We are back in the New Zealand winter after a week in Sarawak at the Rainforest World Music Festival - a wonderful, very special event that bought together a wide range of performers from countries as diverse as Morocco, USA, France, Tanzania, Finland, Korea, Malaysia, Sarawak and Hungary to name a few. I rate it the best world music festival we have performed at - I think that has a lot to do with the hosts and the people of Sarawak. Anyway, I would highly recommend it.
Prior to that, we headed up to the Netherlands for the Tong Tong Festival, which was a celebration of all things Indonesia - and then we flew to Venice, to launch the Venice Art Biennale - more specifically, the two wonderful artists representing N.Z. What a magical place with its winding lanes, canals, peeling buildings with beautiful balconies - every corner was like a slice of art history. We were like japanese tourists. The food was incredible, but bloody expensive.
After our performance in Venice that morning, we flew to Cairns where we jumped on the stage that night for a gig. I was so totally stuffed that I forgot some of the lyrics to my songs, but only Amiria and Trina seemed to notice! The following morning, we flew to Brisbane where we played in the Festival of Dreaming, run by the glorious Rhoda Roberts. It was full of stunning artists from Australia, Canada and a bunch of us from Aotearoa. It was full of natives we knew from Toronto - a great catch up.
Labels: June 5, Venice
