Andrea Rieniets alive

Issue 

Andrea Rieniets alive

By Penny Farrow

Adelaide-based artist Andrea Rieniets' Open Cheque Book Performance at the Proscenium on July 29 was a fundraiser to produce her own CD.

Andrea is accompanied by her computer which is programmed with her compositions and fills the room with invigorating sound at the touch of a button.

Her creations quickly form an intimate atmosphere and her conversant style often invites a response from the audience. Her songs are enlivening and passionate, creating good vocal effects as she explores her whole vocal range.

Her performance deals with personal experience; the daily struggle with the system as well as family and childhood relationships.

Her song "Trigger the Dancing Horse", with its roots in the working class, is about escapism and shows how personal experience can radicalise us.

Rieniets told Green Left Weekly that she wants "to keep [her work] uncluttered. Mainstream performance culture is about being numb. I want the audience to be alive. My dedication to smoke free shows is for people to let themselves feel more — this opens the way to powerful social change".

Guest guitarist, Michael Pallos' playing was passionate and powerful, complimenting Rieniets' singing.

The choir Before You Were Blonde Under 25, directed by that Rieniets joined the performance to back her as well as to showcase their own songs. Rieniets' next fundraising event is at the Big Bikkies Concert, September 16 at 6pm at the Proscenium in Blythe Street, Adelaide. Rieniets also has a track on the new Womyn Performing CD.

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