小島大歌 | Artists 音樂家 | Songs 歌曲 | Live 移動村莊 | Visit 拜訪 | Market 市集
Small Island Big Song concert & residency
Now booking Jan' to Apr' 2024
Framed in a theatrical narrative amongst panoramic visuals of the artist’s homelands, the audience experiences a musical journey across the breadth and into the soul of island nations of the Pacific and Indian Ocean, meeting an ancient seafaring ancestry and confronting the impacts of climate crisis head on, as the performers and youth ambassadors share their island's voice supported through the cinematic sequences.
Drawing on a roster of respected first nation artists, the concert features musicians performing irresistible oceanic grooves to soulful island ballads engaging audiences from huge festival stages to intimate theatres. Combining music, spoken word and live cinema with AV projections featuring footage collected during a 3-year film trip across 16 countries guided by the artists on their homelands.
Moving beyond the concert experience, Small Island Big Song offers a variety of opportunities for students and audiences to investigate the environmental, political, social and cultural contexts on our oceans’ islands.
Small Island Big Song is a multi-platform project uniting the seafaring cultures of the Pacific and Indian Oceans through songs, a contemporary and relevant musical statement from a region at the frontline of the Climate Crisis.
Founded by Taiwanese producer and manager BaoBao Chen and Australian music producer and filmmaker Tim Cole in 2015, the two have been recording and filming with over a hundred musicians in nature across 16 island nations of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The outcomes include two award-winning albums, a feature film, edu' programs, and a live concert that has toured around the world across four continents reaching over 200K+ live audiences since the world premiere at SXSW 2018.
Small Island Big Song explores the cultural connections between the descendants of the seafarers of the Pacific and Indian Oceans through the Austronesian migration. Working with artists who have made a choice to maintain the cultural voice of their people, to sing in the language, and to play the instruments of their land. These unique lineages mixed with their diverse contemporary styles - roots-reggae, beats, grunge, RnB, folk & spoken-word, establishing a contemporary musical dialogue between cultures as far afield as Madagascar, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Taiwan, Mauritius, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Tahiti and Rapa Nui (Easter Island), creating "One coherent jaw dropping piece" as described by Rob Schwartz - Billboard.
Music critic Tom Orr has noted in the RootsWorld review “….sound like one very big, very happy family doing what they do best while helping get the word out on a most serious issue.”
2015 BaoBao & Tim quit theirs jobs after hearing the 5th IPCC report, with a dream to unite the voices of the ocean through musical collaboration
2016 to 2018 with a couple of cameras & mic's, they recorded & filmed with musicians on their custodial land across 16 island nations
2018 We premiered our concert at SXSW International Day Stage, and have been touring the world since
The artists & islands BaoBao & Tim have visited,
connected by the ocean & an ancient seafaring heritage.
PERFORMANCES
- Full concert 90 min' with intermission -
- Youth matinee show 60 min' no intermission -
PRE-TOUR ENGAGEMENT
- Film screening + Virtual Q&A -
Small Island Big Song - An Oceanic Songline
- Curriculum -
Multi-media package of 5 chapters, each explores one environmental challenge we face, shared by some of the artists you will meet in person
IN-PERSON OUTREACH PROGRAM
- Workshop -
Dance workshop / party
Up-cycle instrument making workshop
- Community Engagement -
Land acknowledgement
Food sharing
A walk with SIBS in nature
Inviting local guest musicians
Youth voice for local environmental issues
Collaborating on Mercy Mercy Me
- Panel, Multi-media Lecture & Demonstration -
Demonstration: History from an Indigenous Perspective
The Indian and Pacific Oceans share a little-known seafaring heritage, the Austronesian. Five thousand years ago, people of the Pacific designed ocean going canoes and from a beach in Taiwan, they set sail and settled on islands inc' Madagascar, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Hawai’i. The descendants of these brave seafarers surpass 400 million people today.
During this demonstration, we will comprise the conversation and musical demonstrations by Small Island Big Song artists to showcase some of the cultural & linguistic similarities their communities still share across these vast ocean expanses.
Panel: Climate Crisis - Our Response As Artists
Our islands are on the frontline of sea level rise. The people whose cultures have sustained communities in fragile environments with limited resources for countless generations, will be the first to lose their homelands due to the unsustainable lifestyles of the greater global community. As the climate crisis quickly rises to the top of world concerns, different sectors scramble to figure out ways to respond to its impending pressures. During this panel, we will explore ways in which artists can use their voices to push the needle on political, economic, social and cultural questions at the root of this global concern.
Panel: Indigenous Women Making Traditional Culture Relevant
During this panel, Small Island Big Song female artists will share their experiences as performers and cultural ambassadors. They will discuss the roles women have traditionally played in their respective cultures and discuss different ways in which they have found support and rose over challenges to realise their potential as artists and leaders in their communities.
Multi-Media Lecture: The Genesis of Small Island Big Song
Culture is the shared expression of community, which defines our relationship to our social and natural environment. During this intimate lecture demonstration, Tim Cole and BaoBao Chen will share the genesis story of Small Island Big Song while sharing an insight into their motivations as artists and storytellers.