09/07/2026
NEUROTIC, EROTIC, WHIMSICAL: A NIGHT OF CATHARTIC CABARET IN LAKES ENTRANCE, FRIDAY 17th JULY
Critically acclaimed spoken word poet, lyricist, singer and musician Amy Bodossian is set to mesmerise an East Gippsland Winter Festival audience at Ice-works studios next week, with her thought provoking, candid and entertaining cabaret show.
‘I’m talking about my life as a 47 year old woman with OCD and ADHD’, she said of a repertoire that explores the gritty truisms of everything from unrequited love and longing to nature, aging, doom scrolling and the neuroticisms of modern life.
‘It’s like being in my lounge room’, she said.
‘There’s no forth wall, I bear my soul and invite people to come with me on this human experience, come into my world and have a unique live music theatre experience that will definitely scratch an itch. Hopefully people will laugh and possibly cry.’
In an era of diagnosis declaration, where more people are publicly identifying as living with ADHD, Amy said it’s hard to distinguish where living as a neurodivergent artist begins, and living in an uncertain and unsettling world ends- a world where transactional encounters, artificial intelligence, social media feeds and goldfish attention spans are surely exacerbating the agonies of the human condition.
But for Amy, performing and storytelling has been a life long means of emotional self-regulation, to process the hyper-vigilance that comes with childhood trauma.
Describing herself as a progressive person, with hypersensitive anarchist tendencies, she recalls how she would often get into trouble at school for pointing out uncomfortable truths.
‘I have to alchemize, because the saboteur in me is very front and centre’, she said of her need to analyse the shadows within - a natural talent which has ultimately gifted her a career of honest, poignant, funny and relatable material.
In her stream of consciousness performance style, which slides between spoken word and songs, Amy takes the audience on a dynamic musical journey through blues, pop, folk, psychedelic songs.
‘We all struggle have pain, have longing and fear, and life is absurd- people want to feel and hear those feelings’, she said, of her shows that are described as 'neurotic, erotic, whimsical and spiritual.'
Like many Gen X artists, Amy has had to re-navigate a changing culture where things have shifted at an alarming rate, where income, infrastructure and opportunity has largely evaporated for creatives.
‘Audiences have changed, Covid brought out the introvert in us all’, she said of Melbourne’s live music, theatre and performance scene which has struggled ever since.
But in describing herself ‘an aging female performer, now going through peri menopause’, she said that the adversity and limitations of the times have also galvanised her authenticity.
There is a sense of self-awareness, wisdom, focus and contentment that comes with age and experience, in keeping things meaningful.
‘It’s very healing for people to come together and have this experiences in this world’, Amy said.
‘People need medicine for life at the moment- I think people are struggling. Musical theatre is good for us. I just want to have as many beautiful experiences with as many people as I can.’
Amy Bodossian performs her cabaret show ‘Becoming (Again & Again) Songs Stories and Wildness’ on Friday 17th July, 7.30 pm at Iceworks Studios in Lakes Entrance, as part of the East Gippsland Winter Festival.
