagery resonated with Florence, who had been touring nonstop for more than a decade, and in lockdown felt oddly prescient.

The image and concept of dance, and choreomania, remained central as Florence wove her own experiences of dance—a discipline she turned to in the early days of sobriety—with the folkloric elements of a moral panic from the Middle Ages. In recent times of torpor and confinement, dance offered propulsion, energy and a way of looking at music more choreographically.

Starting, as ever, armed with a notebook of poems and ideas, Florence had just arrived to New York in March 2020 to begin recording when Covid-19 forced a retreat to London. Holed up at home, the songs began to transform, with nods to dance, folk, ‘70s Iggy Pop, longing-for-the-road folk tracks a la Lucinda Williams or Emmylou Harris and more, ultimately arriving somewhere that Florence describes as “Nick Cave at the club.” Lyrically, she took inspiration from the tragic heroines of pre-Raphaelite art, the gothic fiction of Carmen Maria Machado and Julia Armfield, the visceral wave of folk horror film from The Wicker Man and The Witch to Midsommar.

Dance Fever is an album that sees Florence at the peak of her powers, coming into a fully realized self-knowledge, poking sly fun at her own self-created persona, playing with ideas of identity, masculinity and femininity, redemption and celebration.

One dollar from every ticket sold will benefit Choose Love to aid refugees worldwide.

Choose Love does whatever it takes to provide refugees and displaced people with everything from lifesaving rescue boats to food and legal advice. Their work has reached over 1.8 million people and supported over 250 fast-acting community organizations across Europe, the Middle East and along the US-Mexico border. Everything they do is powered by a vision of a world that chooses love and justice every day, for everyone.

Place Bell
Friday, September 2, 2022

To purchase your tickets visit: www.evenko.ca