GETTING READY FOR WOMAD
Volunteering at Womad has opened the world to musician and stage manager Juliet McLean. After being an avid Womad fan, McLean first agreed to be a volunteer in 2010 as a minder for Peta Mathias. The fiery-headed foodie was MC for the Nova Energy Taste the World stage for two years and McLean also helped get things cooking.
‘‘We would run out of flour and I would be running through Womad in slo-mo to get flour off a pizza oven place,’’ she laughs.
One of the highlights was watching the Topp Twins, who appeared as Ken and Ken. They cooked venison, their eyes full of fun as they played off each other, Mathias and the crowd.
Unpaid supporters are integral to the three day-festival and, every year, nearly 500 people put up their hands to be part of the TSB Community Trust volunteer programme. The jobs can be anything from looking after artists, to picking up rubbish, to helping run the on-site information centre.
Even Emere Wano began as a volunteer and now she’s the festival event director.
‘‘Womad is amazing. The world lands here and we can just soak it all up,’’ McLean says. ‘‘It’s the ultimate soul food. Everyone at Womad is showing their most beautiful selves to each other.’’
During an earlier festival, McLean was minder for New Zealand singer-songwriter Amiria Grenell, and then she moved into a paid role in artist liaison. She had to go up to Auckland with sculptor Renate Verbrugge to greet the musicians from overseas.
‘‘We were their first contact with Womad,’’ she says. ‘‘We had to make sure their skin drums got through Customs.’’
Then the women accompanied the artists back to New Plymouth. ‘‘The wonderful thing is just seeing people on a bus that you meet and strike up a conversation with, person to person, and then seeing them on stage. All of a sudden they are huge.’’
Last year, McLean was asked to manage the Pinetum Stage, which hosts artists for the World of Words, supported by WITT, and she’s doing it again this year.
Three women are managing stages at Womad, which shows the growing number of females in the production side of the entertainment industry.
McLean was greatly moved by the artists in the World of Worlds. ‘‘The thing that blew me away was the poetry slam – there they were, standing up, baring their hearts and souls with no instruments.’’
After seeing the first slam, she told her mother, Chris, she had to come along to the final. She too was touched by the performance poetry.
Now McLean includes poetry in her own musical performances. ‘‘It’s such a powerful medium. It delivers a feeling.’’
When doing gigs, usually with her band The Navigators, she has started reading poems between songs. ‘‘It’s always really well received.’’
In February, the singersongwriter performed in Upper Hutt and Whanganui. Afterwards, audience members asked for copies of the poems and one woman said she was inspired to write her own poetry.
McLean’s Womad roles have led to more work for TAFT, which runs the event. She was the regional tour manager for the Taranaki Arts Festival for two years and artist liaison manager last year.
All these positions are about connecting with people and sharing.
McLean’s job is to make the writers all feel relaxed before going on stage, and to keep the Womad programme running with its famous precision timing in the TSB Bowl of Brooklands and adjoining park.
People’s poet David Merritt is the first writer on the Pinetum Stage at 7.15pm on the Friday night and internationally renowned crime writer Paul Cleave, from New Zealand, is the last, appearing at 5pm on Sunday.
In between there’s a novelist and poet, two sessions of the poetry slam, a glittering fashion designer, and a woman, who unwittingly became a drug mule, launching her book.