Lovely Review for Sydney Resonant Bodies

“…Ariadne Greif’s performance was a recollection of childhood’s storytelling, fairytales and creative play as distorted by adult recollection and understanding. She arrived on stage on a scooter with a sense of being lost, takes a nap, immersed herself in a series of books, made a paper boat and then drew water for the boat to sail on. As children often will, she took the painting off on a very creative tangent. Her painting is a liberating and playful expression of herself. To accompany these stories Ariadne uses her extraordinary non-verbal vocalisations. Opera is her language and she combines this with the pre-speech verbalisations of children to create a narrative. Ariadne’s soaring operatic voice had excellent accompaniment from Alessandro Pittorino’s organ and Benjamin Carey’s electronics. It includes new work from Shawn Jaeger, Ricardo Romaneiro and Ryan Chase. Ariadne’s spectacular finale was a spine chilling rendition of Schubert’s Erlkonig and the highlight of the evening.”

RESONANT BODIES was designed to display adventurous vocalists and these performances were excellent realisations of this intention. From reading about RESONANT BODIES FESTIVAL I was concerned it may have been potentially inaccessible and unapproachable experimental performance art, but the singing of both artists and the interplay with the musicians and staging was of such a high calibre that it was an enjoyable and memorable evening.”