Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you something I am rather excited about! In 1999, I had the privilege and pleasure of collaborating with a talented group of musicians and performers on a unique live performance called, "Becoming Real!"
The soundtrack to this performance can be purchased from my Bandcamp page at https://pulseeternal.bandcamp.com/
This show is based on one of my more elaborate dreams (see the photos at the end of this post for the dream flowchart I made) and is about my personal struggle with finding my true identity. I was born as an intersex female with 47 chromosomes instead of the usual 46, one ovary, an internal testicle trying to be my second ovary and ambiguous external genitalia. The doctors intervened surgically when I was an infant and assigned me as male. They got it wrong! As a result, I spent the first thirty years of my life trying to live as a male! It was a living hell! In 2001, I had things surgically repaired and finally found my true identity. This performance is about the battle I endured during this time and was conceived a couple of years before I finally started living as the REAL me! I was still "Becoming Real!"
You will notice that I have pixelated the closer shots of my face in this video. For me personally, it is quite painful to see such stark reminders of my past, yet this performance is too important to simply leave it on the shelf. Rather than edit out the shots with me in them, I chose instead to perform the rather more laborious task of manually keyframing the motion on the pixilation effect in order to keep those shots.
This is a brand new video edit and audio master from the original live recordings made during a one off performance at Grainery Lane Theatre in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
The performance is in four movements:
* The first movement builds from an ambient soundscape into a fast paced EDM piece.
* The second movement is a classically inspired piece featuring acoustic guitar and cello with an orchestral crescendo highlighted by pulsing sequenced drums and bass.
* The third movement is a surreal improvisational segue and journey into the heart of this dream which builds to an intense finale. This is where the battle lines for my struggle to be free of the living hell I went through were drawn.
* The fourth movement is a tribute to one of my biggest inspirations and one of my favourite groups, Tangerine Dream. It begins with solo cello and builds to a Berlin School style multi sequence, followed by an uplifting shift from a minor to major key.
Musicians:
Lyndon Kriss - guitar and guitar synth.
Miriam Kriss - cello and percussion.
Elizabeth Stewart - vocals and percussion.
Chris Pollard - electronic drums, samples and sequences.
Badger - Didgeridoo and percussion.
Danniielle - synthesizers, analog and digital sequencers, live engineering and musical director.
Dancers:
Badger.
Kat Pengelly.
Louise Anderson.
Lauren Lalor.
Bella Chambers.
Emma Grant.
Here's some photos of the flowchart I drew to document the dream I based this show on amidst posters we made to promote the show.
Some of the core musicians in the live band eventually became Pulse Eternal but the show pre-dated the Pulse Eternal name. The original band (and my production company at the time) was called Infinergy.