New faces at Brink: Assina

Lizzy Falkland and Assina Ntawumenya, photographed by Chris Herzfeld.

Assina Ntawumenya plays Patience Lugor in Skip Miller's Hit Songs.

She has just finished her social work degree at UniSA and has been the deputy chair of the Association of Burundian Community of South Australia for the past four years.

Assina was included in the 2009 SA Women's Honour Roll of 100 notable women serving the South Australian community and has been recently nominated for inclusion in the Who's Who of Australian Women 2011.

In between all of this, Assina has been contributing to the development of Skip Miller's Hit Songs.

"I am Burundian-Australian and I have been in Adelaide for 6 years and 6 months," says Assina.

"This is my first time to do acting in Australia. I performed in a number of shows when I was in high school back in Tanzania. In fact, I was nominated as the best actor in 3 shows."

"So far, I have found the rehearsal process to be enjoyable and fun," she says, explaining that her favourite scene is when Patience 'loses patience' with Neville at the beach. "I also like the way Skip says 'WOW'," she says.

Behind the music of Skip Miller's Hit Songs

Quentin Grant, Jerome Lyons and Lamine Nanky are our live musicians in Skip Miller's Hit Songs. Bringing a range of musical backgrounds to the performance, the three have spent the last few weeks creating original music for the show. Learn more about what obscure instruments they will be using and listen to a sneak-peek rehearsal track below!

♫ M'Bira
The M'Bira - a kind of 'thumb piano' - is a traditional African instrument popular in Southern and Eastern Africa.

♫ Kora
Looking like a guitar, sounding like a harp and played by sitting in front of it, the West African Kora is traditionally made from a large vegetable covered in cow hide, with thinly cut antelope hide as strings. These days the 21 strings (played with two hands) are made from either harp strings or fishing line.

♫ Balafon

The Balafon, also West African, is similar to a xylophone. In some cultures the instrument was or still is sacred and can only be played by trained religious members at special events like festivals, funerals or marriages.

♫ Song Gong
The Song Gong is a Jerome Lyons speciality. Jerome runs The Cheese Factory Studio Gallery in Meadows and makes instruments under the name Tribal Instruments Australia. This one is sculpted out of a gas bottle to create a drum capable of different melodic notes. Clever!

♫ Djembe
The djembe is a kind of hand drum that is apparently hard than it looks! Years of training are required to achieve the sound quality of a master drummer.

♫ Other: Guitar, cowbells, flute and bongos

Bounce - Skip Miller's Hit Songs
Rehearsal track
Quentin Grant, Jerome Lyons and Lamine Nanky

Brink Bundle: extended

We're pleased to announce that we are extending the final purchase date of our Brink Bundle until March 5!

The Brink Bundle saves you over 20% on the adult ticket prices to Skip Miller's Hit Songs by Sean Riley and Land & Sea by Nicki Bloom when purchased at the same time. It's our way of rewarding our loyal fans and one of the ways you can show your year-round support.

Skip Miller's Hit Songs is our upcoming Adelaide Fringe show, while our promotional shot for November's Land & Sea was recently featured on the front cover of the Adelaide Review!

Brink Bundle: $65 through BASS outlets or by calling 131 246

(Regular adult prices are $40 for Skip Miller's Hit Songs + $42 for Land & Sea = $82. That's a $17 saving just for securing your tickets early!)

Edit 18/1: we've been extra generous and extended 'til the 5th of March, the end of the Skip Miller's Hit Songs season!

Internet tidbits

In our last Brink Bits post of the year we round up some tidbits from the internet that we've found interesting this week!

• Sophie at Sophie's World had nothing but praise for When The Rain Stops Falling in her Top 10 of 2010, as did David O'Brien over at dB. David also sung the praises of Harbinger while Sophie admitted to being left a little in the dark (but enjoyed it nonetheless!)

• We were going over some posts on local music blog Purple Prose from back in October and found one dedicated to the musical stylings of Melbourne band Alarm Birds (previously Hope Diamond). One third of this lovely band is none other than Zoe Barry - our composer for Land & Sea! One very talented lady, right there. The videos featured are well worth a peek!

• OzCo got creative and blew everyone's witty e-cards out of the water with a Christmas video! See it in all its twinkly glory here.

• Chris Drummond was announced as a Hive participant during the Bigpond Adelaide Film Festival next year. He's in very good company with some familiar faces such as Matthew Whittet, Rose Myers and Sophie Hyde! We'll be interested to hear all about what comes out of the five day 'residential lab'.

• But in the most exciting news of all, we launched our shiny new website. A big thank you to everyone involved at Brink, slipperyfish and Katalyst. Now that's a great early Christmas present if we ever saw one.

Season's Greetings one and all! See you next year!

Anonymous postcard

We received a mystery postcard in the mail after we returned from Alice Springs... When The Rain Stops Falling fans might recognise the text.

Rumours as to who might have sent it have been flying around the office. If you have any leads or ideas, let us know!

2011 Launch

James, Lizzy, Chris and Mondli

Rosemary, Assina and Leonie

Sean, Rory, James and Kay

We held a very cosy 2011 launch just over a week ago at Jolley's Boathouse. See more happy snaps from the morning on Facebook!

On the horizon in 2011

We're thrilled to share what's on the horizon with you!

In 2011 we've got two world premieres: an Adelaide Fringe season of Sean Riley's cross-continental Skip Miller's Hit Songs in February/March, and Nicki Bloom's kaleidoscopic Land & Sea in November. Tickets are on sale through BASS right now - go get 'em!

Would you like us to mail you a freshly printed copy of the brochure? Email your details to info[at]brinkproductions[dot]com to be added to our mailing list.

PS Our new website is almost ready! Stay tuned...