Babe, it must be art

Attending Womadelaide last year for the first time was the best thing I did all year. The weekend itself was a combination of fun, relaxing, exciting and inspiring. But maybe more importantly, the ongoing effect was that I felt like my ears had been opened in some new directions. I discovered some artists and types of music that I hadn't explored before, and these lead me to others, on a multidirectional path that I'm still following. Sometimes it leads me back to things I already knew about. I love finding where things link up like that.

I wrote a really long piece about it, mentioning most of the music acts I saw, the art, the food, the baby hippies, all of it. I worked on that post for days, recording all this stuff that I was so excited about so that I could share my excitement with my friends. When I finally put it up, the only feedback was "it's so long". "Yeah I haven't finished reading it yet". Except for my parents, who provided some small vindication, marvelling at the range of music I enjoyed and wrote about.

So I learned to try to be more short and snappy. Or dole it out in smaller bits.

Once we got in to Botanic Park on the Friday night I sought out some important locations and marked them on the map.


I think it was while we were listening to Joe Camilleri and Nicky Bomba that these guys came stalking through the crowd. According to the program "Les Goulus ensnare their audience with their loopy rituals and 'close-up theatre' technique".

They picked out a woman and slowly stalked up to her, pulling funny faces and making the surrounding people laugh. And, of course, thank their choice of deity that they weren't picked for 'audience participation'. Eventually all three got quite close to the woman, and started sniffing around her face and neck. To the everyone's shock (but also, it has to be admitted, great amusement), one of them also LICKED her cheek! Sadly I didn't manage to get a photo of that moment. It wasn't a one-off either, we saw them pick out someone else on their way through the audience.

Both of these women took it quite well. But I had to wonder, how do performers with this kind of material manage to choose the people who won't tell them to bugger off? These guys apparently didn't worry too much, if they did start to pick up the wrong vibe they simply turned and walked away, flicking up their little skirts to flash their bums on the way out. (Another missed photo opp)