What a weekend!
Yesterday was the launch of a new song, Rainbow Steps, written in honour of the famous Adamstown Uniting Church rainbow-painted staircase.
The song projects a message of hope while also exploring what the various colours of the Pride flag are designed to represent, including black which was added in 2019 to represent the Indigenous heritage of our land and the Indigenous LGBTQI+ community.
The film clip (created by Adamstown Church’s tech wiz and local music legend Rod Barnes) features myself singing the song, accompanied by Newcastle’s cabaret star and female impersonator Wayne Rogers, and Indigenous dancer Janaya Lamb. A wonderful display of the church’s varied members (young and not so young; straight, gay and gender fluid; ethically diverse and ability diverse; rhythmically gifted and not so rhythmically gifted – no that’s a lie, they were all rhythmically gifted) helps to bring a sense of heart-warming fun to the rest of the clip!
The filming of the clip commenced during lockdown which resulted in a crafty member of the church creating a green screen to allow people to film themselves in a COVID-safe way, instead of gathering as a group in front of the actual steps themselves.
It has really pushed us creatively to find a way around the changing restrictions when creating the film clip, but I think it actually resulted in a magical outcome, perhaps even better than it would have turned out had we not been forced to do it this way. What an incredible achievement for a local church.
The positive and catchy nature of the song is spreading on Facebook where the song has been launched though both the my page and the Adamstown Uniting Church page.
The song will become available from Spotify and iTunes in the next week to allow this happy message to flow further afield.
So please spread the love!