Interview

Emma Dean: Beyond the Imaginarium

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Brisbanite Emma Dean is in her element in New York, where the difficult-to-define performer has flown to chase her dream of making it big in the Big Apple. She hasn’t had to wait long; with the release of her White EP, the first in a trilogy, she’s already turning all the right heads.

ZF: You’ve been in the Big Apple for a few months now. What’s your favourite New York New, York story from your adventures thus far?
EM: My favourite New York story happened when I was opening for the delicious Courtney Act at The Laurie Beechman. You may remember her as being the sexy drag queen with the killer pegs who stole she show during Aussie Idol. Just before our last performance, Cheyenne Jackson tweeted about my new single, “Phoebe (With Her Whole Heart)”. I’m a huge 30 Rock fan so I knew him as the devilishly-good-looking Canadian from the show. He is also a big Broadway star and pop singer. That night we got word that Cheyenne was hopping off a plane and coming straight to see me play! He is just as charming off screen as he is on. Quite surreal.

ZF: What’s the biggest difference and most surprising similarity between performing in Brisbane and New York?
EM: The biggest difference is that I have to give a thorough explanation of my song “Tall Poppy” before playing it. The most surprising similarity is that I still stick out like a sore thumb.

ZF: How has the White EP been received thus far?
EM: We’ll see when the royalty cheque comes through in August, won’t we? Ha ha! In all seriousness, I’ve been amazed at the response. I was a little nervous because this EP was so different to my other bodies of work. But I was pleasantly surprised, especially by the live session youtube clips, which collectively have almost 33,000 views in less than two months.

Emma Dean

ZF: What’s the plan with White/Red/Black trilogy?
EM: Red will be coming out some time in July then Black will be towards the end of the year. Both EPs will be released digitally and independently and have been recorded and co-produced by the talented man in the bowler hat, Mr Fronz Arp. Red features epic songs about love, lust and heartbreak performed on a grand piano with lush strings and harmonies. Black features rhythmic, jazz-influenced songs from the underground performed on a klunky upright pianaaa, double bass and pots ‘n’ pans! Guest performers on the EPs are Indigo Keane, Fronz Arp, Tony Dean, Janey Mac and my housemates in Ashgrove who became my impromptu clapping ensemble!

ZF: Will you be touring your new work to Australia in the near future, or workin’ on that New York career for a while yet?
EM: I’m creating a new show called “Imaginarium”, which will be an extension of some of my other work. It will be MD’d by James Dobinson and will also feature physical theatre performer and actor, Kate Lee. We will work as a three-piece chamber-pop ensemble incorporating piano, cello, violin, glockenspiel, drum machines, live drums and physical theatre. It would be an absolute dream to come back to Australia with this work. I’ll keep you posted!

ZF: What’s your advice to up-and-coming performers in Brisbane?
EM: If you are an up-and-coming ANYONE in Brisbane, make sure you give yourself an opportunity to get out and see the world, grow as a performer or artist, support your brothers and sisters and begin to create a community. There is often enough to go around. And when there’s not . . . think outside the box.

EMMA DEAN’s White EP is now available as a digital download from iTunes, Amazon Music or direct from Candyrat Records.

Anywhere Fest: Ma Ma Ma Mad

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Merlynn Tong (Zen Zen Zo) has microphone in hand for her one-woman spectacular, MA MA MA MAD. Her other hand is outstretched to you, her audience. Enter Cyber City.

Q. Describe your show/s in under 25 words.
A. A one-woman dark-comedy offering set in a Karaoke bar that dives into the landscape of my mother’s heart as she enters the realm of suicide.

Q. Anywhere Festival is about making art everywhere. What makes your venue unique?
A. My venue (2002 Cyber City) is perfectly insane. As you enter the space, an Asian lady surrounded by DVDs and VCDs stares at you. Then the aromas of Chinese food awaken your nostrils. As ginger and garlic make their greeting to your senses, the melodious Chinese language and repetitive sounds of the arcade machines tempt your ears, beckoning you closer. Right at the end of the venue, in a tiny Karaoke room fit for only 20, we begin our journey. Gosh, I love this space! So central in the Valley, when I first stepped in 2002 Cyber City, it was like discovering a playground in my own backyard.

Merlynn Tong

Q. If your show were a new My Little Pony, what would it look like? What would its superpower be?
A. I have never watched My Little Pony before (tsk tsk Singapore!). [It’s a show, now? I must be stuck in the 90s. — Ed.] But I reckon this should have been on my TV screen when I was a kid.

Q. What’s your favourite karaoke standby?
A. Absolutely have to sing “Silent All This Years” by Tori Amos! I just have to add that my mother’s standby is “Yesterday Once More” — I’ve heard her sing this a million times when I was growing up. Her character in my show seduces the whole audience to sing this song with her!
MA MA MA MAD plays at 2002 Cyber City, Fortitude Valley, From 16 to 18 May, 2013. Anywhere Festival.

Anywhere Fest: Mixtape

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Anywhere Fest is still all systems go this week. First up, poets Angela Willock and Scott Sneddon join voices for a musical romance. I asked Angela a few quick questions about Mixtape.

Q. Describe your show/s in under 25 words.
A. It’s an off-key and somewhat awkward exploration into two people getting to know each other through music.

Q. Anywhere Festival is about making art everywhere. What makes your venue unique?
A. It’s the quirky little courtyard of someone’s business in the Valley. You could be forgiven for thinking you were hanging out in a stranger’s backyard.

Mixtape

Q. If your show were a new My Little Pony, what would it look like? What would its superpower be?
A. It would wear cowboy boots and hip hop bling and too much eyeliner. It’s superpower would be to explode your head with its off-key singing to bad pop songs.

Q. What was the most embarrassing mixtape you ever sent/received (in hindsight)?
A. I would have to say I’m usually the bearer of bad mixtapes. I went through a phase where I themed them, like, “Oh, you’re sad — here’s 20 songs about depression to make you feel better…”

Mixtape runs at the Rabbithole Cafe from 16 to 17 May, 2013.

Anywhere Fest: The Travelling Sisters Let Loose

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Lucy Fox and Ell Sachs are ready to take you on a metaphorical adventure through Kelvin Grove’s mysterious ways and abandoned homes in The Travelling Sisters Let Loose — a “cabaret of life’s quests and questions.”

Q. Describe your show/s in under 25 words.
A. Haunting, dark, awkward and funny, The Travelling Sisters might push some buttons but their honesty is transfixing within the walls of the fire-lit living room.

Q. Anywhere Festival is about making art everywhere. What makes your venue unique?
A. Its a place that most people wouldn’t even realise still exists in the inner-city suburbs of Brisbane. It takes you back in time. Also, we want our audience to feel more like they are sitting in a friend’s living room. The theme is comfort, stories and sharing. The audience is free to shuffle around to get a different view, although they may just become transfixed by the historical aliveness of the house’s nooks and crannies.

The Travelling Sisters

Q. If your show were a new My Little Pony, what would it look like? What would its superpower be?
A. Melted Milton. It would be a twisted, distorted thing of beauty and its superpower would be the power of flatulence. Flatulence is both a weapon and a power source for flying.

Q. The Travelling Sisters Let Loose starts at a “meeting place” in Kelvin Grove — is this show one of exploration and adventure? Tell me more!
A. Definitely! But more in the metaphorical sense. The exploration and adventure takes place in the warmth of a living room through stories and songs. It is not a walking tour around the back-streets of Kelvin Grove. Although that’s not a bad idea either — maybe next year!?

To join The Travelling Sisters  as they let loose, meet at Cnr Ballymore & Dunsmore St, Kelvin Grove. Runs from 8 to 19 May, 2013.

Anywhere Fest: Overexposed!

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Rosie Peaches, a multitalented belle of Brisbane Arts, runs popular cabaret-burlesque evenings at The Hideaway. For Anywhere Fest, she brings her one-woman cabaret to the Bell Brothers Building in Fortitude Valley.

Q. Describe your show/s in under 25 words.
A. A one-woman cabaret and international collaboration revealing the ridiculous in love and relationships. Or “The Failed Love Life of a 20-Something Brisbane Girl”.

Q. Anywhere Festival is about making art everywhere. What makes your venue unique?
A. Our venue is a foyer in a 1920s heritage-listed building, which really sets the scene of a romantic, vintage cabaret. We’re really using the space as it is, projecting video onto the walls, hanging lights from the balconettes and using the chandelier and wood panelling as part of our set design. Oh, and it’s opposite an adult store, so you can pick up something after the show … maybe?

Overexposed!

Q. If your show were a new My Little Pony, what would it look like? What would its superpower be?
It would be wearing a cardigan and drinking a glass of gin and tonic. Its superpower would be similar to Cupid’s: makin’ love and breakin’ hearts all with a nonchalant flick of the wrist [or hoof! — ed.].

Q. Tell us the story of your most awkward date, first or otherwise.
My most awkward date was … there’ve been so many! The one who moved to Australia after a summer fling in Europe, the ex who apologised at the end of the date for breaking up with me three years prior, the one where an ex arrived to crash our date, the boy who told me he’d take me on an adventure only to regale me with stories of his pet chickens…

Overexposed! runs in the foyer of the Bell Bros. Building from 10 to 19 May, 2013.

Anywhere Fest: The Nightingale and the Rose

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For Anywhere Fest, directorial team Jennifer Bismire, Belinda McCulloch (film) and Richard Grantham (music) will stage Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose in the Powerhouse Labyrinth. I asked Ms Bismire a few questions about their Wilde adaptation.

Q. Describe your show in under 25 words.
A. Three artists across film, music and shadow-puppetry investigate Oscar Wilde’s parable of love versus knowledge amongst the historic ruins of The Brisbane Powerhouse.

Q. Anywhere Festival is about making art everywhere. What makes your venue unique?
A. The old Powerhouse ruins have been a perfect venue for us. A big part of this show is the idea that the new can support, develop and bring life to the old, rather than simply replacing it. The Brisbane Powerhouse as a whole works alongside this ethos very closely, but the outdoor space has this incredible sense of the old, the new and the natural colliding — as well as an extremely intimate feeling for such an open space. We would love audiences to feel surrounded by nature, art, new technology and history whilst still feeling as thought they’re sitting cross-legged, watching a show on their living room floor.

The Nightingale and the Rose

Q. If you could stage your show anywhere in time and space (after the Powerhouse, of course), where/when would you choose?
A. Against the wall of a crumbling cottage in a grumpy elderly forest — the sort of place that time forgets. Either there or in my living room when I was six.

Q. This show has everything, from shadow puppetry to a live soundtrack from Richard Grantham. What do you think Oscar would have thought of the atmosphere you create for his parable?
A. When Oscar wrote this story, the full power and meaning of the Nightingale’s sacrifice, the discussion of love versus power, art versus intellect, was heard through his words alone. 125 years later,  audiences’ attention spans and response to storytelling have altered and developed (though you could argue for the worst).
As a group we’ve been fascinated by how many forms we have to saturate a contemporary audience with to get across the same story of a little bird and her love, which Oscar managed so powerfully with his words alone.
He once said, “I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” I’d hope he might see that sense of humanity — and his original intentions — in our piece … though depending who he’s sitting next to he might get distracted by the freedoms of our modern society … or think we’re all twats.

The Nightingale and the Rose runs in the Brisbane Powerhouse Labyrinth and Ruins from 9 to 18 May, 2013.

Anywhere Fest: Live on Air

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Melbourne’s own Telia Nevile hits the airwaves for Anywhere Fest. As her comedic character Poet Laureate Telia Nevile, our host broadcasts Live on Air from her lounge room to yours.

Q. Describe your show in under 25 words.
A. An ode to the outsider full of tongue-in-cheek poems set to backing tracks that range from rap to blues, death metal to bubblegum pop.

Q. Anywhere Festival is about making art everywhere. What makes your venue (or in this case, airwaves) unique?
A. There’s something about bringing theatre into your own home, where you can experience it in amongst your own reality and entirely on your own terms, that makes the idea of live-streaming really intriguing. With a show over the internet, which you can watch while you’re in your pajamas curled up on your couch, there’s a lot of possibility for intimacy and honest reaction without any big emotional demands on the audience. I’m both excited and terrified because it’s such a different experience as a performer, but I hope that it will open up new places within the character and that it will expand the audience experience.

telianevile

Q. If your show were a new My Little Pony, what would it look like? What would its superpower be?
A. Is there a dark, furtive and socially awkward one that reads Proust in public and Mills & Boon in private?

Q. Live on Air sounds like it’s billed as part BBC radio play, part character comedy and part poetry. How do you meld these forms in your show?
A. The poetry is an inherent part of the character — it’s her chosen form of expression and it acts as a pressure valve that releases all her greatest hopes and frustrations. The radio part was inspired by a 90s film called Pump Up the Volume. In this, as in that movie, it allows the protagonist to be entirely, unflinchingly honest because when you’re alone in your room there’s nothing to lose — you can’t see any shock or disappointment or disapproval on anyone’s face because you never really know if anyone’s listening or not. In that aspect, radio is incredibly freeing.

Live on Air runs online from 8 to 16 May, 2013.

Anywhere Fest: Chosen Family

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Poets Eleanor Jackson and Betsy Turcot (The Belles of Hell) wowed Brisbane at last year’s Anywhere Fest with She Stole My Every Rock ‘n’ Roll. This year, they’ve got a new poetic dialogue in store: Chosen Family.

Q. Describe your show in under 25 words.
A. Two women trading poetry about the strange, painful-beautiful of family, piecing together a montage of grainy family photographs and giving them a glossy finish. Photoshop for the soul, so to speak.

Q. Anywhere Festival is about making art everywhere. What makes your venue unique?
A. The venue (the beautiful back deck of Justice Products) is the perfect place for a Queensland family Christmas, complete with tin roof and timber decking. Spiral Community Hub, which operates Justice Products, is not just a beautiful shop, it’s an amazing community space that runs training, community workshops and supports local people to develop more sustainable lives. Might be a little cold though at night though, so we’ll try to warm you up with some tea. BYO bunny rug if you get chilly!

Chosen Family

Betsy and I are particularly interested in the Anywhere Theatre Festival for the way that it partners performers and community spaces, with great support from venues. It’s why we held She Stole My Every Rock ‘n’ Roll at Jet Black Cat — to support a queer local business, and this time at Spiral/Justice, because it’s got a great local community connection.

Q. If you could have your show run absolutely anywhere in the universe and at any point of history, where would you run it (after West End, of course)?
A. Well, There’s no time like the present, so Betsy and I would love to hit the Big Apple where her family could see us perform. Time to start fundraising!

Q. You and Betsy have brought the poetic dialogue to the fore in Brisbane — and perfected it. What does Chosen Family bring to the form?
A. (blush) In writing Chosen Family, we have thought about the simplest and clearest way to create space and connection between people — not by shouting each other down but making space for everyone to whisper. Because sometimes only when it’s quiet can you say true things.

CHOSEN FAMILY runs at Justice Earth Building, 192 Boundary St, West End from 16 to 18 May, 2013.

Anywhere Fest: Gumpoldskirchen

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For our second Anywhere Festival Q&A, stellar playwright Bianca Butler gives us the low down on Gumpoldskirchen.

Q. Describe your show/s in under 25 words.
A. Estranged brothers take a rail journey across Europe to collect their father’s ashes. Catching up is funny, painful and more than a little claustrophobic.

Q. What makes your Anywhere venue the perfect fit?
A. Milton ‘Railway’ Park is situated between the Milton and Auchenflower train stations, and even has a kids’ playground in the shape of a steam engine, so the transit theme is strong. This ties in perfectly with Gumpoldskirchen, which is all about journeys, both literal and relational. The majority of the action takes place in train carriages and train stations, and throughout the whole play we see the transitory relationship of the protagonists, who struggle to find common ground. In their journey to become better brothers, they also move toward closure in their troubled relationship with their father. I’m indebted to the clever folks at Underground Productions for sourcing such a unique and thematically appropriate setting.

Gumpoldskirchen — Bianca Butler

Q. If you could stage your play anywhere in time and space (after Milton, of course), where would you choose?
A. It probably sounds boring, but I’m really happy with my play being performed here and now. If I could look a year or two into the future, I would love to see it transfer to main house production with one of Brisbane’s professional theatre companies, like La Boite. I think the play would work really well in the Roundhouse Theatre space. Longer term, I would love to take a touring production to all the towns and cities that feature in the play, starting with the tiny village of Clun, Shropshire, and finishing up in Gumpoldskirchen itself.

Q. Family secrets are exposed in Gumpoldskirchen. Do you have any ancestral skeletons in the closet you could tell us about?
A. That’s a tough question. The play I’m working on now is inspired by something that happened in my dad’s family when he was a boy, but there aren’t really any skeletons there. It’s about how his parents took in American soldiers on R&R leave from the Vietnam War. It’s not very scandalous, but I found the research process fascinating.

Q. Will Poirot be accompanying us on this potentially dangerous train journey?
A. Alas, not including Poirot was my folly! There are a couple of Belgian characters, but sadly they are neither detectives nor cultivators of a handsome moustache. Next time perhaps.

GUMPOLDSKIRCHEN runs at Milton ‘Railway’ Park, Corner Nerida Lane & Milton Road, from 8 to 12 May, 2013.

Anywhere Festival: MaXimal

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Anywhere Festival is about to kick off in Brisbane! To celebrate the making of art all over Brisbane — outside, inside, on the airwaves, in the elevator, in the streets, in your pants — OffStreet Arts will feature super-rad Q&As with some of the festival’s most exciting acts. To begin with, I chatted with Scott Sneddon, aka Darkwing Dubs, about his show, MaXimal!

Q. Describe your show/s in under 25 words or fewer.
A. A very stupid idea: pooling together spoken word, hip-hop, songwriting and comedy into an hour of crazy. It’s awesome.

Q. Anywhere Festival is about making art … anywhere. What makes your venue unique?
A. I got a river view, at The Edge — right on Southbank next to the library. With boats n stuff going past. Plus The Edge is awesome and I’d do anything to support them!

MaXimal — Darkwing

Q. If your show were a new My Little Pony, what would it look like? What would its superpower be?
A. It would have a ninja outfit and jump out — like HOOYA — and you would say that it wasn’t a good ninja because you saw it coming but then you would start choking and the My Little Pony Ninja would be like, “Or am I the best ninja ever?” But you’d never get to answer the question cos you’d be dead.

Q. What is maximalist poetry?
A. Maximalism is everything you’re not meant to do in poetry — it’s not earnest, serious or clever. It’s basically a pisstake of the whole thing and heaps of fun and something that tends to make people cry with laughter. Therefore it is my favourite thing ever invented by me.

MaXimal! runs on the lawn, level 3, The Edge (SLQ) from 10 to 11 May, 2013, as part of Anywhere Festival.