Brisbane's underground music scene was thriving in the late 1980s, despite the "dumbing down" of art during Joh Bjelke-Petersen's tenure, and from it emerged one of the stalwarts of Queensland's contemporary creative community, Topology, who are about to celebrate their 25th birthday.
Topology was the brain child of Robert Davidson, bringing together five musicians from a collective known as Music For The Heart And Mind who had been performing ad-hoc shows around Brisbane in the '80s and '90s. Christa Powell was one of the artists Davidson chose for the project.A principal artist of the ensemble, Powell is now the Creative Director of Topology Inc. and through their programmes shares her passion for collaboration and creativity with young people and artists across regional Queensland and beyond.
"I think being involved in the creative process is the most important thing you can do as a human – and that's whether you're knitting a scarf or humming in your head, or right down to the other end of the scale, actually being part of a production," Christa says.
"There's reams and reams of research about how it affects your brain, but the most important thing is well-being. It's just being able to be part of something that's stress-relieving and engaging."
As the group begins preparations for their 25th birthday celebrations at the Princess Theatre in late October, Powell says Topology have been reflecting on their career so far, which has incorporated music, dance, theatre and storytelling, collaborating with everyone from Geoffrey Rush to The Kransky Sisters and Kate Miller-Heidke to Megan Washington.
"For me the standout moments are the things that happen in between," she says. "For me it's the communication, it's the camaraderie, it's the collegial relationships that we have. And it's creating something with other people, that's really the standout."
Powell says venturing outside her comfort zone is one of her favourite elements of creativity, and to that end their collaboration with The Kransky Sisters stands out.
"They are really amazing artists themselves, and to put something together when we first thought of it, we thought, 'Okay, these are two really different things: Topology and The Kransky Sisters. How are we going to go to a third place?'" Christa explains.
"We never want to be the backing band, like getting a great artist and we're just the backing band. We really work for a long time to see how we can take two elements and create a third together."
This unique approach to collaborations has led to Topology's involvement in everything from the first show that opened The Playhouse in Brisbane – 'The Marriage Of Figaro', collaborated with Neil Armfield and Geoffrey Rush – to the Singing Up Country event with First Nations artists on the Sunshine Coast in June this year.
From emerging to established, Topology has an extensive list of collaborators and thousands of hours of music. So how will they celebrate 25 years in just 2 hours? "I've absolutely no idea," Powell laughs.
"We've got some sneaky ways that we're going to fit a lot of stuff in a small amount of time."
The show will feature past collaborators – from 25 years ago to last year – and will also include a future collaborator.
"We've always collaborated everything right from the beginning – everything from comedy to Indian theatre to jazz – so we've got a lot of groups that we want to include as well," Christa says.
"I think coming to this performance you're going to get a taste of absolutely everything we do: Everything we've done over 25 years and the directions we're heading in the next 10 years as well."
Topology also plan to release some previously unreleased music to celebrate their birthday. Of course, it is another great collaboration. "For the 25th birthday we're going to release a track that we've done with legendary composer Terry Riley," Powell says.
"We did that very early on in the 2000s when he came to Australia. It's a live performance we did with him at The Powerhouse with the Clocked Out Duo, so we're going to release that as the birthday track."
25 Years Of Topology takes place at Princess Theatre (Brisbane) 26 October.
