Twin Cities Ballet adds layers of depth to Pink Floyd's 'Wall'

When Twin Cities Ballet scales "The Wall" by Pink Floyd at Fitzgerald Theater, it will be the first time that the Lakeville-based company will be rocking it out at the St. Paul venue.

But it is not the first time TCB is performing to the seminal double album. The ballet company danced to the classic rock songs four years ago at the Cowles Center and again at the Ames Center in Burnsville in 2019.

This time, it's revisiting "The Wall: A Rock Ballet" with a new Pink Floyd tribute band called Momentary Lapse of Floyd.

Instead of being seated in the pit or on one side of the stage, Momentary Lapse will perform from a scaffolding above the stage. Guitarist Mark Joseph said that although the band has played "The Wall" a number of times on its own, performing the songs from the album with a dance company is another story. The collaboration has allowed the group to dig a bit deeper into the Floyd music and analyze it closer.

"It's definitely like going to Pink Floyd college or something," Joseph said.

Rick Vogt, who co-choreographed the piece with his wife and co-director Denise Vogt, said he connected to Floyd album instantly when it was released in 1979 because of its emotional depth as well as the songs' meaning.

"The story, I think, is brilliant," Vogt said.

"The Wall" centers around a youngster named Pink, played in the TCB production by Tyler Piwowarczyk. When Pink loses his father at a young age, his mother becomes overprotective, creating the first bricks in the wall that shield him from the world.

Later, more bricks are added at school, and from dysfunctional relationships. Eventually, Pink turns to drugs and loses his sense of reality because the wall that was meant to protect him has turned harmful.

The Vogts spent months analyzing the show on paper before they even started choreographing the work.

"We had to go through and put together the story arc and interpret every individual track as it applies to our presentation, our interpretation of this story," Rick said.

Even those who are not familiar with "The Wall" as an album will probably recognize some of its songs. With dancers en pointe, but wearing jeans and graffiti T-shirts, one can understand the general architecture and vocabulary of the rock ballet.

Here's a breakdown of some key parts of it, told through songs.

"The Thin Ice": The dance starts out melodically, with lyrics about a mother loving her baby.

"We tried to make it very tender and beautiful," Rick said.

In the album, the lyrics are first sung by David Gilmour and then Roger Waters takes over the lead vocal. Just as there is a change in the tone of the song from gentle to foreboding, the voice in the dance shifts, too. The first voice represents Pink's mother and the second is Pink discovering the "crack in the ice."

"It goes from this sort of blue sky representing an idealistic nuclear family where everything's wonderful and warm and secure, and then the voice of reality comes in, saying it's a little bit broken," said Rick. "It's mostly the same movements, but they're angular and sharp, and it drops to the floor."

"Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2": For Rick, the song that begins, "We don't need no education / We don't need no thought control," is about the stripping of individuality that happens in school.

In the TCB performance, dancers transform the stage into a classroom, bringing in large bricks on their backs and placing them on the floor to create desks.

Eventually, the students rebel, showcased by dancers marching around the classroom in angular robotic movements.

"The irony of it is the children all band together and they march in lockstep unison. They have no individuality," he said.

"Is Anybody Out There?": The second act begins with the band playing "Hey You" without the dancers on stage, and is followed by "Is Anybody Out There?" as the dancers enter. The music is melodic, with an acoustic guitar solo. Pink remains isolated.

"He misses all the beauty," Rick said. "With that song, it's like he's having second thoughts already. The next thing you see, he's trying to get out. He's reaching out to people."

"Run Like Hell": The piece is "very upbeat and dance-y," according to Rick.

It has dancers running across the stage in oblong formations and features classical ballet steps done in a very contemporary way.

"In the song, Pink hasn't gotten through his issues yet," Rick explained. "He's in a manic stage. He's kind of flipping out."

"In the Flesh": The song opens the rock ballet and is reprised toward the end, after Pink starts doing drugs and loses his sense of reality.

"Now he's become this sort of fantastical fascist dictator in his mind, and he's attacking the very fans that have supported him," Rick said. "We played with the wide extremes of the portrayal of the character. He's gotten so into himself with drugs and hedonism and pain and on top of that, he's built this metaphorical wall."

'The Wall: A Rock Ballet'

When: 7:30 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. Sun.

Where: Fitzgerald Theater, 10 E. Exchange St., St. Paul

Tickets: $37-$53, 612-338-8388, first-avenue.com