“There lived a humble rice farmer who set out to find justice.” The words appear on a screen above the stage as percussionist Claire Edwardes wrings supernatural timbres from a bowed waterphone. Low slides from Freya Schack-Arnott’s cello mingle with glittering percussion in the ambient introduction to Seven Stories, a collaboration between Sydney new music group Ensemble Offspring, writer and director Hilary Bell, seven composers, and Melbourne film-maker Sarah-Jane Woulahan at City Recital Hall as part of Vivid Sydney.

Seven Stories draws on the ideas presented by Christopher Booker in his 2004 book The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, in which Booker outlines archetypal plotlines, referred to in this performance as: The Quest, Overcoming the Darkness, Rags to Riches, Fatal Flaw, Comedy of Errors, Journey and Transformation.

Part of Ensemble Offspring’s year of championing female composers, the performance is constructed as a collaborative, modular composition, with each story-line brought to life by a different composer and augmented by Bell’s text and Woulahan’s visuals.

Golden egg shakers, tossed and caught in a ceremonial procession, are a visual and musical symbol of the goal in Caitlin Yeo’s Quest. The screen and TV composer’s work, accompanied by images...