Perfectly Imperfect: The Voice Australia singer brings inspiring new show

When Queensland singer Julee-anne Bell wanted to start a family, she felt like the world was telling her she shouldn’t, but what some may see as a heartbreaking genetic condition she sees as just another characteristic that makes her who she is. Why would she be worried to pass that onto her kids?

Julee-anne Bell singer, voice teacher and one of the the creators of inspiring production Perfectly Imperfect.

To Julee-anne Bell sound is everything: the sound of water pouring into a glass, footsteps shuffling, or a key on a piano.

As a singer and voice teacher, not only is Ms Bell’s musical ear great at picking up on the slightest noises and notes, but hearing is her primary way of navigating the world.

HEAR HER STORY 

The Queensland singer was born completely blind, and although the majority of people who have vision impairments have at least some form of light perception, Ms Bell is one of the rare few who doesn’t.

“It’s rare that you have this condition where you have no vision and no light perception, and that’s me,” she said.

“Having absolutely nothing really does change the game a bit, but that’s how it’s been ever since I was born.”

It didn’t take long before her mum realised something was wrong with her sight as a baby but it wasn’t until she was about 20 that Ms Bell was officially diagnosed with Leber Congenital amaurosis, a rare recessive genetic condition.

“Back then a CT scan, which is the best way to tell what’s going on with your optic nerves, well that was science fiction,” she said.

Leber Congenital Amaurosis is an inherited retinal disease that affects about 1 in 80,000 people, according to Retina Australia.

Ms Bell’s disability has never stopped her from creating a vision and after going on The Voice Australia in 2021 as ‘a bit of a dare’ her duet with Guy Sebastian became one of the most watched videos in The Voice Australia history.

Pianist Melissa Buchholz (left) and singer Julee-anne Bell (right) the creators of inspiring production Perfectly Imperfect.

She has now created her own production alongside Toowoomba pianist Melissa Buchholz, called Perfectly Imperfect, which includes songs from the 60s up until now.

Ms Bell said Perfectly Imperfect is a performance that celebrates everybody’s imperfections, and shares stories and struggles from Ms Bell and Ms Buchholz’s lives.

“Everybody is imperfect and that’s just by the sheer nature of being human and if we lean into that, that itself makes us perfect,” she said.

“That’s where we became perfectly imperfect.”

Throughout her life Ms Bell said she constantly felt that people looked at her with pity and judgement for being blind.

“You can go down a pretty ugly mental health spiral if you don’t work at being positive about this, because the world still believes that I need to be fixed,” she said.

“The world still believes there’s something wrong with me, that I am less than someone who can see, and that takes its toll.”

When the time came that Ms Bell wanted to start a family she said she felt the judgment of people around her, worried that she would pass her condition onto her children.

She said there was a one in four chance of passing it on to her children, and at the time it was something she was very concerned about.

“I very much had adopted the social mentality of the time which was that there was something wrong with me and I needed to be fixed and so I didn’t want there to be something wrong with my children,” she said.

“That mindset is still very much in existence.

“I’ve since changed my thinking about that and I understand that my blindness is just another characteristic, it’s just like anything else.”

Neither of her kids have any vision impairment but Ms Bell said she wouldn’t have cared either way.

“I don’t think I would have been too troubled if my children were blind because they would have had the best teacher,” she said.

“I know plenty of blind people who have blind children and do incredibly well.”

Ms Bell said people look at her as if being blind must be a terrible experience but it is all she’s ever known and she has come to accept that is just part of who she is.

“It’s really tough for people to understand why I’m so comfortable being blind, because vision is something that you have all grown to rely on – it is your primary sense,” she said.

“It is the way you understand the world and so for you that notion of not having that seems terrible and seems kind of heartbreaking, and it is for somebody who loses that.

“For someone who loses that vision it’s a very stressful and grief filled process, but for me it is not really like that.”

Ms Bell has taken her teaching from the city to the country and now teaches singing lessons in Kingaroy, after moving from Brisbane in 2018.

She runs singing lessons out of a home studio and also supports people who are blind or losing their vision.

“There’s a lot of people who are losing their vision due to age or some people who just happen to be blind and to get services is quite tricky,” she said.

“People do lose hope when they lose their vision because it’s what they’re used to, they’re used to being able to see.

“It’s really nice to be able to say ‘actually you’re going to be OK. You’re gonna have a great life, it’s going to be a little bit different but you’re going to be okay.’”

She said the world has come a long way in supporting people with different disabilities but many people still see it as an effort to be accommodating.

“They see it as a hardship, they see this as something extra they have to do,” she said.

“It’s sad, the human condition is such that unless you are Joe Average nobody is really very interested in making things that work for you.

“While vision is your everything, I can do just about everything that you can do, without it – except drive.

Ms Bell said she can’t get her head around the idea of self driving cars.

“I really think that there should at least be someone who can see in every car,” she laughed.

Ms Bell and Ms Buchholz have already performed Perfectly Imperfect in New South Wales, Adelaide and parts of Queensland and will be bringing the show to the Toowoomba Armitage Centre on Saturday July 19 at 7pm.

Tickets can be bought at empiretheatre.com.au.

Audiences can join in on the show by taking part in a community vocal workshop, where participants will join the performers for a few songs as the ‘back up choir’.

Singers can contact Elaine Coates on 0407621380 to register and the workshop is on Saturday July 12 at 10am.

Originally published as Perfectly Imperfect: The Voice Australia singer brings inspiring new show