Woodburn Creatives, Sydney
November 22, 2018

The sound of water gurgles through speakers as the audience gathers around composer Alice Chance’s Wishpond. Strewn with pebbles, the blue pond at the centre of a gauzy green enclave in Redfern’s Woodburn Creatives warehouse space is full of tiny fish and gently sparkling lights, tadpole-like creatures flitting across the surface of dozens of smart phones. The composer leads the audience in chant-like vocalisations that mingle with the layered pitches emanating from the pond. Led by Chance, the audience casts imaginary fish-food (or wishes, or breath, or softly sung notes) into the pond, where coloured dots attract the wildlife on the phone screens.

Wishpond ­– which required the audience to prepare their phones (brightness and volume up, notifications turned off) and enter their secret, anonymous wishes through a website set up by the composer – was a delightful, atmospheric opening to the final Backstage Music concert for the year, Singles Club. The only tension in this whimsical work was that between the need to follow Chance’s gestured directions and a desire to lose oneself in the glimmering spectacle of the pond.

The concert...