Aerial spectacular, Place des Anges, by French company Gratte Ciel will also feature at the Adelaide festival.
The internationally acclaimed, genre-defying British group Florence + The Machine, Grammy Award-winning US indie-folk band Bon Iver and the breath-taking aerial spectacular, Place des Anges, by French company Gratte Ciel are three of the headline acts at next year’s esteemed WOMADelaide festival.
Hailed as an award-winning celebration of cultural discovery featuring the very best in live music, arts, dance and food from around the world, WOMADelaide will make its return to Adelaide’s Botanic Park from March 10-13, bringing together some of the finest international acts to our shores.
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Fronted by enigmatic singer Florence Welch, Florence + The Machine will be returning to Adelaide for the first time since 2019 where they played to a sold-out audience of over 14,000 adoring fans. The hugely influential group, renowned for their dramatic and spellbinding live shows, will headline Saturday 11 March at the festival.
Having sold 17 million albums, won multiple Brit Awards, been nominated for six Grammys and topped charts around the world, Florence + The Machine are touring on the back of their uplifting fifth studio album Dance Fever, released in 2022 and described by Rolling Stone as “an ecstatic prayer for post-pandemic redemption.”
Alongside Florence, Bon Iver, led by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon, will perform a set that spans their 15-year career on the opening night of the festival, Friday 10 March. In 2011 their eponymous release won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album and Best New Artist. The dreamy Wisconsin outfit has gone on to be nominated a further nine times, including for Album of the Year and Record of the Year for their 2019 release i,i.
In 2020 Bon Iver broadened their international appeal when they joined Taylor Swift for the song Exile, which exploded across global music charts and reached No.1 on Billboard’s Top TV Songs chart. Bon Iver also created 2 A Billion, a campaign working to bring gender equity centre stage by partnering with local charitable organisations. They also just announced a headline tour for 2023 alongside their WOMAD appearance.
Bon Iver. Credit: Graham Tolbert Photography
From the brilliant French company Gratte Ciel, Place des Anges (place of angels) will also feature at WOMADelaide.
Renowned as one of the world’s most extraordinary aerial performances featuring a host of feathered angels who dance and descend from high above the treetops and the audience in a celebratory ethereal ballet, Place des Anges will be performed nightly as an Australian exclusive, transforming Botanic Park into a magical wonderland of music, acrobatics and death-defying theatrics.
Softly cascading feathers fall from the heavens, as the angels swirl amongst the stars and gradually descend to earth to play with the audience.
“Place des Anges is truly one of the greatest aerial spectacles in the world. To be the only place where the company has performed outside of an urban environment, amongst natural surrounds in the middle of a music festival, makes their return five years on extra special,” said WOMADelaide Director, Ian Scobie.
“Florence + The Machine, Bon Iver and Gratte Ciel are just three of the outstanding artists who will be part of WOMADelaide 2023 and we look forward to revealing more in October and November when our program of around 70 groups is complete.”
4 Day and 3 Day Early Bird Tickets and pay by instalment plans will open to WOMADelaide subscribers from 9am Thursday 25 August and tickets on sale to general public from 9am Friday 26 August. Head here for more info.
WOMADelaide will take place in Botanic Park from March 10 to 13.
