Just finished an amazing couple of weeks working on Luke Jerram’s Melbourne incarnation of the Street Pianos project – Play Me, I’m Yours. I worked with creative producer Patrick Cronin to connect a bunch of community networks to the project and support them to take part in both the decoration and participation in the public programs that ran alongside the installation of 24 pianos in the public space.

What was really inspiring was producing Play Me, I’m Yours – the Cypher Remix which was a collaboration between young artists from my long running Hip Hop music mentoring program Dig Deep and Baba Israel and YAKO440 from New York City. As three of the pianos were in metro locations (Coburg, Altona and Dandenong) the Dig Deep crew reached out to young artists from those areas to broaden their collective and incorporate a range of disciplines and styles outside their own. Baba and Yako worked with these artists for three days to devise a half hour street performance piece that incorporated beatbox, dance, rapping and singing, live instrumentation and street art. The last three days of the project were spent performing at one CBD and one metro location per day. It was a fantastic experience for everyone involved and I really enjoyed spending time with Baba and Yako as they are such great cats! Video to follow…

Dan West News