Giorgio Varas, director of Womad: “The festival 40 years ago speaks of plurinationality and ecology, the topics of this Chile that has begun to change”

In its seventh edition in Chile, the Womad festival will be presented in three days set for Friday 1, Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 April in the Plaza La Paz in Recoleta, the live of the event, Giorgio Varas spoke with El Mostrador about the novelties that will be in this version and the artists that will be presented.
The festival is characterized by its connection with current themes such as ecology, multiculturalism and plurinationality.
“Without false modesty, the Womad Festival 40 years ago speaks of plurinationality, the original peoples, of ecology, in short, the topics of the festival finally of this chile that has begun to change and of which we have been accompanying,” said Giorgio Varas.
He also explained that achieving this seventh version has been a difficult task due to the pandemic. Traditionally Womad is celebrated in February, however, due to the increase in positive cases of Covid-19, it could not be performed.
The director said that it has been one of the most complicated years for the cultural sector and that now it is finally being reactivated.
“We arrived at this seventh with a huge problem, pandemic, the crisis directed from the institutional perspective a strike of the cultural industry and the challenge became something quite focal and we had to change the date,” he explained in the interview.
Despite these difficulties, Womad will have this year an extensive grid of artists from different parts of the world, from Brazil through Estonia and South Korea, in addition, among the latest developments, INMERZONE will arrive, the first completely immersive stage in Chile. The line-up includes installations and soundscapes, live sets with Rubio and Derrok, among others, and DJ sets by Chilean artists such as Franco Saini and Kamila Govorčin.
“For the first time in Chile we have been building and working in a sound laboratory to be able to have an immersive stage, it is the first in the country we are going to have a very remarkable experience of innovation and technology and that has to do with space and soundscape,” he said.
Finally Giorgio Varas invited the public to participate in the seventh version of Womad that will be held on April 1, 2 and 3 and recommended going to the presentations of Chico Trujillo and the South Korean trio Dongyang Gozupa, in addition to the workshop and activities that can be reviewed on the website.

Original source in Spanish