Oceans of Love
Live Music, Dance & Digital Art Performance
Oceans of Love is an immersive concert experience combining live music, dance, digital art and poetry. This sensorial provocation explores our disconnection from nature and one another and maps a path from fear to bliss and fearlessness.
Curated by acclaimed guitarist/composer Dr Anthony Garcia the concert will feature renowned musician Linsey Pollak, Indian Fusion singer Menaka, Chinese folk singer Zi Wang, cellist Dr Danielle Bentley, koto master Takako Haggarty Nishibori, percussionist Tunji Beier, DJ and tabla performer Saie Ishan Chand, Mohiniattam dancer Bindu Rajendren and contemporary dancer Denise Comba.
Experience a hypnotic fusion of sound, movement and vision blending elements of traditional folk song and chant, improvisation, traditional and contemporary dance and spoken word poetry.
Bring friends, family and loved ones to experience the healing power of live music and dance. book now
Linsey Pollak
Linsey Pollak is well known all around Australia as a musician, instrument maker, composer, musical director and community music facilitator. He has toured his solo shows extensively in Europe, North America and Asia since 1996. He established The Multicultural Arts Centre of WA and has co-ordinated five Cross-cultural Music Ensembles in three different States. He has also performed at most major Festivals around Australia and recorded 35 albums (solo & with various groups). He has devised many large Festival pieces such as BimBamBoo!! (Woodford and Brisbane Festivals), Sound Forest (Qld Music Festival) and The Dream of Zedkat Nabu (APRA Performance of the Year – Qld 2013).
He has worked as a musical instrument maker for 45 years and has designed many new wind instruments as well as specialising in woodwind instruments from Eastern Europe (having studied Macedonian bagpipes in Macedonia). Linsey’s current musical projects include his Sunrise Sessions, eco-music project with singer Lizzie O’Keefe – Dangerous Song, and The Beier.Griffin.Pollak Trio.
Menaka
Menaka is a Brisbane-based singer, songwriter, and teacher. While hailing from musical family deeply rooted in South Indian (Carnatic) music, her unique sound is an intersection of traditional and contemporary, East and West.
After a sudden deterioration in health that nearly claimed her vision, Menaka found herself writing songs to help her overcome her challenges. Menaka launched her debut solo album, My Eyes Can See in 2019 at the Queensland Multicultural Centre to a sold-out audience.
Menaka continues to record, perform, and teach. Her vision is to unite, connect and inspire people through music
Zi Wang
Wang Zi, is a first-year graduate student at The University of Queensland School of Music, under the tutelage of Shaun Brown. Undergraduate at the China Conservatory of Music, under the tutelage of Wu Bixia. Zi has participated in the Chinese national opera Little Erhei Marriage as the “District Chief”; the musical I Have a Date with Spring as “Hong Lianxi”; and the musical I Love You as “Patti”.
Zi participated in the Scenario Concert in Commemoration of the Premier Zhou in the Great Hall of the People in 2016 and sang “Deep Friendship” and “Embroidered Golden Plaque”, and in the Chinese New Year Party of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council in 2019 with”Run! Dream Chaser!” After graduation, the curiosity and exploration of vocal art prompted Zi to make a new attempt to come to The University of Queensland for postgraduate studies and to study Western vocal art.
Dr Danielle Bentley
Dr Danielle Bentley is an award-winning cellist specialising in Australian art music, and co-leader of Ensemble Sooon. Danielle was the Australian Arts Fellow at Omi Music Residency, New York & is a recipient of an APRA-AMCOS Art Music Award for Excellence. Danielle has worked across a broad range of genres, reflected in her exploratory approach to music-making. Traditional classical contexts include Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Camerata. She was a Director of art music ensemble Collusion for 7 years during which they produced several critically-acclaimed chamber ballets, commissioned/performed over 40 Australian works and released 3 albums.
Danielle has also worked extensively in the popular and commercial music sectors with over 100 headliner artists including Diana Krall, Harry Connick Jnr, Jimmy Barnes and Kanye West. Danielle’s quartet performed for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh. Festivals she has curated strongly featured new and improvised music. These include four editions of Restrung (Brisbane Powerhouse, Metro Arts) and at QLD Conservatorium, the International Music Council’s 5th World Forum on Music and two editions of Crossbows. 2023 will see the release of Ensemble Sooon’s debut album, and a busy performance schedule across South East Queensland.
Takako Haggarty Nishibori
Takako Haggarty Nishibori is Queensland’s eminent Japanese Koto performer and a passionate educator. She brings the classic sounds of Japan alive through her mastery of the Koto.
Takako started playing the Koto at the age of six. She was granted her Koto teaching license in 2000, scoring in the top 10 in all of Japan, and has been teaching and playing the Koto since then.
After moving to Australia in 2005 and completing her Master of Educational Studies at Newcastle University, she became involved in the educational sector as both a teacher and musician.
Tunji Beier
Tunji Beier was born in Papua New Guinea, then grew up in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Germany and Australia. In his early years, growing up in Nigeria, he was enthralled by the strong Yoruba drumming tradition, which still informs his practice. He had the opportunity to learn from various Yoruba drummers such as Muraina Oyelami, Ademola Onibonokuta & Rabiu Ayandokun. Tunji also studied Classical Western and South Indian percussion in Bayreuth Germany from the ages 11-14 and at the age of 15 Tunji went to Bangalore India and spent 4 years studying intensely with Guru T.A.S. Mani. Tunji then spent 10 years in Germany where he had the opportunity to tour, create ensembles, was artistic director of the Bayreuth Border Crossings Festival and toured extensively throughout Europe. This gave Tunji the opportunity to play with greats such as: Charlie Mariano, Bill Cobham, Iain Ballamy, R.A.Ramamani, Trilok Gurtu, and Zakir Hussain.
Since Returning to Australia in 2002 Tunji has made a career as a percussionist in fusion, jazz, world and contemporary classical musical forms. He has worked with many great Australian musicians on recording, touring and co-designed projects. Tunji has been involved in ensembles of various music traditions such as Carnatic, Yoruba, Jazz, Sacred, Persian, Islamic, Fusion as well as theatre and dance.
Saie Ishan Chand
A DJ, producer, and musician from Meanjin. With strong classical, cultural and urban influences, he explores multiple genres of music and roles as a performer, producer and composer.
Starting to learn the Tabla (Indian percussion instrument) at 8 years old, his passion for music grew stronger expanding to multiple eastern and western instruments. In High School he started producing music and since has worked on multiple projects as a producer / engineer. DJing started as a hobby in his late teens, but eventually became a big passion of his and he has quickly grown into the Meanjin DJ scene.
SAIE combines all of his musical roles and skills in the different projects he participates in. He is working on creating his own sound and planning to release his own original music in 2023, keep a lookout for SAIE’s sounds.
Bindu Rajendren
Bindu Rajendren is a multidisciplinary artiste and Mohiniattam dance practitioner, researcher and educator based in Brisbane. She is “a dancer who has the ability to convey the essence of deeply significant stories through dance” (Woodford Folk Festival).
Bindu has performed widely across Australia, UK, New Zealand, UAE, and India, and on multiple online platforms. She has collaborated and produced works with dancers, theatre artists, spoken word and visual artists, and musicians. Bindu is also experienced in dance filmmaking and production. Some of her notable dance films include being part of the acclaimed ‘Boxed’ series and ‘Andal’s Garden’ produced by Narthaki. com, ‘Her-Story’ for Sangam Festival, Melbourne, and Prithvii Tatvam for Erasing Borders Dance Festival 2021, NY. Her multidisciplinary film The Emergence produced by Narthaki for the Epic Women film festival premiered in March 2023 to appreciative reviews.
Bindu continues to advance her Mohiniattam practice under Guru Nirmala Panikker and Guru Dr. Kalamamdalam Sugandhi Prabhu. She has undertaken Abhinaya intensives with Guru Venu G and is pursuing the study of Sopanam music with Guru Anil P. S., the foremost student of the famous Kerala poet and dramatist Padmabhushan Kavalam Narayana Panikker.
Denise Comba
Denise is a dancer and facilitator from Argentina, based in Brisbane since 2015. She completed her Contemporary Dance Degree in Buenos Aires, where she studied various modern and contemporary dance techniques, as well as ballet, choreographic composition and improvisation. She also attended P.A.R.T.S. Summer School (Brussels), where she took workshops with David Zambrano and Julyen Hamilton, among others. After her graduation, she was involved in the independent dance scene of Buenos Aires, both as a performer and a co-creator in various projects.
In Australia, she continued her dance and movement research as a freelance practitioner. Denise has been a facilitator for Open Practice since 2016, which has given her a deeper insight into improvisation and embodiment. She was also a performer for various independent projects, presented at festivals like SuperCell and Commonwealth Games.
Her interest in dance and movement is to explore the true essence and presence of the body in a performative context, from the purely physical state to the most poetic expression. Believing that every experience in life informs who we are and how we move, she is curious to unveil what is beneath all those layers and search for an expressive wholeness of the being.
Dr Anthony Garcia
Dr Anthony Garcia is an acclaimed guitarist, composer and educator based in Brisbane. Born in the United States and raised and educated in South East Asia, Australia and Mexico, Dr Garcia has recorded, toured and performed extensively throughout the world collaborating with creatives across a diverse range of artistic disciplines. Dr Garcia’s exploratory philosophy of music-making and teaching has generated a highly personal creative approach that embraces both ancient and contemporary forms, world and ethnic musics and improvisational practice.
Dr Garcia’s PhD research into improvisation, conducted at University of Tasmania between 2012- 2015, has informed ongoing research into intercultural and collaborative learning, teaching artistry, interdisciplinary practice and mindfulness meditation and music. His passion for unifying the interlocking fields of musical performance, composition and education has informed ongoing pedagogical experimentation in schools, universities and the broader community and led to the establishment in 2014, in partnership with his wife Jennifer Garcia, of Sounds Across Oceans, a new music and arts organisation dedicated to exploring ‘the multidimensional capacity of music and the arts to create and share new ideas, uplift, heal, shift energies and ignite new perspectives.’
Through Sounds Across Oceans Dr Garcia has helped design and curate a diverse array of festival programs, community wellbeing initiatives and research partnerships. In 2019, with the support of BrisAsia Festival and QPAC he helped establish the pioneering intercultural art ensemble JADE New World Collective. Since its inception SAO has produced BrisAsia Festival Creative Sector Development Program for the Brisbane City Council, SunPAC Summerfest, Creative Fusions (QPAC), the Tree of Life: seniors music and movement initiative as well as workshops and concerts in Germany, Thailand, Brisbane and regional Queensland.
Support
Would you like to show your support for The Ground Beneath Us?
Tax deductible donations can be made via the festival’s Australian Cultural Fund platform. Your donation will assist with cost across a range of areas, including production, marketing & administration, and research & documentation.
In 2023, The Ground Beneath Us will:
- employ over 20 artists, 12 arts workers, an assistant producer & documentary film maker
- generate new music, musical forms & stories, multimode artworks, disseminate ancient wisdom & contemporary research
- link artists from across cultures & genres with researchers, community leaders & the public to develop & promote ideas & perspectives that will nurture our culture.
We are grateful for all contributions, small & large. 🙏
