FRINGE 2024: Headwater

‘Three humans and three double basses paint a world of irresolution.’

Solo practice is exciting, but incredibly exposed. As a soloist and improviser, Helen Svoboda feels torn between the many options they have as a vocalist, bassist and the spaces in between. Simply put – it is impossible to action all of the ideas that occur to them during performance.

This performance seeks to explore these spaces in between and multiply a solo identity by adding extra bodies into the fold. What happens if the body is the water, and the self becomes a stream?  Helen extends the self by creating a stream of activity – a blurred landscape where unfinished ideas become water. The creative brain is chaotic and often unresolved, and as such, the concept of fleeting earworms is a recurrent theme in this work. Miniature ideas surface or resurface and have a space to become visible, even for just a moment.

17 – 19 October
7.30pm
Blanchisserie Magdalen 

Headwater is an immersive experience where the audience enters into a room of shared resonance. “I want the listener to feel as though they have entered into a cloud of water.” 

The third bass in this show is the ‘stunt bass’. It is an active ensemble member laid horizontally on its back in the middle of the space. Tilman Robinson has created two tactile transducers specifically for this purpose, which are fed into a double bass body as the resonator. Choreographer Jo Lloyd provides movement direction. 

En tant que Svoboda navigates the ever-changing subconscious, she is joined by Finnish vocalist Selma Savolainen and Sydney double bassist Jacques Emery to bring each fleeting vignette towards a visible life – if only for a brief moment. Our vocalisations draw upon our shared mother tongue, which we use to develop an improvisational vocabulary based on Finnish sounds. 

“A musician that absolutely defies categorisation.” – Andrew Ford, The Music Show ABC. 

A propos de

Helen Svoboda

A double bassist, vocalist and composer. Her work explores the melodic potential of the contemporary double bass, intricately weaving extended techniques and overtones with vocal tessiture amidst abstract song-writing forms. “A musician who absolutely defies categorisation”  (Andrew Ford – The Music Show, ABC), her performance practice emits a childlike, quirky energy, with a flair for “allowing difficult ideas to sound whimsical and free”  (Kristin Berardi,  AUS).

Svoboda lived and studied in the Netherlands/Germany from 2018-2020, and is currently studying a PhD in composition under the tutelage of Cat Hope at Monash University. She is a Musica Viva FutureMaker for 2023-2024, and won the Freedman Jazz Fellowship in 2021. In 2023, she was a resident artist at the Helsinki International Artist Programme, supported by Creative Australia.

Accessibilité

Blanchisserie Magdalen is wheelchair accessible. There is step-free access to the venue. Wheelchair users enter at the main entrance. There are uneven footpaths throughout the grounds. 
 
There are 2 two-hour accessible on-street parking spaces located on St Heliers Street, beside Main Gate. There are six accessible parking places are located at the front of the car park on the northern side of St Heliers Street. There is also a car park located within a short distance of Main Gate. The entrance is near a dedicated pedestrian thoroughfare and road cross over. 
 
There are accessible toilets at this venue, though not all toilet doors are automatic.

This project is presented by Musica Viva Australia as part of the 2023 – 2024 Future Makers program and supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, Abbotsford Convent, Musica Viva Australia and the Berg Family Foundation, for Melbourne Fringe 2024.