“The ocean doesn’t separate us; the ocean unites us.”
Small Island Big Song is a unique music, film, and performing arts project bridging together the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans through artistic collaboration. The project is described as “a transcendent musical journey combining song, spoken word, and cinematic visuals filmed over a 3-year voyage across 16 island nations.” Its goal is simple – to entertain attendees and to raise awareness of environmental issues impacting the ocean region; specifically, rising seas due to climate change.
I spoke to co-founder BaoBao Chen the morning after the group arrived on the West Coast for a series of performances and learned more about the upcoming show at The Strand in Providence on March 15. Project co-creators Chen, a Taiwanese theater producer, and her husband Tim Cole, an Australian music producer and filmmaker, quit their jobs after learning of the predicted effects of climate change on the oceanic nations.
“The Small Island, Big Song project was founded by my husband Tim and I,” said Chen. “In 2015, we learned about how climate change is affecting our oceans and islands. We decided to quit our jobs and started this journey recording and filming musicians across the island nations. Along the way, we met many wonderful musicians.” The team spent eight years recording and filming over a hundred artists on sixteen island nations, layering up songs from island to island.
The show features live performers on stage accompanied by an impressive multimedia presentation. “The core narrative is based on the seafaring heritage that spread across the two oceans,” continued Chen. “It spans a vast area; for us, it’s not just about being there as musicians but it’s also about these cultural connections that everyone shares. Tim and I have found a lot of common elements of culture, language, and musical instruments on these islands.”
“We’re thrilled to bridge this ocean-spanning performance project with Providence,” said Kathleen Pletcher, Executive Artistic Director of FirstWorks. “As we celebrate FirstWorks’ 20th anniversary in 2024 with a Global Journeys theme, we connect artists and ideas from around the world to the creative communities outside our own front door. The ‘Artivists’ of Small Island Big Song dazzle us with the beauty of their island homes, while moving us to examine our own relationship to climate and the ocean.”
The live performance, “Our Island,” brings together some of the most prominent artists of Taiwan, Madagascar, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, and Tahiti. The artists reveal diverse musical styles – from roots-reggae, to beats, folk, and spoken-word. Their goal is to establish a dialogue between cultures to confront contemporary issues of identity and climate with a hope-driven vision of the future.
“It’s important for us to present the whole concept of the project; there are several musicians on stage, and other musicians involved with the project will be seen on the video. You’ll hear some of their instruments and contributions on songs through the projection.”
“The ocean doesn’t separate us, the ocean unites us,” said Chen, quoting a line from the show. “It’s spread across so much distance, it’s the one common thing that actually unites everybody. It underlines what we are trying to say, this environmental issue.”
The performers will also spend some time in local schools. As part of their in-depth FirstWorks residency in the community, Small Island Big Song artists will perform an in-school matinee for high school students at Mt. Pleasant High School and lead workshops for K-12 students at schools in Narragansett and Providence.
“The whole reason why we are touring this production is to connect with a larger audience and the younger generation, said Chen. “They’ve heard about climate change, but it’s sometimes hard for people to relate until they actually meet someone who has that life experience. That’s what we’re trying to do through this outreach and residency program. There is a lot to unpack in these shows.”
