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MsBehaviour writes her round up of WOMAD NZ 2013, held in the beautiful Brooklands Park and Bowl in New Plymouth.

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It’s been 21 years since my first WOMAD, crewing at two Party in the Park festivals in Bath’s Royal Gardens. This was my first WOMAD - Kiwi style, so I was rather excited. I started my WOMAD Wandering on Friday morning with a big drive from Wellington to New Plymouth, and picked up a couple of young hitchers just past Whanganui. They lured me to the roadside with a colourful sign, huge grins, and it was fun to have some company on the way in.

Unusually, the campsite is in the middle of horse racing track which leads to some interesting early morning dashes to the toilets to avoid the jockeys and their galloping mounts. I was delighted to find that my new tent does indeed pop-up in two seconds, and settled in to watch the happy campers setting up for the weekend. I had already created a Storify page earlier in the week, so got my phone ready to start tweeting for The Big Idea and posting pictures to Instagram.

The Brooklands Park is one of the most beautiful sites that I have even been to, and the perfect setting for a WOMAD. Being World of Music, Arts and Dance the festival is about music and performance, but it’s also a place to learn about the food, culture and politics of far flung corners of the globe. There are workshops for adults, creative sessions for kids and a Taste the World tent which was packed all weekend. There is a even a Zoo in the Kids Zone, and I was delighted to watch some Wo-monkeys, or were they watching me?

On Friday night the site came alive with colour and light. The reflections on the water were picture perfect in front of the Bowl Stage, and the LED Manta-Ray Riders on Segways (video) looked like they were floating in space. There were kids playing with interactive totem poles and a big queue for hot, fresh Wonuts. Even the litter pickers were dressed up to the nines, and I wandered around soaking up the sounds from Hugh Masekala, Lau and Fly My Pretties.

We were greeted by Alien Junk Monsters on Saturday and the first session I went to was an Artists in Conversation talk with Vieux Farka Toure from Mali. He spoke very eloquently about the harsh regime that has taken over and banned music. It’s important to hear these stories first-hand, and WOMAD has a thirty year history of raising political awareness. As Vieux Farka Toure says, "As musicians it is our job to educate people".

Every year there is one act that just shines and The Correspondents had the biggest crowd response I saw all weekend. An infectious fusion of electro, drum ’n’ bass, swing and boogie woogie from DJ Chuck, with singer / dancer / diva Mr Bruce blowing the clouds away with his incredible energy and dance moves.

Next I went to an excellent workshop with Mihirangi, a live looping artist who made it to the finals of NZ’s Got Talent in 2012. She talked about how she started live looping so she didn’t have to tour with a large band, and went on the TV show for some publicity which worked! She demonstrated her art live. "You can loop anything, music, poetry, its an art form."  Check out her new album ‘Someone Shake the Tree’ which was launched at WOMAD.

After a break to update the Storify from the media room, I caught the opening of the Melbourne Ska Orchestra. With over twenty musicians they were one of the biggest acts on stage, and were loud, proud and totally skankin’. After a hot, sunny day I took a much needed a break in my tent before Goran Bregovic and His Weddings & Funerals orchestra, and finally Electric Wire Hustle.

Sunday was a lazy day starting with tweeting from my tent, as the rain had arrived by this stage. Luckily I had come prepared for wet weather, with my trusty leather pants which have seen me through many a festival. I caught a workshop with the Alaev Family on making on Bukharian drumming with Doyras, and the rain failed to dampen the mood or the crowd.

I filmed the start of the WOMAD Parade accompanied by the Melbourne Ska orchestra, which is always a festival highlight. The kids and adults take two days to make their costumes, masks and instruments then meet en masse for a noisy procession (see clip below) around the site. The weather held until Jimmy Cliff, but the crowd were happily singing along to sunshine songs in the pouring rain.

Then it was onto an encore performance from The Correspondents. I bounced like a mad thing to D&B in the rain before watching the Tenzin Choegyal & the Monks of Tibet gently bring the crowds back down to earth. A slice of Stumpy’s wood fired pizza was a delicious end note to a wonderful weekend.  I’m already planning my WOMAD trip for next year.