A shack overlooking Stanwell Park Beach proved a source of inspiration for composer Daryl Wallis.
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His work The Aurobindo Project is based on a series of poems written by 20th century Indian yogi Sri Aurobindo and was developed while Wallis was staying with friends in the beachside suburb.
Wallis is now a resident of Stanwell Park himself, but several years ago was living in Sydney while working on the play Deadman's Brake at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre.
During that time he stayed with friends who had a home overlooking the water at Stanwell Park and Wallis made the most of a small shack near the cliff's edge.
"I'd come home from rehearsals at Wollongong, have dinner with my friends and then go into that shack and meditate from about midnight and drift off eventually," Mr Wallis said.
"I would find myself waking up again about 4am and I would flick through the book of poetry by Sri Aurobindo that I'd had for many, many years.
"I'd pick a poem and start setting it to music. What I found was about the time the sun would rise over the horizon that morning, that song would be finished."
He started collecting the songs, ultimately workshopping them with some singers at IPAC.
Stanwell Park is also a visual feature of The Aurobindo Project, via some "abstract" pre-dawn photos Wallis took.
"For the [Wollongong] show we're going to project them onto muslin screens and immerse the audience in the vision of the Stanwell Park Beach area - using that as a visual counterpoint to the series of songs," Mr Wallis said.
The Aurobindo Project will be staged at Wollongong Town Hall from July 16 to 18.