Weerewa - Portrait of a Landscape (sound design)

BACKGROUND: Early Australian landscape scores tended to draw on European pastoralism, with musical drama often inspired by the countryside’s alien-ness (a mysterious danger to be feared or conquered). Whilst more positive, modernist approaches were adopted (eg Sculthorpe), they still drew on established musical traditions for representation of elements. Both orchestral and the electronic (eg. AT Wilson’s "Carnarvon") share a focus on scale & featured musical figures Weerewa subverts this approach. CONTRIBUTION: Weerewa is an 18-minute dance film (directed by Sue Healey) with sound composed by Darrin Verhagen. Intended as a commanding reflection on the human relationship with nature, Weerewa explores the specificities of a landscape: wood, lichen, webs, rocks, animals and water. As a way of avoiding musical declamations that have been the traditional mode of musical engagement with landscape, Verhagen considered dancers as the dominant musical ‘figures’ and his score as the environmental ‘ground’. To that end, there is very little melodic writing and instead the musical elements bind with the settings as an ecosystem into which the moving bodies are set. It is this cross-modal way of thinking about dance & score which resulted in the innovative territory which was developed. The approach drifts further from tradition by the mix of acoustic abstract foley and electronic textures which are designed to open up an imaginative space with the image, rather than lock down scenes with ‘authenticating’ sound. SIGNIFICANCE: The significance of this work is attested through two international presentations. It was the only Australian entry curated into Canada’s Le FiFA (37th Festival of International Films on Art). It was curated into the program by Jacinthe Brisebois (senior director of the Canadian Broadcasting Commission’s ARTV station) after being reviewed by a qualified pre-selection committee. Weerewa was also presented as part of the Contours dance film exhibition, curated by Peng Hsiao-yin (artistic director of Danceology) at SLY Art Space Taipei, Taiwan, with over 1000 viewers. This exhibition was supported by peer-reviewed Arts ACT government funding and the Mirramu Creative Arts Centre.