Try To Keep Up With Beatrice Lewis' Multiple Projects

The festive electro posse Haiku Hands will join an eclectic curated ensemble of local vocalists, musicians and dancers at Multi Futurism - its mission to finally vanquish outmoded notions of 'world music'.

The party is the first in a series backed by Multicultural Arts Victoria, with various artists performing with each other to manifest new hybrid cultural experiences.

Haiku Hands' Beatrice Lewis admits that she's only given preliminary thought to their mash-up set with MC/singer/DJ Muma Doesa, plus street dancers Jonathan Homsey and Madfox. Right now Lewis - vocalist, instrumentalist and producer - is in Alice Springs preparing for the Wide Open Spaces Festival, where she'll accompany the group Kardajala Kirri-darra (The Sand Hill Women) and Hiatus Kaiyote. Well, kind of. "I'm actually in Kmart in Alice Springs, which is even more exciting," Lewis laughs. "I'm in a band with some ladies from Marlinja - it's halfway between Alice and Darwin. They love Kmart, so we literally drive ten hours and then go to Kmart. It's the best."

Lewis has many roles ("I'm a lunatic!"). She's a workshop facilitator - passionately fostering Indigenous women's music. Lewis also has a burgeoning solo music career, which saw her participate in the 2016 Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) in Montreal. She has DJed for TZU MC Joelistics. And then she's a member of Haiku Hands, along with the Sydney-based Claire Nakazawa and Mataya Young. Nakazawa's sister, Mie, is involved as a visual artist. "Joelistics had to do a thing at triple j, Beat The Drum - they had a 40th anniversary. Joel got up with You Am I. He needed four backing singers to get up. He got Claire to gather four women - so they got up in front of 50,000 people... Joel was like, 'This vibe is awesome,' - the world needs super-vibing, bangin' female groups. So he just started mentoring all of us and got us all together."

Haiku Hands have developed what Lewis describes as a "genreless" aesthetic - spanning pop, electro, trap and everything between. The band's music is socially conscious, but they avoid the "didactic". "Haiku Hands is very much about creating an energy and lyrical context that is tongue-in-cheek and entertaining, but also exploring really deep messages and political ideas." The quartet have been accumulating material for release - a single imminent.

At Multi Futurism, Haiku Hands will perform for the first time with the seasoned Muma Doesa, who draws on her South African heritage. "She's amazing," Lewis extols, "she's got truth and she's not afraid to say it." Mixing it up even more will be Homsey and Madfox, both practitioners of waacking - a street dance style that has its origins in Los Angeles' queer subculture and is today huge across Asia. On her return from Alice Springs, Lewis will start rehearsals. "We're all gonna get together for three days and create something really interesting," she promises. "It's gonna be an amalgamation of voice and beats and movement. We're really looking at good use of colour and staging costumes and things like that."