Across Ella and Sienna’s music career, Taylor Swift has always been one of their biggest inspirations. They grew up listening to a number of artists that blended raw song writing with pop, such as Missy Higgins, Ed Sheeran and P!nk, as well as Swift herself.
Learning to sing and play guitar at a time when the American singer-songwriter was at the top of her game as a country artist, having released the albums Speak Now and Red, her songs were the obvious choice for Ella and Sienna to start with.
Swift has stuck with the sisters across their entire singing career. They auditioned with the song ‘Cardigan’ for season 11 of The Voice Australia in 2022, where they made it on to team Rita Ora.
Now Ella and Sienna are bringing their show REPUTATION: The Ultimate Taylor Swift Show back to Adelaide for its third Fringe season since their debut in 2023.
Even though the show is titled after only one of Swift’s 11 album discography, Ella says it covers every single era: almost like the Eras Tour before the Eras Tour.
“We really wanted to do a show at the Fringe, but we knew we wanted to do something kind of novelty, fun, different to an original show,” Ella says.
“Obviously we’re both Swifties… and I just said what if we did a Taylor swift show and we started – this is before the Eras Tour, mind you – from the beginning of her career and we did every single album.
“And then it was so funny because a month later she obviously announced the Eras Tour, which was pretty much exactly that.”
With this perfect timing Ella says the show became an alternative for local Swifties who perhaps weren’t fortunate enough to get their hands on a coveted ticket to one of Swift’s few shows in Melbourne and Sydney.
“She has so many hits, we couldn’t just do a Taylor Swift tour with only one album, you know?” Ella says.
“We wanted to call it Reputation because I think that album kind of sums up the show the most. I think we wanted to show it’s going to be a full band, it’s going to be powerful, it’s going to be punchy.
“[The Reputation set] is crazy, it’s got mash-ups, medleys, and of course we love that album.”
Friendship Bracelets and Connection
Since the show’s debut at the Adelaide Fringe three years ago, Ella and Sienna have taken it on a nationwide tour and Ella says it has become like the Eras Tour in more ways than one.
Not only do Ella and Sienna explore every single Swift album on stage, with the costume changes to match, but audience-goers dig out their sequins and their friendship bracelets and do the same.
In a song on her 10th album Midnights, Swift wrote “make the friendship bracelets,” and it became an Eras Tour tradition for fans to make and exchange friendship bracelets.
This tradition has also caught on at Ella and Sienna’s shows.
“Everyone’s dressing up, everyone’s getting in the spirit, and we always come home with stacks and stacks of friendship bracelets on our arms,” Ella says. “I have multiple shoe boxes at home just filled with these friendship bracelets, and they’re all personalised.
“From the bottom of our hearts we’re so grateful and it just makes us so happy. It’s such a beautiful community thing and a beautiful, obviously, Swiftie thing, and I wish everybody did that at every show because it’s so sweet and it really brings everyone together.”
REPUTATION: The Ultimate Taylor Swift Show, Arkaba Hotel, 8-9 March