Ron Gallipoli Presents An Imposter: A Song Cycle
The first satellite event from the Festival of Live Art (FOLA) – Auckland, An Imposter showcases Tāmaki Makaurau’s most daring underground musicians experimenting with new forms as music and theatre collide.
An Imposter presents a clutch of songs performed through three characters bound up in a dramatic conflict of unknown origin. In murky circumstances, a psychologist urges a young woman to acknowledge her mother in a shared therapy session – a performance of darkly comedic narrative, conveyed through the heralded vocal prowess of three cutting-edge musicians.
In an enthralling performance where the audience becomes a collective fly on the wall, An Imposter is an eclectic, inspired cycle of songs calling at once to Scott Walker, the Bee Gees and The Fall. Joining Ron on stage for this performance are piano extraordinaire Hermione Johnson, drummer Chris O’Connor (The Phoenix Foundation), the enigmatic GHW, and singers i.e. crazy and Billie Fee (Grecco Romank).
For the past two years, songwriter, producer and singer Ron Gallipoli has been turning his deft songwriting and literary skills to the development of a ‘song cycle’, based on the classically disparaged but politically resonant form of the operetta. Designed to undermine the institutionally ordained operas of the eighteenth century Italy, the operetta was rowdy, loud, hated by Mozart and “full of bullshit in which one finds only cold songs and couplets from vaudeville” (Carlotta Sorba, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2006). An Imposter is the culmination of Ron’s two-year obsession with the operetta.
CAST:
Ron Gallipoli – Writer/Creator
Hillary “Billie” Fee – Singer/Performer
i. e. crazy – Singer/Performer
Sam Bradford – Singer/Performer
Chris O’Connor – Drums
Hermione Johnson – Piano
GHW – Bass
Nahyeon Lee – Producer
Nathan Joe – Dramaturg
