Not everything happens on stage at WOMADelaide
WOMADelaide returns to Botanic Park from 7-10 March 2025, with a packed program, both onstage and throughout the park.
Held on the traditional lands of the Kaurna People, WOMADelaide (World Of Music, Arts and Dance) is an iconic open-air festival celebrating cultural discovery in the heart of Adelaide’s Botanic Park/Tainmuntilla.
This year’s lineup features more than 700 artists, from over 35 countries, performing across 8 stages and includes international superstars.
However, some of the best discoveries of the festival are found offstage in the Around The Park program.
Picture: Daniela Luna
Ilotopie – Les Gens de Couleur
Performers painted in a second skin of bright colour move like living sculptures, one colour per person.
Formed in the Camargue region in southern France in 1980, ilotopie are pioneers of street theatre, masters of invention and intervention with their theatrical works performed all over the world, transforming everyday places into surrealist representations of vivid imagination.
In 1992, during the Adelaide Festival, ilotopie were arrested for public nudity as part of their street performance, which caused a stir among the local community.
This incident led to a debate about public decency and artistic expression in Adelaide.
It reportedly contributed to shifts in local regulations and sparked discussions on how performance art interacts with public spaces.
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Picture: Cie Paris Bénarès
Cie Paris Bénarès – Chamôh
Name a more iconic duo than giant French puppets and WOMADelaide.
This year, a giant camel, a long way from home, brings with him the essence of another land with all the hints of exotic scenes, perfumes, tastes and adventures.
This is Chamôh, from French puppeteers Compagnie Paris Bénarès, who bring their giant hand-crafted mechanical puppet out into the world.
Chamôh with his memories and longing for the place he has left, searches for the way home as he interacts with and delights the audience.
Founded in 2008 by Patrice Verquère, Compagnie Paris Bénarès performs with their giant puppets throughout Europe and is driven by the dream of one day creating a mechanical circus.
The Dream Engine – Heliosphere
Look up! Combining art, science and a considerable amount of imagination and spectacle, Brighton-based The Dream Engine brings its aerobatic show Heliosphere to the WOMADelaide sky.
The spiralling, spinning and seemingly weightless acrobats fly suspended beneath an enormous helium balloon, interacting with the world below, swooping to ground level and then soaring 20 metres in the sky in a matter of moments.
The ground crew, harnessed to lines but largely unseen, control the balloon’s speed, direction and height, working with the artists to create magic.
Picture: Géraldine Aresteanu
Yoann Bourgeois Art Company – The unreachable suspension point
Near Stage 3 you’ll find a giant spiral staircase with dancers grappling with explorations of playfulness in art and weightlessness.
Trained as a dancer, circus artist animateur Yoann Bourgeois breaks down the barriers between the fields of dance, theatre, music, visual installation and audio-visual art.
He has worked on film projects and with artists such as Coldplay, Harry Styles, FKA twigs and Pink, as well as projects with the Nederlands Dans Theater and the Göteborg Opera.
In 2022, he was nominated in the Best Choreographer category at the MTV music awards for the video clip for As It Was by Harry Styles.
Picture: Alec Council
Tilda Cobham Hervey – Dear Stranger
Produced by SA actor, Tilda Cobham-Hervey and Loredana Cross, this delightful interactive installation turns the ancient art of letter writing into an adventure.
Dear Stranger encourages participants to connect with complete strangers through hand-written notes.
On the hour, a performer in ‘postie attire’ will cycle around the park delivering letters. Inside each letter is a prompt asking the person to write an encouraging letter to a stranger and post it in a large pink post box.
After posting their letter, the postie offers them a letter from another stranger in return, creating a chain of anonymous letters between strangers.
This joyful exchange is a way of celebrating the unexpected connections and stories that unite us all.
See the full WOMADelaide lineup at the website and the artists on YouTube.