Full steam ahead for Womad

FOOD AND

music can both feed the soul, and Womad organisers are ensuring audiences are full up, combining the two.

Radio and TV host Stacey Morrison has been announced to host OMV Taste The World, where artists will swap microphones for pots and pans, and use cooking to share their memories of food from their homelands. They might even pass on a recipe or two.

Morrison’s delicious role is among the last announcements for an already jam-packed festival featuring almost 100 hours of music, dance and stories across three days and eight stages at New Plymouth’s Brooklands Park and the TSB Bowl of Brooklands.

Musical headliners include reggae icon Ziggy Marley, soul, funk fusion group Hiatus Kaiyote, gospel stars Blind Boys of Clockwise from above left: Stacey Morrison; Blind Boys of Alabama, Ziggy Marley; Laura Marling. Photos / Hollie Fernando, Tim Cadiente, Supplied

Alabama and award-winning folk musician Laura Marling. Auckland-based genre-bending DJ Montell2099 has been confirmed to close the Gables Stages on Saturday night.

The festival is expanding beyond music this year with the addition of a new stage, a place where science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (Steam) come together, with inventors and innovators revealing what it takes to challenge the status quo.

The youngest audience members will also be well looked after throughout the weekend, with Kidzone offering a curated programme of arts and crafts, music and storytelling.

There will be storytime and theatre time, dance workshops and natural play for children up to 12 years of age.

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Womad is on at New Plymouth’s Brooklands Park and the TSB Bowl of Brooklands, March 13-15