Tagline & Concept
Changeling: The Before and The After - A 90-minute intergalactic transgender music theatre performance: One-of-a-kind. Features a live performance between the artist and their former self, with other virtual characters, exploring identity, gender transition, and emotional healing across time and space. Humorous and heartwarming.
Synopsis
Intergalactic Transgender Music Theatre Work
Across the galaxy, where myth and truth intertwine, the ancient transgender legend of the Changeling is reimagined. A being living between two worlds — left in place of another — shaped by magic, yet never quite belonging. Axel transforms this myth into an intergalactic musical reflecting his own late-in-life transition from female to male. The work centres on the relationship between the Before and the After: historical mezzo vocals parrying with a newly formed baritone, creating a moving dialogue across time and space.
Audiences are invited aboard Star Ship, with Axel as both Captain and In-Flight Entertainment Officer. Together, we journey from the outer Heliosheath back toward Earth. Expect comedic turbulence - including disruptions from Star Ship’s Tim Curryesque unrequited romantic advances - alongside moments of reflection, wonder and connection. Through soaring harmonies, rhythmic soundscapes and playful theatricality, Changeling explores universal themes of love, inclusion, self-acceptance and hope. Changeling is a cosmic, pop-operatic anthem of LGBTQIA+ identity and the power of becoming.
This is a one-of-a-kind music theatre work blending original composition, storytelling, humour and immersive sound design. Performed live by Axel Starviking, the work explores identity, gender transition and emotional healing across time and space — heartwarming, humorous and deeply human. At its core is a rare live dialogue between the artist and his former self, alongside other virtual characters, creating a powerful conversation across memory, voice and becoming.
Feedback
“The music took me on a journey of discovery.”
— Vincenzo Pandolfi, Finalist, ABC The Piano (NSW)
“The transformative sound spoke to my soul. There is heart, strength and inspiration in this.”
— Larissa Dean, STAR 104.5 Radio (NSW)
“I felt emotional and swept away — like floating with the harmonies.”
— Jacky Foxhall, Top Cat Entertainment (NSW)
Composition Samples
Blackened Bones
[Pre-Release]
Galaxies of Gold
[Pre-Release]
New World Born
[Pre-Release]
Ready Now
[Pre-Release]
About Axel
Axel StarViking is a Central Coast NSW–based polymath creative whose work spans music, theatre, visual art, wearable art, writing, tattoo art, hypnosis, psychotherapy and community arts practice. With over forty years of performance experience across multiple disciplines, Axel’s work sits at the intersection of storytelling, music, identity, visual design and community engagement.
Axel trained as a vocalist in the Bel canto tradition and began performing professionally at a young age in South Africa, touring nationally and internationally for over a decade with the KwaZulu-Natal Youth Choir as a soloist and assistant conductor. His performance career has included theatre, concert performance, choral work, solo performance and multidisciplinary arts projects across South Africa and Australia. His musical work now combines electronic pop rock opera, folk influences, classical voice and Afro-inspired rhythmic elements, reflecting both his South African roots and his later life in Australia.
As a multidisciplinary artist, Axel has worked across more than forty creative industries over his lifetime, including traditional painting, body and face painting, special effects art, wearable art and costume design, theatre direction, music education, community arts programming and tattoo art. His wearable art practice includes sculptural Viking-inspired Valkyrie crowns and headpieces made from found objects, jewellery, natural materials and textiles, which form an important visual element of his theatrical performances.
Axel is also a published author and Clinical Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist, and has written books on self-hypnosis, cognitive restructuring and personal transformation. His work often explores themes of identity, transformation, mythology, survival, memory and belonging, and these themes appear across his music, theatre, visual art and writing.
His major performance works include Changeling, a theatrical concert exploring identity and transformation through storytelling and music, and Intergalactica, a festival and concert performance combining original music, storytelling and community participation. Axel’s performances are known for combining powerful vocals, theatrical storytelling, wearable art costuming and immersive audience experiences.
As a regional queer artist based on the Central Coast of NSW, Axel is passionate about creating and presenting high-quality arts experiences in regional communities and building strong arts networks outside major metropolitan centres. His work is deeply connected to community, collaboration and storytelling, and he continues to develop new theatre works, music projects, wearable art collections and community arts events.
Axel StarViking’s work is ultimately about transformation, storytelling and connection — creating art that allows people to see themselves, their stories and their possibilities reflected back to them through music, theatre and visual art.
Tour Ready Program - Central Coast Council
Tour Ready - Changeling was chosen as one of 12 recipients of the “From Gosford with Love” Tour Ready Program, and is Proudly supported by the Central Coast Council community development grants program & delivered to you by the Funhaus Factory Gosford.
Writing & Theatrical Development
Wearable Art
The visual world of Changeling is built through a collection of wearable art, handcrafted costuming and crowns, with fourteen distinct looks that appear throughout the Changeling Art Film (Filmed in Regional Places across the Central Coast of NSW and Releasing 2027) segments of which will be projected on stage during each corresponding song. with four of those looks appearing in the Changeling show.
Each costume represents a different emotional landscape, character or stage of transformation, using layered fabrics, textures, found objects, symbolic materials and hand-made crowns. The crowns themselves are not traditional royal symbols, but expressions of identity, survival, imagination and personal mythology. Alongside the costumes are small props and wearable sculptural elements that extend the storytelling beyond the music and lyrics, turning the stage into a moving gallery of living artworks.
Together, these fourteen wearable pieces create a visual journey that mirrors the themes of change, resilience, identity and becoming that sit at the heart of Changeling.
Promo Reel 2025
Changeling has evolved extensively since this video was created.
Preliminary Changeling Interview & Promo [4:00min]
Initial Pre-Production Changeling Concept Interview with Axel Starviking, featuring samples of Coelacanth, The Mountain, Blackened Bones and Fall Freely, with video footage filmed on location in Hunter St, Newcastle, interview footage and artwork footage by Axel Starviking, location shoot by Nakita Pritchard.
Logo
The AXEL logo is constructed from a single golden star repeated four times, one star for each letter of my name. Each star has had sections of its points removed and reshaped so that the stars form the letters A X E L. The letters are not written in a traditional font. Instead, they are carved out of stars, so the name is discovered rather than simply read.
This design was inspired by David Bowie’s Blackstar album cover, where Bowie created his name from star shapes rather than letters. That idea resonated deeply with me. Stars are symbols of guidance, identity, distance, mythology, and transformation. They exist in darkness but produce light. That symbolism felt very aligned with my life, my music, and my work.
"There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He'd like to come and meet us,
But he thinks he'd blow our minds.
There's a starman waiting in the sky.
He's told us not to blow it,
'Cause he knows it's all worthwhile.
He told me: Let the children lose it,
Let the children use it,
Let all the children boogie"
- David Bowie "Starman" (released 1972)
"Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place,
and bravely cried "I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar."
- David Bowie "Blackstar" (Last album released 2016 2 days before he passed away)
The stars represent identity that is not fixed, but formed through experience, pressure, time, and transformation. Just as stars are formed through immense pressure and heat, identity is often formed through challenge, growth, and change.
Beneath the stars are two half rings. These rings serve a practical purpose and a symbolic one. Practically, they provide structure for the physical badges and jewellery versions of the logo so the stars can be cast and worn as objects. Symbolically, the two rings represent duality.
As a trans man, my life contains two lived experiences that exist at the same time. The smaller inner ring represents my lived female experience. It is not erased or removed, but held within my story and remains part of my history and identity. The larger outer ring represents my male identity and the person I am in the world now. The two rings sit together, not in conflict, but in structure and balance, holding the stars above them.
Together, the stars and rings represent identity, transformation, duality, survival, creation, and self-definition. The logo is not just a name. It is a map of who I have been, who I am, and who I am still becoming.
Social Media
Hashtags
#Starviking, #Popopera, #LGBTQIA+, #RegionalArt, #LGBTQTheatre, #QueerTheatre, #QueerCompostition, #TransgenderSinger, #Transman, #TransSinger, #Baritone, #Mezzo, #OriginalMusic, #AxelStarviking, #AxelStar, #AxelTrans, #Crowns, #Wearableart, #Rhinestones
Keywords
Starviking, Pop opera, LGBTQIA+, Regional Art, LGBTQ Theatre, Queer Theatre, Queer Compostition, Transgender Singer, #Transman, #TransSinger, #Baritone, #Mezzo, Original Music, Axel Starviking, Axel Star, Axel Trans, Crowns, Wearable Art, Rhinestones