OSTINATO & THE TALES PROJECT

A body remembering what words cannot carry.

by Michelle St Anne
with Jim Denley, Daniel Raymond & Alex Tucker

This is not a story told.
It is something endured.
Something shared, briefly.

Come closer.

Two works collide head-on—one personal, one systemic—steeped in symbolism

Ostinato is a deeply personal and formally rigorous work at the intersection of theatre, sound, and embodied memory. Built around the musical concept of the ostinato—a short, persistent, repeated pattern—the performance traces cycles of inheritance, violence, tenderness, and survival across generations of women in a family.

What does it mean to stay with what is difficult?
And what becomes possible when we do?

“For those who share histories like mine—I hold you close.
It is not our shame, but theirs.”
— Michelle St Anne

Created and performed by Michelle St Anne, and underscored by a live chamber music ensemble featuring Jim Denley, Daniel Raymond, and Alex Tucker, the work unfolds as a live negotiation between sound and image, site and object.

Film Credits
Eileen Camilleri, Rowena Newman, Gwen Ng
Featuring Ian Wilkinson
Camera: Jonathan Baker

The development of this work was supported by Contemporary Asian Australian Performance (CAAP) through the Works in Progress Program — Longhouse 2024.

With funding raised privately through the Australian Cultural Fund.