COMMUNITY PROGRAMME THE PURPOSE Through our partners Todd Energy, The TSB Community Trust and the New Plymouth District Council, our aim is to make WOMAD accessible through workshops, concerts and artist interactions with select communities. This year’s events included song and dance workshops, a cook-off competition for Taranaki secondary school children and a free pop-up concert in New Plymouth’s CBD.
TODD ENERGY COMMUNITY PROGRAMME Todd Energy is a long-term partner of WOMAD and through its valuable support, WOMAD is able to extend its activities beyond the festival into local communities. This year, Todd Energy brought Australian group the Spooky Men’s Chorale to Kaponga School where they held singing workshops with groups of students, and Chilean singer song-writer Nano Stern conducted workshops with schools in the Ngāti Rahiri area.
NEW PLYMOUTH DISTRICT COUNCIL COMMUNITY PROGRAMME New Plymouth District Council’s community programme provided an opportunity for the public to experience a free taste of WOMAD prior to the event and for festival artists to get involved at a community level. The free pop-up concert took place at the Puke Ariki landing the Thursday before WOMAD and included festival artists Azucar Zumbar (NZ), A Curious Game (Australia), Nano Stern (Chile) & Spooky Men’s Chorale (Australia).
TSB COMMUNITY TRUST COOK-OFF Each year teams of students from Taranaki secondary schools take part in a cooking competition that takes place at WITT in the week leading up to WOMAD. The students have their dishes judged by celebrity chef and Nova Energy Taste the World host Jax Hamilton. In the 2018 cook-off, students were tested on a range of criteria, including creativity, presentation and more. Eager to see who won? Check out Nova Energy Taste the World on Sunday to catch the winning team making their dish.
Spooky Men’s Chorale
Image: Mark Bellringer Image: Mark Bellringer Nano Stern
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