Songs My Aunties Taught Me | Heru Pinkasova & Dr Rhythm

Wow wow wow. I feel like my eardrums have just been given a delightful, melodic pounding.

Songs My Aunties Taught Me is part opera, part beatboxing, part comedy, and one hundred percent remarkable. This first collaboration between songstress Heru Pinkasova and the beatboxing, drumming Dr Rhythm is a melodious fusion of two very different art forms, which tells the stories of influential women in Heru’s life; both her mother and aunties, and the great women of colour who sang before her.

I would hardly call myself an opera fan. While I have a lot of respect for the artists, it’s an artform that I often just don’t get. (I once saw Verdi’s Rigoletto for the sole purpose of practicing my Italian comprehension and fought to stay awake through it). This show though, was worlds apart; presented with such authenticity, charm and familiarity that it made the oft-highbrow genre of opera accessible to a wider audience.

From Heru’s first operatic notes I was hooked. She switched deftly between languages; German, Italian, Maori, Roro, Czech, and English; and traversed genres from opera to jazz, RnB, and pop, accompanied by the percussively brilliant Dr Rhythm on beats. A few songs in, just when I felt the show was getting a bit repetitive, they changed it up and Dr Rhythm stepped forward to wow us with his one-man-band of a voicebox. Here’s an experienced performer who knows how to draw in a crowd and leave them hanging off his every beat. Before our very ears, his voice morphed into a turntable, a drumkit, and recreated everyone’s favourite dance anthems. He also beautifully sang the occasional harmony, and nailed the jazz beatboxing in 6/8 time, which I’d never heard done before.

Part of what made the show so enjoyable was the two artists’ comfort on stage, their friendly banter and their sharing of the songs’ backstories. They’re both such strong performers and completely at home in the gaze of the audience. The crowd seemed enthralled by the two masterful musicians and, while standing dancing was not permitted, there was a fair amount of seat-bopping happening in all directions. I didn’t want the show to end, and it seemed nobody else did; the resounding call for an “ENCORE!” was so rowdy I was worried the little old Queenslander-style church holding us was going to pop a floorboard.

Heru describes her Aunty J, “a big woman with an even bigger voice,” as someone who “you didn’t listen to sing, you experienced it.” And Aunty J would be proud, because this performance too was an evocative and memorable experience I’ll not soon forget.