The Show’s The Thing (or how Adelaide Fringe created a Siren)

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adelaide fringe, cabaret, gown, jema hewitt, ralph bogard, siren, songs, Vintage

When I started to gather songs for ‘Siren’, I wasn’t sure what I was creating. I knew I had to create a new show, ‘War Notes‘ and ‘Songs to Make You Smile‘ have both almost had their day (although, they are open for booking should you be so inclined!). So I knew I had to create something. Now, I work well under pressure, so given a year of procrastinating, moving sheet music from pile to pile and then arranging the piles into alphabetical order and then rearranging them chronologically I started to form the basis of an idea.

My life has been in a state of flux over the last year, I think that many cabaret performers sometimes feel the same. The work is neither consistent nor assured and although I’m often lucky to be busy and in demand, that could change tomorrow. I also had a baby, with all the added pressures and responsibility that he brings along with his toddling and giggling. My husband is often away on tour and marriage is sometimes really tough. No one tells you that when it’s all hearts, flowers and engagement rings.

So I haven’t been in the most creative frame of mind, and yet this show was booked into Adelaide Fringe way back in September. So I had to create something. Anything. I sensed a theme amongst my chosen songs, they were eclectic, but all vaguely nautical. I wanted to do something deeper, more mysterious and more enchanting. It wasn’t easy, but nothing that is worth something comes easy to you. I couldn’t find the flow, I couldn’t find the links and so a very dear friend of mine, Ralph Bogard offered to help me find my way in the darkness. And boy, did he. We worked intensively for two days and it was exhausting both emotionally and physically. We explored the song choices and the reasoning behind them and therein lay the links. Some funny, some feminist and some just plain painful. He forced me to delve deeper and share those locked away emotions and hurts that make the songs real.

I originally wanted a costume that would come apart as the show progressed and my fabulous costumier, Jema Hewitt made me the most amazing disintergrating ‘sea wraith’ dress but once I rehearsed with it, it felt contrived and I couldn’t find the truth in it. So I ditched that idea, grudgingly, let me tell you! So I was costumeless. It was a problem, as one of my techniques to bringing a show together is building from the costume. You find the perfect visual aesthetic and everything else seems to fall into place. I happened to be browsing a vintage store in Auckland and I came across this deep sea blue and green 1940’s gown. It was glamorous but a little tatty, a little fragile, coming apart at the seams – much like me (under the bravado). As soon as I put it on, ‘Siren’ was born.

Now, I’ve spent a month here at the Adelaide Fringe, it’s been really hard work but I have had good friends around to counsel. My ‘work spouse’, Mat Ricardo, has been an absolute rock. He’s been a shoulder to lean on and an ear when I needed to rant, cry or talk and we have also laughed. I think it is always hard when the material you are doing drags up from the depths of your soul the past hurts and emotions that you had locked away in a little box and buried deep. What is the quote from ‘The Go-Between’? – ‘the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there’. The past was a different country, I was a different person. In a way, ‘Siren’ has been a gift of closure of some open wounds which I had just packed with glitter and tit tape – like a cabaret war wound! It’s shown me that emotional honesty onstage can be an incredibly terrifying thing but to be able to share that with an audience and take them on that journey with you is an exhilaration. Through the show, I’ve confronted, literally, those weights laying heavy within me and reaffirmed that in my life that I have made the right decisions, no matter how painful they were at the time.

So my message this morning is don’t be afraid to use your hurts and emotional weak spots to create art. Use them, share them, allow your audience the privilege of seeing deep inside you to where those cuts are still raw. It both hurts more and hurts less as time goes on. We are so caught up in our own fear to fail, our unwillingness to commit, our emotional baggage; how freeing it is to take control of it, harness it and say “Bitch, you work for me now”.  It’s working for me, (so far, I’ve evaded the men in white coats) ‘Siren’ has grown into a fully fledged show and has been incredibly received by audiences (who have bought me gifts of songs and vintage brooches!) and critics alike and for that, I give thanks for my multiple broken hearts and wounded pride.

If you are reading this in Adelaide, you have three more chances to catch the show, get your tickets here. If you are in London, I’m coming to London Wonderground in June and you can get your tickets here.

Love.
Lili. x

la Scala’s Singers Advice

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adelaide fringe, advice, Callas, Gheorghiu, le gateau chocolat, Petibon, singing, siren, young singers

The other day here in Adelaide, I had a young singer come to my show, (Siren, 6.30pm, Garden of Unearthly Delights: tickets here!)After the show she waited outside to talk to me. She said that she hoped to be able to perform like that, one day. She was just starting out on her training at the Conservatoire here in Adelaide and hoped to study in Germany in the future. I had so much advice that I wanted to give, too much to say on a first meeting with a stranger. It left me thinking, what would my advice be to my younger self, to that young opera trainee with stars in her eyes and the confidence and immortality of youth?
So I thought I’d write it down and share it with you all, maybe a young singer out there will read it and it might help them.

Music college is hard. You might be a high flyer, you might not. If you are, there is always pressure to be the best, if you aren’t then you may find yourself sidelined. Both positions are difficult, be kind to yourself.
You will try to sound like Callas, or Gheorghiu or Petibon. Don’t. Enjoy your gloriously young sound. Don’t darken or deepen or over-brighten in the hope of developing vocal richness or lightness. Your voice is as individual as you are. It is also young. You may not know who you are until you hit your mid twenties, late twenties or early thirties, let your voice develop the same way. Find repertoire that suits you now. You have years to sing Norma, Queen of the Night or Don Giovanni.

Be dedicated to music that inspires you. If you love Poulenc, learn all the Poulenc you can. Research unusual material, find songs that your peers aren’t singing. There is a world of music out there that people aren’t singing, gorgeous rare songs which are desperate to be heard. Don’t be afraid to sing in your native tongue. For me, I adore English song. Be pedantic with your diction. You have a duty to the poet in question to allow the audience to hear his or her words. Now, I’d prefer a sacrifice of line to words, any day. Listen to your tutors, but don’t always listen to your tutors.

Don’t be a diva. One day, you can be a diva. Just don’t be a diva now. It’s annoying. When you get to the day when you can be a diva, be a diva about the important things. Don’t make someone else feel bad with your diva-ness. Be grand, be self confident, be assertive but not to the detriment of those around you. As a diva now, I need water, a dressing room, a quiet performance space and a mic that works. I can work around anything else. I don’t have any weird or wonderful backstage rituals or needing peace for ten hours before a show. Be respectful, though, of those other performers who might have complex needs.

You don’t have to follow any diet plans. If you want to drink coffee before you sing, do it. If you want to drink Champagne before you sing, do it. If you want to drink milk you can. If you come back at me saying that it will coat your vocal folds, then I suggest you take yourself to a hospital because if it is coating your vocal folds, you are in danger of drowning. Milk may create mucus, but it will not pass your vocal folds. That’s just biology.
Don’t be disappointed, (OK, you can be a bit disappointed for a while, I cried for a month) if your first operatic dream doesn’t pan out, it’s ok, there is more than one path and as someone once told me, ‘it’s a dance, not a race’. Find what you are good at, if not opera, why not musical theatre, why not classical song, why not cabaret? Be passionate about something and find your path by way of meander. Some people will be Glyndebourne stars at 22, most won’t. It’s ok. There are other paths. Create shows, market them, be different, be proactive. If you have something to say musically, there are heaps of theatrical spaces all over the country. Create art your way.

Be a fearless performer and take artistic risks. The stage is not always the place for subtlety. Feel each musical emotion keenly and make sure that your audience feels it too. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain but being completely emotionally honest with your music. Learn your words, not just by heart but by meaning. Know each inflection and each insinuation. Don’t just sing words and hope to get some meaning across. Fundamentally, singers are storytellers, tell your stories with passion and intensity. There are some wonderful artists who have managed to forge a career that veers away from but alongside traditional opera, the gorgeous Ali McGregor and the devastatingly fabulous le Gateau Chocolat spring to mind, and of course, yours truly.

Finally, have confidence in who you are and what you do. Don’t be afraid to do something unusual and unexpected, as hard as it will inevitably seem sometimes. Take that road less travelled and enjoy the journey.

Love Lili.x

Lili says hello, waves goodbye and says hello.

Tags

adelaide fringe, buskers, Derek Derek, friends, Janet Guenther, Lisa Lottie, Reuben Dot Dot Dot, Sam Wills, street performer, Street Performing, Travel, World Buskers Festival

I have just spent a glorious 10 ten days in the company of some of my favourite people in the world here at the World Buskers Festival. My street performer past has gifted me a global family of wanderers whom I see here and there around the globe at various festivals. It’s wonderful, but try organising a dinner party at home!

from left: Derek Derek, Janet Guenther, Lisa Lottie, Reuben Dot Dot Dot and Sam Wills

I adore these people, I adore their creativity, their quick wit and our ability to pick up a friendship, parted by months or years, as though we had simply popped out for milk. As time moves on and we have married (each other, sometimes) and some of us now have children, it is a heart-warming thought that the village that raises my child is full of some of the most hard working, disciplined and funny people I have ever met. Already he has learned that if you do something funny, people will applaud and laugh. Maybe that is a slippery slope.

Reuben Dot Dot Dot and Rafferty-Baz backstage

Also this festival, I have met new friends, who already feel like old friends because they are old friends of my old friends which basically makes them family. I’m proud of my friends, old and new. I’m proud that they are clever, funny and big hearted people. I’m proud because they work so hard to improve their shows and their skills to make everything even more impressive. I’m proud that despite the pain that some of them are in because of injuries caused by the job they do, they still push harder to do more. I always say ‘go hard or go home’ and that couldn’t be more appropriate for my glorious street performing family. They make me smile, they make me hoot with laughter, they make me feel safe and they are quite simply some of the dearest people in the world to me.
And so, to some, see you soon. To others, it’s be fun, see you somewhere and until that day comes, my darlings, fat hats to you all.

Now onward, to Adelaide Fringe.
Love Lili.