The media morning at Womadelaide comprised of speeches, followed by some amazing performances.

Las Cafeteras had the audience clapping along and dancing to their upbeat tunes and BCUC performed – they are a definite must see for this year’s festival and hopeful many more to come as they had their audience rocked to the core by their traditional but modern African-pop.

After that body-moving opening, the Expressions Media Headliners interviewed some of the different artists, including Arrived and BCUC.

Created by Spanish street theatre artist Adrian Schvarzstein and Lithuanian dancer-actor Jūratė Širvytė-Rukštelė, Arrived is a playful, funny show that roves around the park during the festival.

“When you arrive to a new place to a new country you immigrate. You have arrived. This is the name of the show and this is the name of the concept, to discover new people,” says Adrian Schvarzstein.

“Our specialty is interactive street theatre we like to perform and to involve the audience actively and to make the audience the third actor in the show.”

Street theatre is something Adrian moved to after being involved in more traditional forms of theatre and wanting a change.

“I was working in the opera and I wanted to do something completely different and I wanted to get close to the audience,” he says. “I decided street theatre is the right thing to do.”

The idea for Arrived came about in collaboration with Jūratė Širvytė-Rukštelė who was working with Adrian in opera.

“She was my assistant in opera then we made a workshop in Sri Lanka where we came up with this idea,” he says.

BCUC (Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness) is an energetic band that taps in to the spirit of its ancestors and the creative, rebellious energy of its hometown, Soweto.

I also had the pleasure of speaking with KG from BCUC who says the band has decreased in size but not in attitude.

“It used to be twelve,” KG says. “So now it’s seven because other people’s parents told them to go back to work and we didn’t listen to our parents. Now they see us on TV, they see us travelling and they are happy.”

And while they love travelling the world with their music, KG says they also love South Africa.

“[I love] travelling to see other people from different cultures and experience their reality, because sometimes it makes me think life is not as bad as I think it is,” she says.

“I love [the] hope of south Africa. I love the different culture, the different smells, I love the future we are creating.”

You can catch Las Cafeteras, Arrived and BCUC at WOMADelaide across the long weekend. Check out the program HERE.

By Alex Trewartha
Photo by Lola Lucic Marshall