Donna Missal dances in her light at the Marquis Theater | March 16th, 2024
Photo / Juli Yanai (@jbelle.photo)
A crowd begins to form and people cheer as Melbourne-born and L.A. based artist, Banoffee (instagram – @banoffeemusic) plays an eclectic mix of music that’s been dubbed as “mutant pop” that has an underground feel to it. Their music is vulnerable in its own unique way, pairing honest yet subtle lyrics with upbeat dance mixes.
Songs like “Tapioca Cheeks” are a playful take on the genuine feelings of fear that often accompany falling in love as you find yourself falling deeper and losing control. Lines like, “Tears roll down your face, freckles look like taro bubble tea,” and “Cos I’m scared too, everything, everything you say makes you love me more,” come together in a soft pop mix that lets you dance out your feelings under the lights.
And that’s exactly what Banoffee does, taking the stage and unabashedly dancing around in their own quirky style, giving the audience permission to have fun and feel. It’s the perfect opening dance session as Banoffee hypes up the crowd, loosening their grips and senses before the main act. And Banoffee lies on the ground, breathing heavily from giving it their all in a full-bodied performance as the crowd cheers. Then they introduce the main act, Donna Missal (instagram – @donnamissal), before quietly slipping backstage.
For a period of time, the room is filled with chatter among the ambient background music that signals a transition between shows. People talk amongst themselves, excitedly awaiting Donna Missal, and small tidbits of their conversations can be overheard.
“She’s fantastic!” Someone says, and the anticipation is high.
The bassist and drummer begin setting up, checking sound and making sure everything is plugged in correctly. More and more people flow into the theater, filling any empty spaces that were left. Finally, from the black curtains behind the stage, Donna Missal emerges. The crowd erupts in cheers, and she reciprocates in charm and charisma as she graces the stage. Her presence is electric, and her vocals reverberate through the room.
Missal has a rare ability to command the stage and she can change the atmosphere according to her desired outcome. At times she’s a little cheeky and isn’t afraid to engage with individual audience members. But most of all, she’s having fun and taking the crowd along with her for the ride, dancing freely without inhibition.
And it’s no surprise, given her ability to be so vulnerable both on and off the stage. Missal is a force to be reckoned with, but her power comes from a genuine place rooted in deep transformation.
Upon first meeting Missal, she’s an absolute ray of light.
Walking through the backstage area to speak with Missal about her current tour, she bursts out with a hug and the enthusiasm one would expect from someone who’s meeting an old friend. It’s refreshing in a time where people can portray a certain persona online but be completely different in person, and immediately the conversation has an air of excitement.
Missal speaks about the altitude and how it’s been affecting her, and then the conversation moves on to discussing the vulnerability of performing a show.
Missal says that she’s glad the stage is compact, because she tends to go a little wild with her performances and it’s something she can’t restrain herself from doing. She describes it like blacking out and entering an alternate space, “I hear this a lot with people who play, that they can’t remember what happened when they get off. I think it’s just transcendent and you’re like, tapping into something. It’s a different state of being than like, you know, talking with you or talking with my friends.”
Continuing on the track of discussing how vulnerable performances are, she says she’s not logically processing it all until watching a performance afterward. “When I’m watching a performance, that’s one of the first things I’m noticing, like, this is such a level of vulnerability that’s abnormal in our day to day life and I think that’s what makes it so important to people.”
She goes on to describe it in her own way stating, “I just did a VIP event and we were talking about how it’s like church. You know, a church of the misfit people or people who need a space to commune and feel vulnerable feelings in the presence of other people. There’s nothing like that. Crying in your room and dancing alone on your bed is like one thing [or like scream-singing in your car], but doing it around lots of other people doing the exact same thing—there’s a totally different kind of energy to that kind of vulnerability where it’s on display, but it’s also so accepted by everybody else that surrounds you while you’re all sharing this communal vulnerability. It’s so special.”
Just listening to her speak, her sentences perfectly articulate the spiritual aspect of why concerts and performance spaces in general leave people feeling so awe-struck. And this is what Missal is really about, artistry in its purest form and its capacity to move people.
Since being dropped by her label, she’s had a reckoning with placing statistical constraints on her art and isn’t concerned about the numbers as much as growing and evolving as an artist. “I want to keep changing and [I think] that’s so important to the human experience. And I just want to be a vessel of my genuine human experience, which is full of growth and exploration and curiosity. And I just get to do that now in a way that doesn’t hold as much concern for whether these CEOs understand what I’m trying to do. And so I think the whole thing has kind of developed to not reflect that ideology. And that’s probably why it feels the most free to me, and I hope that the experience for the people watching and witnessing and being a part of it is also that this is the most genuine it’s been.”
Her general attitude toward life and artistry is liberated—free from the constraints of corporate interest. And although Missal stated that she never felt pushed to be a certain way by any label, she’s just become a lot less concerned with what’s going to sell and that reflects in her music.
Her newest work, “Revel” is a dance pop album that explores different aspects of the human experience. The album is at times slow and on the melancholy side. Her track “Paranoia” divulges about life in L.A., and “Flicker” is a rush of euphoria wrapped in a danceable beat. Among the list of tracks is also “I Saw God”, a song that captures the inexplicable and esoteric experience of being alive. Overall, Missal’s music is an ode to the multidimensionality of life.
And she doesn’t plan to stop creating and relaying her unique lens of the world anytime soon. Speaking on the driving force for her continuing to pursue music despite any obstacles she states, “I just can’t stop. Yeah, like I don’t wanna do anything else. I want to help others imagine who they are and the possibilities of what they are and who they are, and I wanna challenge people’s ideas [mostly] about themselves because that’s what I’m trying to do for myself.”
Missal goes on to say that she feels that creating a space music and art for others is her job; something she would do with or without an audience, and whether it makes money or not. Furthermore, she’s excited to be out of L.A., writing music in a different atmosphere and being apart of an era of artists shaking up the music industry.
And as Missal continues to seek truth in her experience through music and art, it’s clear that there are many people who look forward to seeing how she continues to capture the essence of the human spirit.
