A beautiful sunny afternoon in Botanic Park greeted the excited crowd attending the 25th WOMADelaide 2017.
The Global Village was soon bustling with eager punters searching out their favourite food vendors and clothing stalls as two explorers replete with pith helmets, bugles, telescopes, and backpacks saunter past riding on giant dodos. Cie Ekart's Les Dodos is one of the many roving acts adding a surreal air to the festivities as the annual celebration of diverse world music, dance, art, food and ideas gets under way.
The traditional Kaurna Welcome to Country opened the proceedings on the Foundation Stage with traditional dance and song and the witty repartee of local Kaurna Elder Steve Gadlabarti Goldsmith.
Goldsmith translated the songs and pointed out the ancient spiritual nature of the area in which we were gathered. I feel sure that I was not alone in being moved by his speech as he told us the traditional names of the area and called upon the spirits of the trees, the Earth, the sky and the water to bless our gathering.
He wryly pointed out that there were two anniversaries this year, 25 years of WOMADelaide and 50 years of the recognition of Australian First Nation People as human beings. The point was not lost on us.
The Warsaw Village Band took to the Foundation Stage with extraordinary energy and skill. The seven piece ensemble presented traditional Polish songs and tunes in the folk tradition but with a startling, burning tension. True folklorists, members of the ensemble have travelled Poland searching for the old people that remember the traditional songs and music of their regions and since their formation in 1997 have been re-inventing that music for contemporary audiences.
Combining ancient instruments such as the "Plock" fiddle, an unusual bowed instrument that is fretted with the fingernails rather than the fingertips, the Cimbalom, a concert hammered dulcimer, the hurdy-gurdy, Baraban drum and frame drum, with the more familiar double bass and violins, the sound is huge and mercilessly driven by the percussion.
The vocal harmonies are beautiful and brutal as the three women fronting the ensemble employ the style of singing called "bialy glos", or "white voice", a melodic screaming employed by shepherds to communicate over long distances. The harmonies are very close, approaching dissonance and there is a desperate urgency to them as the fiddles continue to stab out double stopped notes and the palm muted cimbalom spits percussively.
Of course I bought the album.
Xylouris White performed their only show for this year's WOMADalaide on Stage 3, Cretan lute player, George Xylouris, improvising with drummer/percussionist, Jim White, former member of Dirty Three.
Their first offering "Forging" was beautifully cacophonous like a perfectly tuned hammer and anvil as Xylouris and White wasted no time in demonstrating their extraordinary improvisational skills. That such a wall of sound could be produced by only two musicians playing live, seemed impossible.
The second piece, "Fist" was dark, deep and slow, the lute playing an almost raga form as White's drums skipped and danced around the edges as if looking for a weakness. There was no weakness to be found, though, as Xylouris's voice dived deeper and deeper, demonic and dangerous in counterpoint to lightning runs on the lute fret board. It was virtuoso playing from these two men who seemed to be joined in heart and mind.
The Chilean singer Ana Tijoux and her ensemble may well have caused damage to Stage 2 as their extraordinary high energy performance pounded the structure. Often described as the standard bearer for rap in Spanish, her performance was not what I had expected. Rap performances can often appear self absorbed or dictatorial but Tijoux's show was collaborative, inclusive and joyous.
The Hot 8 Brass Band was welcomed to the Foundation Stage by a large and eager gathering of audience members keen to dance. The New Orleans based ensemble featured some fine players and some dreadful singers. Whilst a great many people crowded the stage front enjoying the strong rhythms there was a crassness and loud vulgarity about the show that I did not enjoy at all. The constant calls of, "Yo Adelaide!" and "Wass'up Womad" drove me from the area at very high speed.
Fortunately my hasty retreat led me into the welcoming arms of The Soil on the Zoo Stage. The young a cappella trio from South Africa were a joy to watch and to listen to. Their music is defined as Kasi Soul and it was like a breath of fresh air after so many pounding drums.
It was time for food, and what an enormous range of choices WOMADalaide vendors offer. From slow cooked meat to pure Vegan, pancakes and ice cream, fresh fruit and bright green blended smoothies. I opted for a simple vegetarian curry. WOMADelaide is hungry work.
Warsaw Village Band
Xylouris White
Ana Tijoux
The Hot 8 Brass Band
The Soil
