ABOUT US
Photo by Cathleen WolfB O D I E S is the creation of Berlin-based Australian singer, songwriter and producer Kat Frankie. On stage with seven brilliant singers and no instruments, Frankie presents an a cappella performance about what it means to be made of matter. The concept is a hybrid one: the show contains new arrangements of Frankie’s existing songs as well as more ambitious compositions written specifically for the ensemble. For years Frankie has been known to include an a cappella song or two in her band concerts; B O D I E S fleshes the idea out to its full genre-crossing, dramatic and uplifting effect.
Photo by Monica GardunoHistory
In 2018, Kat Frankie was asked to perform a solo acoustic set at the prestigious Elbjazz festival in Hamburg. Taking her venue – the Katharinen Church, where the natural reverb would make vocals sound especially beautiful – as a cue, Frankie decided to dedicate the second half of the show to an a cappella experiment. Accompanied by five singers, Frankie performed seven songs – two were a cappella songs she’d already been performing in her shows; the other five were new vocal arrangements of songs she usually performed with her band. It’s not an exaggerationto say that the response from the audience was thunderous, to the point that Frankiewas taken aback. Here was something that needed to be explored.
B O D I E S debuted as a full-length concert in January 2020 to a sold out RBB Sendesaal followed by a string of four sold-out shows in venues such as the Elbphilharmonie and Konzerthaus Dortmund. Now an eight-person ensemble, the shows were so positively received two follow-up concerts for April went on sale at theVolksbühne Berlin and sold out very quickly. Yet just as Frankie was getting started, Covid appeared and pulled the plug. All future dates were cancelled.
Frankie spent lockdown producing soundtrack music, practising painting and recording her fifth album, “Shiny Things” (for which she was recently nominated “Best Producer” at the Pop Kultur Preis); all the while hoping and biding her time for the chance to bring B O D I E S back:
“There are no instruments on stage, which for some reason is incredibly freeing. When there’s just eight people – eight bodies, eight voices and nothing else on stage– the usual structures and expectations don’t seem to apply. I’m a songwriter, and the show has that “song” DNA in it; but this is a show for which I’ve written pieces about autonomy, labour, colonisation... huge dramatic things and then gorgeous harmonic moments... honestly I’m not sure there’s anything quite like it.”
B O D I E S are: Trinidad Doherty, Tara Nome Doyle, Erika Emerson, Kat Frankie, Barbara Greshake, Fama M’Boup, Albertine Sarges, Liza Wolowicz with assistance from Anna-Lucia Rupp and Jenniffer Kae.
Contact
Booking:
Germany, Switzerland & Austria: Ben Rodenberg ben.rodenberg@fkpscorpio.com
UK, Europe & Eleswhere: Caitlin Ballard caitlin.ballard@roamartists.com