Cultural Dessert

WOMAD 2022

1 August 2022

Last weekend saw the return of the WOMAD Festival after a two-year break for the pandemic, and celebrating 40 years since the first ‘World of Music, Arts and Dance’ Festival in Shepton Mallet in 1982. I first went to WOMAD in 2003 and I’ve been at every UK WOMAD Festival since. WOMAD moved to its current home - the enormous Charlton Park, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire - in 2007, and it was lovely to return there last Friday in glorious sunshine. Over the weekend I managed to see 16 full performances, and caught snippets of many others. I enjoyed Khiyo, a band from Bangladesh and the UK who play a rock-version of Bengali folk and film songs. Sam Amidon from Vermont USA gave a stunning performance on the Charlie Gillett Stage, reinterpreting early 20th century American folk music for a contemporary audience. It was lovely to see the Gambian kora player Sona Jobarteh talking about her music and playing duets with her 15-year-old son on balafon in the intimate World Rhythms tent. And it was a real treat to finally get the chance to see the poet and rapper Kae Tempest (whose recordings I have written about here before - in October 2014, October 2016 and August 2019) performing the new album ‘The Line Is A Curve’ in its entirety, to a packed Siam Tent. I liked Afghan singer Elaha Soroor’s collaboration with the group Kefaya - turning Afghan folk songs into rock, electronica and dub. It was wonderful to see Nitin Sawhney again - the highlight of my first WOMAD in 2003 - giving a brilliant performance on Saturday evening. But my pick of WOMAD 2022 was the amazing Korean band ADG7 (Ak Dan Gwang Chil). The group consists of six traditional musicians playing acoustic Korean instruments, accompanying three flamboyantly dressed female vocalists with impressively choreographed routines. They take Korean shamanic folk traditions and present them in a catchy K-pop style. The concept sounds horrendous but the result is surprisingly wonderful. To give you a flavour, here is a clip of the band performing at Womex in 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9XTmH8U4nA You can see a selection of my photos from this year’s WOMAD Festival at: https://culturaloutlook.blogspot.com/search/label/WOMAD2022

posted by Robin Simpson @ 5:12 pm