SHARING SPACES is a collection of new music works made by, with and for Australian women. Inspired by poetry, locations, environments and natural phenomena, this collection features a suite of three new works titled SHARING SPACES by Kezia Yap, made in collaboration with Flora Wong, Han Reardon-Smith, Kaylie Melville and Madi Chwasta and inspired by poetry by Eileen Chong across Jagera, Yuggera, Turrbal (Meanjin/Brisbane), Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung (Naarm/Melbourne) lands, and a new work by Alexis Weaver and Jessica Scott on Gadigal land (Eora/Warrang/Sydney).

SHARING SPACES was premiered online at 7pm AEST on Sunday the 27th of June 2021.

This project is generously supported by the Australia Council for the Arts.

space one

FLORA WONG AND KEZIA YAP

Taking inspiration from Chong’s “Wollemi Pine,” space one, for Flora and Violin, involves the simultaneous grounding and stretching of gesture and sound. Throughout our developments, both Flora and I were both keen to experiment with taking the violin out of violin music and with different ways that Flora could engage and interact with her instrument. We approached these experiments with an interest, as well, in bringing focus to the processual actions. Drawing from the line “Trees rise, stretching their arms to the clouds,” space one explores stretching through violin prepared with thread and rosin in a meditative, methodical and almost ritualistic way.

This project has been a unique opportunity to experiment with creative processes and sound-making techniques. Taking Eileen Chong's poem "Wollemi Pine" as a starting point, Kezia and I were both struck by the imagery and sounds evoked by the text, especially the closing line: "Listen: pollen dusts our ears." I was compelled to explore the organic nature of my instrument, and search for different ways of interacting with it to produce sound. The resulting work invites the audience to observe and reflect on the relationship between the artist and the instrument, and between movement and sound. - Flora Wong

SHARING SPACES is a collection of new works created by Kezia Yap in collaboration with performers Flora Wong, Hannah Reardon-Smith, Kaylie Melville and Madi Chwasta. Identifying the lack of diversity in New Music programming, especially in regards to women and CALD artists, this project has sought to significantly contribute to the canon of Australian New Music, and to women-made spaces for new and innovative collaborative partnerships.

This collection of works consists of three works, which are threaded together by Eileen Chong’s poetry written about different features within the Sydney Botanic Gardens - a site that has a sense of home and familiarity to the composer. Developed throughout 2020, and during intensive lockdowns, this project both necessitated and uncovered new fertile spaces for making collaboratively while remotely and across state borders, engaging in new creative processes. The outcome is these three new works, or temporal spaces, shared between composer, performer and audience that evoke sites that collaborators could only access through Chong’s writing.

As musical works, they seek to challenge perceptions of sonic materiality, and aim to bring focus to gesture and resultant, non-intentional sounds.

These spaces are:

space one for Flora Wong (solo violin), inspired by Wollemi Pine by Eileen Chong
space two for Hannah Reardon-Smith (solo flute and electronics), inspired by Fern by Eileen Chong

space three for Kaylie Melville and Madi Chwasta (percussion duo), inspired by Wurrungwuri, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney by Eileen Chong

space two

HAN REARDON-SMITH AND KEZIA YAP

space two, for Han, flute and electronics was written in response to Chong’s “Fern”. When we first read the poem together, we were immediately drawn to two images and ideas. The first was the line “each frond a sister to another,” which evoked this idea of infinite growth, spiralling and relationship. The other was the gesture of pushing against or pushing through, evoked through “…pushing through stem, bark, growing vein by stubborn vein.” Combining Hannah’s flute and yoga practice, we experimented with unlearning breath control and incorporating movement-led sound-making. The final outcome also seeks to allow Hannah’s creative voice and improvisatory experience guide each iteration of the work - space two is a framework to explore movement, sound and their relationships as inspired by the poem.

Finding ways to unfurl the fronds of this piece with Kezia helped me to explore new ways of being in my body with my flute -- exploring the way lifting and curling my rib cage pressed out air, meeting myself as sister unwinding in synchronicities, coming towards and away from limbs, taking the flute with me as I step through space. The sounds, too, curl and uncurl in delicate and unusual forms and figures. It was, for me, a way of finding shapes in space that might untangle and unmaster practiced instrumental techniques, sounding the slow opening action from tightly-wound fiddlehead to fully-leafed extension. - Han Reardon-Smith

space three

KAYLIE MELVILLE, MADI CHWASTA AND KEZIA YAP

space three, for Kaylie and Madi draw both inspiration and structure from Chong’s “Wurrungwuri, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney” a poem about a large, iconic sculptural artwork located in the Botanic Gardens that, like the poem, is made up of two distinct parts - a large, wave-like sandstone structure and a monolith made of thousands of quartz pebbles with a pattern based on the Eora shield. Throughout development, Kaylie, Madi and I were most interested in the conversation of elements, and the contrasts drawn between size, weight and materiality, as well as between the natural and the constructed. space three attempts to explore these presented binaries through the combination of gesture, material and object.

Structured in two parts that mirror Chong’s poem, Part 1 focuses on heavy materials and intensive gestures that evoke ideas and imagery surrounding construction; however incongruous to the allusion made to person-made environments within this section, its framework as a structured improvisation results in organic interaction between the sounds and the performers. Part 2 is more detail-driven involving smaller gestures and more subtle use of materials, with more constructed and prescriptive moments of interaction as defined within the notated score for this section.

Sharing Spaces has been a truly collaborative journey during an interesting time in history. The piece Kezia, Madi and I have created together has been an unusual ride - a process of building bigger and bigger ideas, a very long pause as the 2020 lockdowns in Melbourne separated us for months, and finally stripping back to the essential core of the work. There's an elegant simplicity to the final piece that I really love. We've created a sound and visual language for these concrete pavers that is by turns spacious, aggressive, delicate, gritty. I have no doubt that this project - spending time deeply investigating the potential of these overlooked objects, sparking off Kezia and Madi's curiosity, musing on our next steps over a table full of snacks - will be one of my happiest memories when I think back on this time! - Kaylie Melville

Sharing Spaces is aptly named, in hindsight. It was written across more than a year where Kezia, Kaylie and myself shared ideas, frustrations and laughs over many spaces - whether that be through Zoom, on living room couches or in the tile section at Bunnings - as COVID-19 restrictions plunged us in and out of lockdowns. What came out of it was a highly-considered and detailed work for percussion, inspired by poet Eileen Chong’s stirring and rhythmic prose. It was a beautiful and comforting experience working with both Kezia and Kaylie and I’m proud we can share what we created. - Madi Chwasta