Carpark Opera, Sani Muliaumaseali’i
Sani says:
For my Tiny Revolution I have produced a promo video for CARPARK Opera & Cabaret.
The promo was made at home, performed LIVE, and used whatever materials and resources that were available. The material that I used most was my resilience.
Resilience by nature is improvisation, it is experimentation, toughness and ultimately transformative. We will need all of these traits if we are to entertain any type of future.
Who am I? I am a person who sings.
A person who loves to sing, be it on a stage or in a carpark, lift, bathroom etc
I differentiate between singing with being ‘a singer’. Singing is a committed joy and has a freedom that can sometimes evade those busy ‘being a singer’.
I’d spent my formative years singing in bathrooms – the best acoustics in our house, and the pandemic brought me back home. Covid rendered for many a lack of choice, but it gave me clear choices and I chose to keep singing, and sing songs that made me happy. I needed to be singing, but I didn’t need to be a singer.
As lockdown dragged on, social media revealed a multiplicity of anxieties. In my industry social distancing would prove to be bad for its health, so new ways of being together were sought. English National Opera would offer ‘drive in operas’ which inspired me to create ‘CARPARK opera & cabaret’ AotearoaNZ. The initiative facilitated my art practise during Covid, nurturing my singer/producer/director/co-ordinating abilities.
I worked assiduously to real this dream contacting local council, arts and community groups and to support and be a part of the variety show. YouTube provided me with rehearsal backing tracks, and I compiled a 55min ‘happy set. The online world allowed a being together of sorts and I got in touch with colleagues to help me with the task at hand. Dustin Conrad in London arranged music, Laki Muliaumaseali’i edited film and I commissioned Jeanine Clarkin to design and make a cloak, made out of my (NZ) woollen blanket. Clarkin is renown for her wool creations. The cloak would keep me warm and safe out in the carpark. It would also be a metaphor of how Aotearoa NZ is being kept safe and snug from COVID thanks to Jacinda Ardern and her Labour government.
blanket before cloak 
Jeanine Clarkin cloak design – reSILIance
CARPARK OPERA & CABARET
Get in touch with your community and create your own Carpark Opera
- Decide on a theme and get participants to record a music video (3min max)
- Set a date – Fun Palaces weekend perhaps to premiere the compilation.
- Organise a Facebook live / ZOOM or equivalent to view the videos.
- Each participant/group are to organise a Car (or their version of a car) from which to watch the concert.
- Celebrate your creativity!
