Amanda Stewart (born 1959) is a contemporary Australian poet and sound/performance artist. Amanda Stewart began writing and performing poetry in the 1970s and has since produced a wide array of sound, video and multimedia work. In the 1980s she worked for ABC radio as a producer. In 1989 she co-founded the performance ensemble Machine for Making Sense with Chris Mann, Rik Rue, Jim Denley and Stevie Wishart, and in 1995 started the trio Allos. She co-wrote and directed the 1990 film Eclipse of the Man-Made Sun about nuclear weapons in popular culture. Her opera The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, written with the composer Colin Bright, was performed as part of the Sydney Festival on Sydney Harbour in 1997. It has since been produced for radio by the ABC. Her collected works book and CD entitled 'I/T' won the 1999 Anne Elder Award for poetry. Stewart proves the human voice is capable of much more than just talking and singing: all those gasps, "ums" and sighs can be made into music, too.
"The voice is an incredible instrument," says Stewart, who refined her interest during the decade she worked as an ABC radio producer. "When you are cutting up voices all day, you hear different things. You notice how people can be saying one thing, but their voice is revealing something else." Stewart, who has performed extensively in Europe, incorporates fragments of French, German and English into her show. She says she hopes listeners won't be too scared by the unfamiliar results.
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