CW28_earthsignchels/ What is 'non-ordinary' anyway?

When we started COLORS in 2016, we coined the term "non-ordinary expression,” an umbrella phrase for undeniably raw and unique performances sharing unguarded feelings.

A "non-ordinary" performance, to us, is one where the artist makes the audience feel like they're not just watching them perform their art, but disappearing into it. The kind of performance that strips away the distance between the artist and their audience, the kind that makes you feel something before you have time to understand it.

We chase this idea that genuine emotion can be transmitted from one person to another through music — but in the age of digital media, that transmission has become rare. Which is why we built our entire philosophy around never trading real, raw emotion for tailored mass appeal.

Our entire format is built around making that possible. The lone colored wall, a single take, a hanging mic, these choices were never solely about aesthetics; they were about removing anywhere an artist could hide. Our stage doesn't create the non-ordinary, it just leaves no room for the ordinary.

Because when we search for the "non-ordinary," we're not looking for unusual or avant-garde. We're not drawn to any specific genre or aesthetic, we’re drawn to presence. It's the difference between performing a song and being in it. You can't fake it, you can't manufacture it, and when it's there, the room knows before anyone says a word. That's what SZA felt in her tummy.

Which you can see across more than 1,000 A COLORS SHOW throughout the years.

It's performances like earthsignchels, who stood in front of a pew of onlookers, lamenting her grief, her words like glass shards under your feet, sticking you in place, leaving no choice but to tense up, watch, and become lost in her feeling… whether you've lost a parent or not, her grief becomes yours for the length of the song.

It's Priya Ragu performing "Black Goose / Let Me Breathe," a song her brother locked himself in his room to write after learning what happened to George Floyd, relating the devastation to the hardships endured by his own people. Through her pleas to save lives, to quoting Malcolm X, to a meditative, hope-filled conclusion as she repeats "God, let them breathe”, Priya leaves you in a state of held breath, grief, and resolve all at once.

And sometimes it's simpler than grief or protest; it’s goosebumps watching legends take a victory lap, like when Clipse circled each other performing "Ace Trumpets," a performance that felt worth the wait of a decade-long hiatus. Artists whose presence alone drips with experience and authenticity.

Grief, conviction, pride, it doesn’t matter what the feeling is; what matters is that in each of these moments, the artists weren’t only performing it, they were it.

Rick Rubin wrote a whole book about this, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being.” The title's basically the answer. Art isn't something you make, it's something you are, or aren't, in a given moment.

Can you think of the last performance that made you feel lost in the moment? Was it ROSALÍA, ironing sheets surrounded by a string orchestra, singing German opera on "Berghain"? Or maybe it was Justin Bieber, singing along to YouTube videos of his teenage self on the Coachella stage? Whatever it was, we want to know how that moment hits you;

When you experience the “non-ordinary,” where do you feel it?