WOMAD New Zealand 2023 Stage Schedule Released

The full WOMAD New Zealand 2023 stage schedule including World Of Words,  Taste The World, Te Paepae and OMV STEAM Lab  is now available at womad.co.nz

See your festival favourites perform twice or schedule your weekend around the exclusive one-off performances across the four main music stages. Experience and explore Māori culture and artistry at the welcoming Te Paepae stage. Learn how to cook with your favourite artists at Taste The World. Visit the Kunming garden, home to World Of Words hosting a mixture of speakers, interviews, book sessions, poetry slams and comedy. Hear from inventors, innovators and visionaries at the top of their fields who are pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo at the OMV STEAM Lab. There is something for everyone at WOMAD New Zealand!

WOMAD 2023 tickets on sale now from www.womad.co.nz

Artists scheduled for exclusive one-off festival performances include; Zambian rapper Sampa The Great, and the incredible Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour and The Le Super Etoile de Dakarand local talents Fly My Pretties, Rubi Du, psychedelic indie group KITA, the highly anticipated Avantdale Bowling Club and Auckland-based Nigerian hip-hop artist Mazbou Q.

Encouraging fans to discover new sounds and future favourites, WOMAD New Zealand 2023, welcomes double festival performances from multi-award-winning Korean folk-pop group ADG7, Franco-Moroccan psychedelic rock band Bab L’Bluz, Grammy Award-winning Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Afro-Cuban rockstar Cimafunk, early music ensemble Constantinople, soul and R&B singer Deva Mahal and three-time Grammy-winning rock and roll, funk, R&B activist Fantastic Negrito.

Attendees will be treated to the Indian classical music of Pandit Ronu Majumdar & Dr Jayanthi Kumaresh, Justin Adams & Mauro Durante’s trance rhythms of Taranta and Afro-Indigenous Music from Belize & Honduras’s The Garifuna Collective twice throughout the festival.

And, acapella trio Acapollinations, Afghan singer Elaha Soroor and eclectic London-based ensemble Kefaya, Pacifica women’s ensemble Le Moana, 11-strong German techno marching band MEUTE, Tuareg songwriter Mdou Moctar, vibrant dance group Mudra Dance Company, Japanese Drum Team Narukami Taiko Drumming, Argentinian Grammy Award-winning ensemble; Quinteto Astor Piazzolla, Pakistani Qawwali group Rizwan Muazzam Qawwali, modern Occitan troubadours San Salvador, Romany folk supergroup Taraf de Caliu and dynamic Scottish three-piece The Langan Band will perform repeated sets across the weekend.

Three days at WOMAD NZ rivals an around-the-world trip.

From; Afghanistan to Zambia, psychedelic rock to incredible vocalists, classical to hip hop, Grammy award-winning to up-and-coming, traditional to contemporary, memoirs to mathematics. WOMAD NZ 2023  features 29 music and dance acts and ten thought-provoking speakers, all set to celebrate, inspire and entertain. With more to be announced!

The 2023 festival celebrates its 20th anniversary at the award-winning Bowl of Brooklands and Brooklands Park in New Plymouth.

The World of Music, Arts and Dance festival boasts eight stages, each featuring an eclectic and cross-cultural line-up with talented musicians, artists, and inspiring speakers for three days and nights of extraordinary music and culture like nothing else in Aotearoa.

Situated in a natural amphitheatre over a lake, the iconic Bowl stage is a venue with the wow factor. While the Dell Stage is an intimate affair surrounded by gentle native bush. Both The Gables and the Brooklands stages are known for their high energy and late-night sets. The Kunming Garden hosts the World Of Word stage, which celebrates diverse and exciting voices designed to inspire people to think, talk, laugh, listen and learn and the OMV STEAM Lab is a place of wonder where Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics unite, with inventors, innovators and people at the top of their fields pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. Unique to Aotearoa, Te Paepae proudly hosts Māori Culture workshops and activities, and music, food, and conversation are at the heart of Taste the World.

Loved by all ages, WOMAD NZ 2023 is a worldly fix without leaving the country—the ultimate culmination of sounds, scenery and good vibes.

Chief Operating Officer for WOMAD UK, Mike Large, states, “WOMAD, first and foremost, is a great festival to enjoy and discover music, arts and dance. But it was born with a purpose and created in response to difficult times. There was apartheid aboard, race riots and terrorism at home in the UK. Our founder Peter Gabrel believed that by bringing great artists together in a family-friendly environment, the audience would forget their fears and prejudices and open their hearts to the music instead… WOMAD and what it stands for feels more important now than ever.”

Tickets to the three-day camping festival are on sale now from www.womad.co.nz .This year, WOMAD has teamed up with PayPlan making it easy for festival-goers to book tickets now, pay in regular, easy payments, and be dancing under the mighty Taranaki Mounga in March 2023. Camping and glamping options are available.

WOMAD 2023 Artists in Alphabetical Order
Acapollinations (Aotearoa/New Zealand) *ADG7 (Korea) * Avantdale Bowling Club (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Bab L’ Bluz (Morocco/France) * Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn (USA) * Cimafunk (Cuba) * Constantinople (Canada) * Deva Mahal (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Fantastic Negrito (USA) * Fly My Pretties (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Justin Adams & Mauro Durante (UK/Italy) * Kefaya and Elaha Soroor (Afghanistan/UK) * Kita (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Le Moana (Pasifica Womens ensemble) (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Mazbou Q (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Mdou Moctar (Niger) * Meute (Germany) * Mudra Dance Company (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Narukami Taiko Drumming (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Pandit Ronu Majumdar & Dr Jayanthi Kumaresh (India) * Quinteto Astor Piazzolla (Argentina) * Rizwan Muazzam Qawwals (Pakistan) * Rubi Du (Aotearoa/New Zealand)* San Salvador (France) * Sampa The Great (Zambia) * Taraf de Caliu (Romania) * The Garifuna Collective (Belize) * The Langan Band (Scotland) * Youssou N’Dour & Le Super Étoile de Dakar (Senegal)

WOMAD 2023 World Of Word Speakers in Alphabetical Order 
Anna Fifield (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Chris Tse – Poetry Slam (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Daren Kamali- Poetry Slam (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Dick Frizzell (MNZM) (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * James Nokise – Late Night Comedy (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Lil O’Brien (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Mad Doggerel Cabaret – Late-night Poetic Cabaret (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Penny Ashton – Poetry Slam Host (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Rose Carlyle (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Dr. Susette Goldsmith (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

 

WOMAD 2023 OMV STEAM Lab Speakers in Alphabetical Order
4Phase Games (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Dick Frizzell (MNZM) * Professor Hinke Osinga (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Laurie Winkless (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Lisa Murray (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Peter Lynn (Aotearoa/New Zealand) * Phil Lester (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

WOMAD NZ 2023 will be back to full capacity with eight stages and an eclectic and cross-cultural lineup with talented musicians, artists, and inspiring speakers from around the globe set to educate, inspire and entertain.

“Honestly this was the most wholesome live music experience of my year. I went to WOMAD to celebrate the wedding of my best mates. The whole whānau from across the whenua was there, and as the stars came out over Ngāmotu we took off our shoes and danced under trees glowing above the stage lights”. – Undertheradar, 2020

“WOMAD is a multicultural, all-ages celebration of the unifying forces of music and dance. The festival celebrates our differences and the ways in which we are all the same, and there is no other place I’d want to be right now.” – Radio NZ National, 2019

“People chatted under shade, tucked into a dizzying array of food, danced in nooks and crannies, or took in spoken word performances on a stage surrounded by trees. Smiles seemed to be mandatory.”  – New Zealand Herald, 2018

“The place reverberated under the mighty watch of Mount Taranaki with the kind of passion that only comes from the sheer celebration of diversity… Most acts put on repeat performances over the weekend allowing you the chance to customise an itinerary that would rival an around-the-world music trip.” – The Spinoff, 2018

“There aren’t too many places you can sit on the grass and watch international music while surrounded by trees, birds, and water.”  – stuff.co.nz, 2018 

“WOMAD is a place of discovery and it’s a place where music and ethnicity have no borders or prejudice.” Radio NZ National, 2018 

“It enriches us on so many different levels, from the sharing of music, the creativity in the Taste the World and workshops, and exposure to cultures that are very different to our own.” Taranaki Daily News, 2018 

“an amazing aural smorgasbord”. – Radio NZ National, 2017

“The sun shone on schedule for a weekend of music, dance, and colourful experiences at New Plymouth’s Bowl of Brooklands… Once again Womad has demonstrated its ability to raise the bar, as there were many other acts of an impossibly high standard.” – New Zealand Herald, 2016 

“The music started at 12pm, but the place was humming long before then. Many people had an early lunch, checked out the stalls and sussed out the perfect spot to settle in. By 12pm there was standing room only” – Taranaki Daily News, 2015 

“It’s almost daunting to think that this was just the start of the festival. If the rest is this going to be good (and it will be), then we are in for some fantastic music”. – 13th Floor 2013

WOMAD THE FESTIVAL

WOMAD: World of Music, Arts and Dance, the internationally established festival, brings together artists from all over the globe. The central aim of the WOMAD festival is to celebrate the world’s many forms of music, arts and dance.

As an organisation, WOMAD now works in many different ways. Still, the aims are always the same – at festivals, performance events, recorded releases, and through educational projects, WOMAD aims to excite, inform, and create awareness of the worth and potential of a multicultural society.

WOMAD NZ is part of a festival family that has seen over three hundred festivals worldwide, with over ten thousand artists performing across six continents to an audience of millions over the past four decades. WOMAD UK has celebrated 40 years, WOMADelaide has celebrated 30 years, and 2023 will see WOMAD NZ celebrate the 20th anniversary of WOMAD NZ at the award-winning Bowl of Brooklands and Brooklands Park in New Plymouth.

First presented in Taranaki in 2003, over its 20 years, WOMAD NZ has presented over 500 acts and 1500 performers from 95 countries. the festival has had 150,000 visitors through its gates and generated over 100 million dollars for the local economy.

The festival’s success could not have occurred without the long-term of Event Partners TSB and Todd Energy, whose continuous commitment has strengthened Taranaki’s position as the home of WOMAD.

Support at the local government level is vital to WOMAD NZ. Host City Partner, the New Plymouth District Council and Regional Partner – Venture Taranaki,  are committed to the ongoing support of the event since 2003. Toi Foundation, as Community Partner, has contributed to the event thriving in the region through grant access.

WOMAD NZ is also fortunate to have three Programme Partners, Tui Ora, BOON and OMV, and several Media Partners and Event Supporters, allowing the festival to present a world-class event to the people of Aotearoa.

“We’re fortunate to have had incredible long-term partners and supporters from both the private and public sectors,” Suzanne Porter, CEO of TAFT, says. “Without their support, WOMAD would never have gotten off the ground. Our partners saw the vision early on, and they’ve stayed committed and supportive through the last few years, which have been challenging to say the least.”

Chief Operating Officer for WOMAD UK Mike Large comments, “It takes unique or special people to stage a WOMAD, and WOMAD NZ could not have reached its success over the last 20 years without the dedicated and hard-working team at the Taranaki Arts Festival Trust (TAFT). It’s thanks to the ongoing and incredible support of such a wide range of organisations, companies and communities that WOMAD can take place here in Taranaki. All WOMADs are different, but only a few we call home, and we are deeply grateful to the people of Aotearoa for making WOMAD NZ one of those few and what a beautiful home Taranaki is!”

Keep up-to-date with everything WOMAD New Zealand:

www.womad.co.nz 
www.facebook.com/WomadNZ 
www.twitter.com/WomadNZ 
www.instagram.com/womadnz 
www.youtube.com/channel/WOMADNZ 
https://open.spotify.com/user/womadnz 

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