In a world of influencers and social media, where livelihoods can literally hinge on the ability to keep up appearances, Brisbane creative Charli Burrowes uses her art to expose the not-so-pretty undercurrents and real world impacts of living life through a filter.
For Burrowes, in her reinvented one-woman stage show Bloom Girl, finding love and pursuing romance is all about keeping up appearances, and her blog, and her social media accounts, and her followers.
Described as “Alice in a dark digital wonderland”, the show explores how the lead character juggles her carefully curated online persona and the “real” world, using splashy gestures to get the attention of potential lovers.
The visuals featured in the show include beautiful artwork, “Marilyn Monroe inspired scenes” and striking costumes — a stark contrast from the red dirt and tumbleweed of Burrowes’ childhood.
The outback town of Cloncurry, in central Queensland, was the birthplace of her creative talents, where the sparkle of filters and fantasy was only accessible via the local movie theatre.
“It’s very, very small. Not many people have heard of it. It’s in the middle of nowhere, about 2,000 people live there. It’s so remote they actually shot a season of Survivor there,” Burrowes recalls.
“So as a little kid living there, the only thing I really had was imagination and books and movies … I’d spend my weekend watching movies and playing dress ups and trying to recreate the stories.”
She has her fingers in many creative pies, using the sales from her artwork to fund her short films and other productions.
“It’s a crazy thing that shouldn’t really work, but somehow by the skin of my teeth it has been,” she says.
“I have a blog and an Instagram and every week people tune in to read my stories and they watch the journey of trying to make these things and bring them to life and I’m pretty honest about all of it — how hard it is to try and self-generate and raise funding.”
The idea for the show bloomed (pun intended) during the pandemic when Burrowes says she was struggling with the lack of human connection.
“There’s such a powerful thing about sitting across from another human being and the oldest and most beautiful form of storytelling, is just storytelling and I want to do that,” she said.
Burrowes says it took about two years to refine the story of Bloom Girl and bring it to life in a way that was genuine and authentic.
The stage show version supersedes a flashier, busier film version from earlier this year that Burrowes admits needed to be stripped back.
“In the show all the character wants to do is take everything off and say something real and in making the show I’ve had to get to this place where I’ve had to strip it all back, take away all these big expensive flashing neons [lights] and get it back to just a girl on a stage telling a story, trying to say something real,” she said.
“I do believe some of the most powerful art, and what people connect with, comes from a place of truth, and honesty and vulnerability.
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“What the character experiences in the show is something we can all relate to, which is everybody, to some degree, feels like we have to curate some sort of better version of ourselves online … we do think about what we choose to share with people.
“Everyone of us is performing on our own little stage every other day now, and I think that’s really disrupting our ability to have genuine connections with other people.
“The show is a big warning — stop overthinking yourself, stop filtering, stop dumbing other people to what you really are and let them in.”
A leader not a follower
The show is produced by Pacharo Mzembe, a Brisbane-based actor and producer, who agrees social media and the pressure to filter our feed has penetrated all avenues of life and relationships.
“Social media has an insane impact on all our lives … the curation aspect of social media, I feel by default you can’t win online,” he says.
“If you’re going to place anything up on social media, by default, everyone’s going to believe that’s who you are.
“Technologically we’re more interconnected but socially we are more disconnected as a result.”
Born in Zimbabwe to Malawian parents, Mzembe’s family fled their home country when civil war broke out, eventually arriving in Australia when he was aged six.
In the years since, he’s been accepted into the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA), run across Australia for Run for Awareness (a campaign to help disadvantaged youth) and chalked up an impressive resume on IMDB — his latest acting gig alongside Hollywood great Russell Crowe in Sleeping Dogs.
Life has him on a skyrocketing trajectory, but he says his feet are firmly planted in Brisbane.
“I look forward to this event as the first of many more local collaborations and events I will execute through PM Collab Operations in Brisbane,” Mzembe said.
“I believe Brisbane is home to an abundance of incredibly talented creatives who do already have international reach and this notion that ‘we have to leave to make it’, I don’t subscribe to.”
The creative coupling of Burrowes and Mzembe for Bloom Girl makes perfect sense.
“Two years ago I started PM Collab Operations where I wanted to be collaborating with other artists,” Mzembe said.
“At the beginning of this year when the company was fully fledged I said, ‘OK, who am I going to collaborate with?’.
“And then this opportunity popped up and I said ‘OK, let’s do it’.”
He directed his first short film last month, but is “really pumped” to make his theatrical or stage debut.
“The vision for PM Collab Operations is to inspire fearless aspirants but in order to do that, for me … I believe it’s through storytelling.
“So I’m all about these kinds of stories and collaborating with artists like Charli … really pushing them to be fearless as well, be unafraid.”
Bloom Girl will hit the stage at the Thomas Dixon Centre on December 16.