Sunday 8 February, 12-4pm
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Musician Ria Soemardjo will activate the gallery with a live, improvised performance unfolding spontaneously throughout the space.
Emerging at intervals between 12–4pm, the performance has no fixed start time, visitors will encounter sound and presence as part of their movement through the gallery.
Each moment is responsive and unrepeatable, offering a final, evolving experience of the exhibition as it comes to a close.
ABOUT RIA:
Ria Soemardjo
Ria Soemardjo is a Naarm based musician with a passion for collaborations across a diverse range of genres and artforms. Her distinct, haunting vocal style and musicality reflects her Australian/Javanese cultural heritage and a deep appreciation for the timbres, rhythmic complexity and the ceremonial association of Balinese and Javanese gamelan traditions.
Ria has created and performed music for independent contemporary dance and theatre projects in Australia & Asia. Her evocative, textured and highly original soundscapes are often performed live using an eclectic array of unusual instruments including voice, gamelan, frame drums and her own hand crafted clay flutes and drums. She continues to learn and perform traditional Javanese vocal repertoire, as a soloist with both Sydney and Melbourne gamelan ensembles.
A sought after collaborator, Ria’s recent performance highlights include presentations of both traditional and original music at Oz Asia Festival, Melbourne Recital Centre, Port Fairy Folk Festival, National Folk Festival. She has released several albums with her contemporary world music trio ‘Fine Blue Thread’. Ria has co-created several contemporary dance/theater works that reflect her deep interest in developing powerful contemporary performance/rituals, most recently premiering ‘Ngayomi’ - a duet with choreographer/dancer Jade Dewi Tyas Tunggal. Her 2022 show ‘Of Frogs’ - featured her own handmade sound sculptures, clay flutes and vocal resonators. Created with theatre maker/writer Sandra Fiona Long, Ria performed with two percussionists - evoking the eerie underwater sounds of forgotten creeks and springs, through extended percussion,voice,water, text and light for Darebin Fuse Festival 2022. www.riavoice.com
Ria’s closing performance is a free, public event programmed as part of Grained exhibition, curated by Playte in partnership with Nongkrong and Blak Dot Gallery.
This event was also supported by the Australia Indonesia Institute.