Meet our artists through their playlists.
We were curious what our resident artists move to – what tunes they put on to warm up, which tunes are relevant to their work, which help them wind down.
This playlist is by El Waddingham, one of our 2023 RESEARCH ROOM residents who is exploring the role that witchcraft and dance as ritual has played in movements of female and queer empowerment. Using an embodied experience, theological investigation, and conduction of interviews with practising witches, they hope to emerge from the Research Room with an authentic understanding of why women have relentlessly been drawn towards magic throughout history.
TRACK #1: Gold Dust Woman – Fleetwood Mac
The song that inspired this whole journey. It makes me feel like a Goddess, angry, vengeful and divinely feminine.
TRACK #2: Marea (we’ve lost dancing) – Fred Again
Such a joyful song. It takes a time of unspeakable pain for most artists and turns it into a disco party. This song brings the sunlight into the studio for me because it reminds me of beautiful Brisbane (where I’m from) sunset parties in the hot QLD summer.
TRACK #3: KILL DEM – Jaime xx
1920’s gangster but make it house. It’s expansive, makes me think and move bigger.
TRACK #4: Mermaids – Florence + The Machine
Grand and sirenic with these massive drum beats that feel like they rock the whole earth. I based a lot of my research on witchcraft and women in history on how this song makes me feel.
TRACK #5: Eat Your Young (Bekon’s Choral Version) – Hozier
When the world ends this song will be playing.
TRACK #6: Apricots – Bicep
What I put on first whenever I get into the studio. Makes me dance like no other song does. Weird and quietly heartfelt, which is what I like to think my choreographic work is.
TRACK #7: What Kind of Man – Florence + The Machine
As you can tell, researching and making art about witches involves listening to a whole lot of Florence + The Machine. This one reminds me of the countless stories I’ve started to unearth about the abuse of women during witch trial-era Europe.
TRACK #8: Kesha – Eat the Acid
I think Kesha has had one of the most interesting trajectories as an artist, and this song is a really simple declaration of pride in the ever-changing self. She’s a woman who inspires me to explore the multiplicity that we all should be allowed to access in life.
TRACK #9: Spellbound – Siouxsie and the Banshees
I first discovered this song when I was 15 because it was featured on the soundtrack of American Horror Story: Coven, one of the first TV shows that I came across with witches represented as powerful, complex and unapologetically flawed women.
TRACK #10: Les Fleurs – Minne Riperton
Makes me feel like I’m frolicking through a field of wildflowers in Spring. Whenever I get a bit lost in computer-land during my research, I chuck this song on and instantly feel brought back down to Earth.
IMAGE CREDIT: Photo by Karrine Kanaan