WOMAD, WOMAD, WOMAD!

Recently I went on a road trip with my friends Lisa and Lucy to the lovely town of New Plymouth at the foot of Mt Taranaki (the one that looks like Mt Fuji) to spend the weekend at the NZ WOMAD festival. It was the most brilliant festival I have ever been to! If you are in NZ and you haven't been to one, go next year. And if you are thinking about visiting NZ in the next year, try and time it with the next WOMAD which is in March 2008. WOMAD stands for World Music and Dance - there were artists from Argentina, New Caledonia, Niger, Mexico, NZ, Australia, Indonesia - all over the shop! Plus workshops and heaps of great food and clothing stalls. It took place in the big botanic gardens in NP - huge with space for all six stages and lots of seating on the grass.

The main stage

The weather forecasts predicted heavy rain all weekend, but we were lucky - Friday night and Saturday were clear and warm. It only began raining Sat night and stayed warm so it wasn't too unpleasant. Then it poured with rain all night, only to stop right on midday when the performances started again. We stayed with Lisa's parents so didn't have to survive the rain in a tent, but I really enjoyed doing tango workshops in the mud in my welly boots on the Sunday! Such a fantastic weekend! There were so many new bands that I discovered. I think my favourites were the Gotan Project (from Argentina), the Mamaku Project (a kiwi band), dDub (also Kiwi), Lior (Aussie), Wai (Kiwi). But really it's hard to play favourites - the whole atmosphere was amazing and I didn't see a single performance I didn't like, from the Tibetan Monks chanting, to the gamalan orchestra!
Here are some pics:

Lisa and me at the main stage in our wellies The crowd braved the rain!

This really cool band made up of two different tribes of nomads in Niger

These hemp hats were very popular!

The gamelan orchestra

The kids' parade (there were heaps of workshops for kids to learn drumming and dance and make crafty stuff, culminating in a parade on the final day).