MD/Composer/Performer
1997 Woodford Folk Festival
1998 Brisbane Festival
………………a sensual and magical world created for the audience from natural sounds, sampled sounds and digital sounds, …….. constructed entirely from bamboo.
Six performers musically explore this new world in which they live as gatekeepers, caged birds, newborn and dying, subterranean and flying, laughing and crying.. As sisters, as lovers, as twins; as family and alone, they exist in a world of surreal beauty, creating music from and within that world. The music springs from the bamboo itself and from their very breath. This world is both natural and real, digital and virtual.
Bim…BamBoo!! is designed to give a strong visual basis to the music. Although this 45 minute show is music driven the sound is strongly linked to the visual. The show is site specific and so the set is constructed especially to suit the environment of the performance.
The set itself is actually the source of much of the music. For example, 24 tall bamboo poles are triggered percussively to become a giant keyboard played by up to five performers at once. There are other natural sounds created from bamboo (both wind and percussion) as well as the conversion to synthesised and sampled sounds that can be controlled by two players at once. And of course the magic of the human voice is the essential ingredient.
The six performers are: Linsey Pollak, Annie Lee, Christine Johnston, Josh Burnet, Andy Arthurs and Jessica Ainsworth. The four visual artists are: Jenny Pollak, Ana Pollak, Sally Currie & Nona Howard.
Although Bim…BamBoo!! has a very natural look, and many of the sounds emanate from breath, voice and bamboo, there is also a very contemporary hi-tech edge in which digital technology is used in new and creative ways. The show opens a door into an inner world inhabited by the six performers ….the audience watch as voyeurs, eavesdropping overtly and publicly. Bim…BamBoo!! is music theatre that is music driven rather than theatre driven. There is no narrative, no dialogue, and the audience themselves create the relationships between the performers. It is an aural and visual feast!
