Touched by angels, kids of WOMADelaide frolic in a feather blizzard

Place des Anges must surely be the most spectacular sight to ever grace an outdoor festival anywhere in Australia.

Gratte Ciel of France present Place de Anges. Picture: Rob Sferco

From the opening night on Friday until after the closing ­perform­ance on Monday, the WOMAD­el­aide festival grounds in Botanic Park were dusted with a liberal coating of white feathers. It looked as though an army of big cats had been hard at work terrorising the local bird life with brutal efficiency. The avian blizzard was central to a show that surely must be the most spectacular sight to have graced an outdoor festival anywhere in Australia.

More on that later. True to name and reputation, the festival’s 26th iteration brought yet another stellar line-up of performers from the world of music and dance, with about 96,000 visitors attending across the four days.

The crowd drawn to WOM­ADelaide tends to be uniformly friendly, inclusive and open to new sounds, and the family-friendly festival is one of very few large-scale public events where parents are unlikely to worry too much if their child slips momentarily from view.

On Monday, when an announcer took to the bustling main stage after 10pm to inquire about the whereabouts of a missing eight year-old girl, she was discovered within moments of the house lights being switched on — safe, sound and fast asleep.

Musical highlights heard throughout Botanic Park included Melbourne-based, Arnhem Land-born hip-hop artist Baker Boy, whose three performances — including a lively dance workshop on Saturday afternoon — underscored the sheer charisma and strength of songwriting that has helped his star to ascend at a rapid rate.

Danzal Baker has released just two songs to date, both of which appeared in the recent Triple J Hottest 100. Here, he offered plenty more tracks while flanked by two co-vocalists and a powerhouse drummer. The quartet ­attracted a formidable crowd to one of the smaller stages, which was also where Baker’s cousin, Yirrmal Marika, appeared earlier on Saturday with his band, the Miliyawutj.

Both artists performed versions of the Yothu Yindi track Treaty, and though Marika prefers electric guitar over hip-hop beats, each of them brought fresh perspectives to a song whose potency has not diminished.

Baker Boy at Womadelaide.

On the main stage on Friday night, Anoushka Shankar drew a huge crowd to witness her mastery of the sitar and Mexican classical guitar duo Rodrigo y ­Gabriela closed the night.

Armed with only their freakish skills, the duo gave an undoubted lesson in virtuosity, even if the torrent of strummed and picked notes eventually fatigued the ears.

Two days after winning the $30,000 Australian Music Prize, Zambia-born hip-hop artist Sampa Tembo — better known by her stage name, Sampa the Great — proved herself as more than worthy of the award on Sunday evening, when she combined ­forces with her friends and collaborators in Melbourne group REMI, which won the AMP four years earlier. Tembo was a well-received revelation as she shared vocal duties with MC Remi Kolawole while backed by a boisterous band.

On the same stage and within the same genre, US performers Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and bass guitar maestro Thundercat ­offered late-night thrills.

As for the white feathers? They were dropped from the sky by winged angels from French circus company Gratte Ciel, whose 19 performers were ­attached to climbing ropes that crisscrossed the space above the main concert arena, between five high cranes.

Each evening, the aerial spectacle dominated the festival and left witnesses with a sense of wonder that only the best art can provoke.

Across 45 minutes, Place des Anges moved through several ­suites and moods — slow, then fast; reticent, then ebullient — while accompanied by a dramatic soundtrack played through the speaker system. Although purists grumbled about how the prime timeslot could have been awarded to a more traditional music act, there really was nowhere else that Gratte Ciel could have performed.

In a coup for the festival, ­WOMADelaide marked the first time that Place des Anges had been performed in public gardens; previously, it had been confined to urban environments, where the clean-up would be considerably easier to manage.

A blizzard of duck feathers fell from the sky before being blown upwards again, as the work built to a climax each evening.

A giant ­inflatable angel was led through the crowd by white-clad troupe members, while the angels who had descended to earth greeted its arrival with joy.

As the performers made their way deep into the throng for the closing suite — a thumping dance party, with the angels on podiums, surrounded by the thrilled punters they’d just doused with feathery snow — they paused to interact with the crowd.

They offered hugs, kisses and dance, and it seemed that special attention was paid to the youngest audience members, who were overawed by being touched by ­angels.

So were we all, really, but witnessing those small-scale gestures was perhaps the most affecting part of a superlative show. Those brief moments easily could act as an inspirational fulcrum for a child deciding to throw their life into the performing arts, as these talented individuals clearly have.

Thanks to its many moving parts working in harmony, and the sheer scope of the endeavour, Place des Anges managed to capture so much of the ineffable wonder of what it meant to be alive. In bypassing language barriers, it instead cut deep to the core of human emotion. Long after the cranes are retracted and the innumerable duck feathers have been scattered to the four winds, the memory of that extraordinary spectacle will live on.

Andrew McMillen travelled to Adelaide as a guest of WOMADelaide.