Straight away, the atmosphere at Womadelaide is calmer this year. On opening night, it is only 25C – the warmest it is forecast to be all weekend. After two years of temperatures in the 40s, this will be a festival to ease into. Even the bat colony at the entrance feels decidedly more settled. “I hear we missed a really hot one last year,” says Beoga’s Niamh Dunne later that night. “Us Irish ones would be in a puddle.”
This isn’t entirely the program the festival thought they would be presenting a fortnight ago. With the crisis in Iran, the festival had to rearrange flights for 101 artists, and four groups were cancelled – plus Palestinian DJ Sama’ Abdulhadi, whose visa wasn’t approved in time.
But on the ground, while the regular politics of Womad abound, it feels like the audience just wants to have fun. Maybe it is the mild weather, maybe it is the programming, maybe it is the state of the world: this Womadelaide, the audience is thick with the want – the compulsion – to dance.
The world, says Kenyan artist Blinky Bill, “it’s killing my vibe, it’s killing our vibe, and it’s killing people as well. Today, we’re just going to have fun.” He launches into another funky song, blending English and Swahili, hip-hop and jazz.
As the sun shines bright over Džambo Aguševi Orchestra, as the sun sets over Yothu Yindi, and under the cloak of night for BADBADNOTGOOD, the audience is constantly on their feet. This isn’t to say there aren’t quiet shows; shows filled with grief and lamentation. But over four days, I see it all: a gentle sway, an Irish jig, a jive duet, a complete and complex improvised interpretive dance.
Womad is seeing children on shoulders, ear defenders on, having the time of their lives at Baker Boy. It is hearing the Swedish a cappella group Åkervinda accompanied by the chorus of bats in the trees above; hearing a magpie’s warble accompany Roberto Fonseca’s jazz pianist. It is the crowd singing along to Orange Blossom’s call “fuck Trump”; it is Javanotti asking “Chi qui parlo italiano?” to screams, and “Who speaks English?” to a much more muted response. It is the beauty of Marlon Williams bringing a Māori choir onto stage; it is rumours Ed Sheeran will be appearing with Beoga (he doesn’t, but the band gets in on the rumours, too).
Womad is a complex survey of world music, every genre, every country. But if there is a theme running through this year’s festival, it’s in three older black women, fully embracing themselves, their passion and their talent – and the many decades of work it took them to get to perform for us here, today.
The headliner of this year’s festival is Grace Jones. Closing out the main stage on Saturday night, her performance starts late. It is punctuated by frequent blackouts as Jones has almost as many costumes as songs. She calls for wine; she says she can’t remember her words; she makes sexual jokes – many sexual jokes. She takes off her shoes, climbs on a security guard’s shoulders and is walked through the thronging crowd. She gets stagehands to give her a piggy back. She spends the entire final number keeping up a hula-hoop.
The audience is lapping her up. “Adelaide, I wanna get laid!” she yells. It is joyous seeing a 77-year-old woman be so free and messy and sexual. And for all the mess, it never feels gratuitous – a legend should be able to indulge in their persona and performance. And the audience is happy to indulge her.
Jones is on my mind the next afternoon, when, in the full blazing sun, a congregation dances to Annie & The Caldwells, a family gospel band from Mississippi. If the audience isn’t entirely convinced by their Pentecostal message (“How many of you know that it would be sad to lose your soul?” Annie asks – three hands rise up), we are on board for this 67-year-old matriarch sitting down, leading us in the ecstasy of music. Her voice is rich, deep and complex, shaped by decades of performance – from southern churches to now, under the sun on Kaurna country.
Later that Sunday, I settle in to listen to Kankawa Nagarra. The 79-year-old Walmatjarri Elder picked up a guitar for the first time when she was 40. She tells us stories of her life, sings us Dreamtime stories, and plays the blues.
Many lie down in the grass. But when Nagarra asks her audience if they want to dance, they do. Groups of dancers congregate on the edges of the crowd, extending out from the stage. No matter the music – this audience wants to move.
“I like certain things too much,” says Jones. “Don’t we all?” At Womadelaide, there is no such thing as too much.
Womadelaide 2026 was held 6-9 March
