Awesome Ocean Party review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Butterfly Club

We’ve all been invited to a party - an ocean party for our half-human half-octopus friend. Created and performed by Giema Contini, Awesome Ocean Party is a 60-minute cabaret-comedy-performance piece that explores loneliness and acceptance through the eyes (and three hearts) of this hybrid creature. 

Contini has great physicality on stage and fully conveys the awkwardness of her character that later reveals to us that it is her birthday and the human side to her begins to surface. Her interactions with the audience are sweet and genuine and convey her longing to belong and be accepted.

Awesome Ocean Party | Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

One of the myriad of shows being performed at The Butterfly Club this Melbourne Fringe Festival, Awesome Ocean Party is one show you would be mad to miss. Created and performed by Giema Contini, it incorporates song, storytelling and an ocean themed birthday party that won over audiences at The Anywhere Theatre Festival in Brisbane last year. Now it's Melbourne turn to witness the magic and charm.

"The concept for Awesome Ocean Party was originally something completely different. In 2012 I had an idea for a solo show called: Broken Heart Syndrome. I was fascinated by the fact that Broken Heart Syndrome is an actual scientific condition where people can literally die from a broken heart," Contini explains. "I quickly discovered that the medical name for BHS is: takotsubo cardiomyopathy, which translates to: octopus-trap heart disease. The condition was first discovered by a Japanese cardiovascular specialist and it was called takostubo cardiomyopathy because there is a reflex in the heart that balloons out to the shape of an octopus trap when Broken Heart Syndrome occurs. This piece of information lead me down an amazing path involving octopuses (did you know they have three hearts??), Hawaiian creation myths, broken hearts and birthdays."