In an Adelaide Festival exclusive and its Australian premiere, Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine has been one of the most anticipated shows of the Adelaide Festival 2026 program. Directed by former Adelaide Festival Director Peter Sellars, the show features the incredibly talented soprano Julia Bullock stepping into Baker’s shoes and the wonderful International Contemporary Ensemble.
Joséphine Baker was a dancer and singer who achieved great success in France, in the 1920s and 1930s, at a time when people of colour were segregated in the USA, where she grew up. Baker was more than just a dancer and singer though, she was an important part of the French Resistance, using her celebrity to gain access to, and to spy on, high-ranking officials. She would hide secret invisible ink messages in her sheet music, and her underwear while travelling through Europe.
Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine does not show most of that. A tiny reference is made to her receiving the French National Honour medal, when she talks about finding her place in the world, but for anyone coming to the show without knowing much about Joséphine, they would be unsure why. This erasure renders the medal reference cryptic, sidelining her heroism.
Similarly, Joséphine was particularly famous for her banana skirt act. Again, this is not mentioned, rather just the allusion to her being considered primal because of the colour of her skin. The show opens powerfully with a famous Josephine Baker quote: “I am for performance. I am for consumption. I try to give everything. I forfeit my place in the community, because only on my own can I pursue having as much as anyone has ever had.”
Baker was also a strong activist for the black rights movement. This is alluded to with the powerful concluding song, but it felt like it took a long time for the show to reach that point. Rather, the songs seem to be about wishing one’s skin wasn’t black.
Singer Julia Bullock does not attempt to mimic Joséphine Baker, and nor should she. Bullock’s poised intensity mirrors Baker’s resolve, yet leaves audiences craving her triumphs. Accompanied by the stellar International Contemporary Ensemble comprised of Tyshawn Sorey on piano and percussion (he also composed the score), Jennifer Curtis on violin, Dan Lippel on guitar, Alice Teyssier on flute, Rebekah Heller on bassoon, and Travis Laplante on saxophone, the audience was entertained by a combination of jazz, opera, and spoken word courtesy of poet Claudia Rankine.
Bullock is not just a soprano; she lends her voice easily to the jazz style. She is also perfect whether she be singing in English or French, as she does in Perle Noire: Méditations for Joséphine. Bullock proves to be a wonderful performer, particularly fluid in her movements. In one piece, where she plays on Baker performing what white audiences expected black people to be, Bullock gives her all as she thrashes about. Movement Director Michael Schumacher is to be thanked for his wonderful choreography, particularly of this scene. Bullock is also impressively emotive in her performance, notably the feeling of despair during the rendition of Si j’étais blanche (If I were white).
Tyshawn Sorey has rearranged many of Baker’s songs which appear in the song, whether it be changing the tempo, or changing the genre. The famous “Bye Bye, Blackbird” is slowed right down for example, Sous le ciel d’Afrique completely changes the tone.
In Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine you will hear Bye Bye Blackbird, Sous le Ciel d’Afrique (Under Africa’s sky), C’est ca le vrai bonheur (that’s true happiness), Madiana, Si j’étais blanche (If I were white), Doudou, C’est lui, Terre Sèche (Dry earth). All completely differently arranged to how you will have heard them before.
The set is simple, a flight of stairs leading up to a platform backlit in changing colours, whether it be representing the red African soils, or yellow for hope. Lighting Designer James F. Ingalls is to be congratulated for this simple but very effective lighting choice.
The show is strikingly relevant today in an America, and perhaps not just America, where the colour of your skin determines your treatment. In an increasingly anti-migrant world, the segregation Baker fled, and fought against, doesn’t seem to be in the distant past. Sticking only to the darkness of Joséphine’s world, it confronts our own white privileges but remains too ‘woe is me’, and not reflective of Baker’s full heroism and joy.
Perle Noire: Méditations for Joséphine is far from autobiographical, rather it is, as the name suggests “for Josephine” rather than “of” or “about”. It is right to make the audience unsettled and to remind it that the world has not changed all that much, but in sticking only to the darkness of Joséphine’s world, it does little to educate audiences about who she really was, and her achievements. Just as the content of the show is intentionally unsettling for audiences, so too at times is the score. A gong jolts audiences out of their seats a few times throughout the 90 minute show. While a gong often signals the serene end of a meditation (fitting the show’s title), these sharp strikes are instead designed to confront and jolt the audience.
If we were to rate this show on performances alone, we would give it 5 croissants. However, it is the single faceted focus only on the darkness in Joséphine’s world that lets down what could have been a truly wonderful production.
3.5 CROISSANTS
Matilda Marseillaise was a guest of Adelaide Festival
The Adelaide Festival season of Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine has concluded.
