BROADCAST INTO OBLIVION
Description
Writing Dancing Press presentsA concert of two works and book and CD launch
BROADCAST INTO OBLIVION
A chamber work
Nikki Heywood – voice and text
Mark Cauvin – double bass and composition
Partly inspired by the Golden Records launched aboard the Voyager spacecraft in 1977, Broadcast into Oblivion was conceived as an idiosyncratic and deeply personal time capsule: a collection of daydreams, observations and dystopian visions of life in the 21st century. Blending voice, text and music, the work asks what fragments of our present moment might be worth sending into the unknown.
Much of the text was generated through sessions with the Writing Dancing collective, a community of artists, academics, students and writers who have gathered on Gadigal land since 2010 to write towards, about, around and alongside dancing. The libretto is published by Writing Dancing Press, established in 2025 to champion choreographically informed, embodied and situated writing.
A poetic transmission from the present into an uncertain future, Broadcast into Oblivion invites audiences to listen closely to the stories, fears and hopes we carry with us.
Broadcast into Oblivion, for vocal recitative (sprechgesang/speech-song) and prepared double bass, moves between sense and nonsense, ranging from naïve musings on the now-disputed Big Bang theory to reflections on the geo-techno-political circus of the present day, accelerating towards oblivion in ways beyond our wildest imaginings.
A duet, a mangled manifesto, a vocal and musical rave, Broadcast into Oblivion is a sonic ride where intoned text is carried on the quivering strings of a prepared double bass.
"Delivered with passion and wit, voice and double bass resonantly entwining and offering more than a very rich aural experience... unsettling poetic text in a taut duet... playfully ironic."
Keith Gallasch, RealTime, 2023
The performance will be followed by a short trio featuring special guest Elizabeth Jigalin on prepared piano.
Doors: 6:30pm
Music: 7:00pm
Tickets: $25/$20
book + CD launch price $20
Come and misbehave.
Art isn’t comfortable
here — and neither,
probably, are you.
That’s exactly the point.
About 21 Shepherd
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