Daily Review<\/p>\n
WOMADelaide Celebrates<\/p>\n
Murray Bramwell talks with WOMADelaide director Ian Scobie about the music festival with a difference.<\/p>\n
It is now 25 years since WOMADelaide, that strange acronym grafted on to the name of an Australian city, was first heard about. In 1992, as part of Rob Brookman\u2019s Adelaide Festival, negotiations took place between Brookman, his colleague Ian Scobie, and Thomas Brooman, the director of the UK WOMAD (aka World of Music, Arts and Dance) festival. The idea was to present a range of international music acts in a micro-festival inside the main Adelaide Festival.<\/p>\n
It was all very new, and Scobie recalls they spent much time trying to describe what this venture would be like. Many of the artists \u2013 unheard of then, but legends of World Music now \u2013 were associated with WOMAD founder, Peter Gabriel\u2019s RealWorld record label . Youssou N\u2019Dour from Senegal, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Remmy Ongala all performed in the first event, along with Crowded House, Not Drowning, Waving and The Pogues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think Rob or I had any sense it would continue after the first event. Or maybe for a one-off afterwards,\u201d says Scobie. But continue it did. Featuring more Real World artists – Sheila Chandra and Geoffrey Oryema, as well as Peter Gabriel himself, priming the pump for ticket sales for the fledgling venture.<\/p>\n
I asked Scobie what he thinks has contributed to the continuing success of this music festival when others, including Big Day Out, which also began in 1992, have fallen by the wayside.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt had the sensibility of the Adelaide Festival. By that I mean its standard of presentation and the quality of the artists. In outdoor stage music at that time \u2013 let\u2019s say, presentation was a lower order of priority. Also the engagement with the artists. They were being \u2018hosted\u2019 within a festival context.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maintaining those high production values, from the quality of the sound stages to the organisation of on-site amenities, has been a WOMADelaide hallmark and is one reason why the event has won Helpmann Awards for Best Contemporary Music Festival in 2002 and as recently as last year.<\/p>\n
WOMAD is a highly ritualised experience. Many aspects of the organisation have evolved over 25 years but much has remained pleasingly familiar and as crowds walk through the gates they know the drill and head for their favourite venues and meeting places.<\/p>\n
\u201cAudiences have grown up with WOMAD and been touched by it.\u201d Scobie remarks, \u201cthey all carry that sense of ownership that has become what the festival now represents \u2013 as much as what the organisers can influence\u201d<\/p>\n
Scobie and his team, including Programming Manager, Annette Tripodi, maintain close links with the UK and other WOMAD operations:
\n\u201cWe do take advice and feedback from each other but what we all recognise is that for the festivals to succeed they have to have the spirit of the place about them. WOMADelaide has a lot that is particular to it : because it is in Botanic Park, and because it is during the Adelaide Festival.\u201d<\/p>\n
The importance of the location, Botanic Park, right in the Adelaide CBD, with its gum trees, enormous Moreton Bay Fig trees and its swathe of green grass, has made it an oasis in the heat of March days and nights in Adelaide. Until recently WOMAD has had exclusive use of the park for performances and its proximity and natural beauty greatly enhances the appeal of the festival.<\/p>\n
But while some things stay the same, much has also evolved since WOMAD became an annual event in 2002 and then extended to a four day fixture (on the newly established Adelaide Cup Monday holiday) in 2010.<\/p>\n
Scobie notes that the annual cycle marked \u201ca fundamental shift to a broader audience. Up until then we had absolutely loyal, rusted-on music fans who researched the program and so on. But for the broader community there was that perplexity about what it was. When it went annual more people engaged with it. People told friends and that gave it momentum.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same we pushed the envelope with our audience \u2013 whether it was with programming Dirty Three on the one hand, or presenting a sound sculpture , edgy performance art activities, things you wouldn\u2019t normally expect a broader audience to be engaged in. That is because the audience come with such an openness; an intent to enjoy what is offered. They are very receptive and keen to move on to the road less travelled.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur audience is incredibly diverse \u2013 from teens to senior adults, there\u2019s a huge breadth. A key to the festival is its format. If you are watching an artist on stage that doesn\u2019t particular take your fancy, you have the freedom to move off and find something else.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrolling in the park is pleasurable. It is like a village environment. Colin Koch, one of the original organising group, who came up with the name WOMADelaide, described it as an event where you go and meet your neighbours. The social aspect is a key part. Whether you are among the 40% from interstate, or local, it is a very civilised and sociable environment and we have built on that aspect . So we have Planet Talks and the cuisine sessions, Taste to the World- ways people can engage, not just with the program, but each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is different from other festivals where headlining is almost an obsession. In the early days we were obliged to have names \u2013 Men at Work, Crowded House, more recently, Sinead O\u2019Connor. But in the last ten years we have stopped having to deal with that question – \u2018Who are these people ? Never heard of them.\u2019 They take that on trust .<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have names – DD Dumbo is a hot favourite at the moment- but that\u2019s not the way the program is appreciated . We had the conscious thought that for the 25th<\/sup> anniversary we should be able to produce a program which is quintessentially a WOMAD program. The Philip Glass Ensemble\u2019s performance of Koyaanisqatsi <\/em>marks the composer\u2019s 80th<\/sup> birthday (the Adelaide Festival was one of the first commissioners of his work). The Manganiyar Classroom (an Indian children\u2019s project designed to preserve the music traditions in Rajasthan ) highlights the way we relate to the lives ahead of us.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can do very different things. The commission with Dance North, Lucy Guerin Inc and Senyawa is another, challenging our audience in new directions.\u201d<\/p>\n WOMADelaide has a long tradition in featuring Indigenous Australian, Torres Strait Islander, Polynesian and Melanesian cultures. In 2017 Archie Roach, who first played back in 1992, returns, while, for a first appearance Yolngu man, Gawurra celebrates Arnhem Land culture.<\/p>\n Other featured performers destined to find enthusiastic admirers are Argentina\u2019s tango sensation Orquesta Tipic Fernadez Fierro, Welsh folk fusion group 9Bach, South African a capella trio The Soil, and Xylouris White (Cretan lute player George Xylouris, in league with Dirty Three drummer Jim White).<\/p>\n As always at WOMAD, women performers hold up half the sky. From Aziza Brahim from Western Sahara\/Spain to Bebel Gilberto (daughter of the legendary bossa nova singer Joao). Inna Modja, prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Salif Keita will perform, as will fellow Malian, Oumou Sangare. Spanish traditional singer Mercedes Peon will feature along with US favourite Toni Childs and Australians Kelly Menhennett, Caiti Baker and Nattali Rize. The program is full of promise.<\/p>\n Ska, blue beat, and reggae aficionados are well-served at WOMAD \u2013 this year with Monday night headliners, The Specials who will be\u2026 special. The single handed Jamaican, Brushy One String, is also not to be missed. Other bands mixing it up for the punters will be the Serbian actor, director and musician Emir Kusturica and his No Smoking Orchestra, Austrian live-wires Parov Stelar , The Warsaw Village Band, the exotic Oki Dub Ainu band from Japan and Baba ZuLa from Turkey.<\/p>\n I asked Ian Scobie how it feels on first night as the festival begins : At WOMAD, if you see this modest character in a broad hat cycling between the various stages , it is very likely Ian Scobie \u2013 \u201cThe most pleasurable thing I find generally about the festival\u201d he observes, \u201c is going through the park seeing the looks on people\u2019s faces, at how much they are enjoying themselves, with friends, with their children.\u201d<\/p>\n And then he climbs back on his bike for next time. There is always the next time. \u201cWe have large scale things planned for 2018 already. Things on the boil, we\u2019ll have artists in town for discussions, and there are things that couldn\u2019t happen for 2017 that are waiting to be added.\u201d<\/p>\n WOMADelaide begins on Friday March 10 until March 13.<\/p>\n Posted online Daily Review, March 7, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Daily Review WOMADelaide Celebrates Murray Bramwell talks with WOMADelaide director Ian Scobie about the music festival with a difference. It is now 25 years since WOMADelaide, that strange acronym grafted on to the name of an Australian city, was first heard about. In 1992, as part of Rob Brookman\u2019s Adelaide Festival, negotiations took place between Brookman, his colleague Ian Scobie, and Thomas Brooman, the director of the UK WOMAD (aka World of Music, Arts and Dance) festival. The idea was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,5,15,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-37","category-archive","category-music","category-womadelaide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2755,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions\/2755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u201cFriday is always very fraught . I worry that everything will go well, will go smoothly. I find Friday difficult. You\u2019ve got 25,000 people, all those souls – anything can happen, artists getting sick and so on. But by Monday it\u2019s a mixture of exhaustion and happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n