Gratte Ciel returns to Womadelaide with ‘famous feather storm’ despite concerns

As bright white features fell from the sky during Womadelaide 2018, few could have predicted they would continue to turn up in cars, houses, gardens, backpacks and laundry baskets for months to come.

The duck feathers had been dropped nightly from 60 metres above Adelaide’s Botanic Park during Gratte Ceil’s Place des Angels aerial ballet, creating a veritable snowdome effect for tens of thousands of revellers.

In five days’ time, those feathers will be finding their way into nooks and crannies across the city once again as the act returns for the world music, art and dance festival from Friday.

Gratte Ciel director Stéphane Girard said the production involved 32 artists and technicians, including outdoor sports artists, climbers, speleologists, paragliders, dancers, circus artists, and “acrobats in love with height and the great outdoors”.

“They appear in the sky at 60 metres high, between the trees and the stars,” Girard said.

“They seem far away, expressing themselves in another dimension, but over the course of the show, they will come and breathe the sweetness of this special night into the hollow of your shoulders.

“Maybe you will end up dancing with an angel under a famous feather storm.”

Company used to headlines

Some would consider the feathers infamous with many revellers in 2018 complaining they had an allergic or asthmatic response to the feathers, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) condemning the acrobatic spectacular for using animal products.

Pre-empting another onslaught of media questions and headlines, the festival’s organisers have included an online fact sheet about the feathers, most of which reiterated responses given by director Ian Scobie in 2018.

It pointed out that 2018 had been an “extraordinarily dry and particularly hot and dusty year in Botanic Park, made worse by the failure of the park irrigation system some weeks out from the event”.

A pall of dust could be readily seen hanging in the air, with much of the grass in high-traffic areas already browned off by the first full day.

Festival organisers said it made for “challenging conditions particularly for those with respiratory concerns”.

It added that the irrigation system had been upgraded this year and watering systems were in place “to manage dust issues at the event as far as possible”, although it warned the park could become dusty regardless as the four-day event progressed, depending on weather conditions.

Any concerns this year had not been reflected in ticket sales, with Saturday — headlined by Florence + the Machine — having sold out some time ago, along with all four-day and three-day passes.

Girard said the company was accustomed to “headlining the news” worldwide with its “monumental zipline” act.

“It touches a mass of spectators and does not leave them indifferent,” he said.

“This is OK by us and each one is entitled to their own views.”

PETA questions feather supply

Last last year, PETA urged the company to modify this year’s act so it did not use animal products and said Womadelaide’s claim that the feathers were sourced “ethically” and in line with animal welfare regulations from sites that “humanely farm the birds for the production of meat” could not be guaranteed.

“Supply chains are so murky and regulations [are] so often breached,” PETA spokesperson Laura Weyman-Jones said.

It also comes during a surge in feather boa sales sparked by a tour of English artist Harry Styles, which prompted the Humane Society International to ask people to consider where such animal products were coming from.

Girard said the feathers used by Gratte Ciel were intended for the bedding and quilting industries and collected only from French farms before being cleaned, treated and “sterilised at 120 degrees to eliminate all bacteria”.

He said the feathers were a by-product of farming and their bright white colour was natural.

“No feather is taken from a living animal. Let’s not get things mixed up and let’s choose our battles.”

He said the company was pleased that its show could contribute to contemporary questions about “environmental problems linked to animal consumption”.

“In France, animal breeding uses 75 per cent of agricultural land, and it takes four times more agricultural surface for one animal calorie than one vegetable calorie, and these are real problems,” Girard said.

“It is also the role of the artist to create dialogue and awareness.”

He added that people who felt uncomfortable about the feathers could easily distance themselves from the heart of the show, much like people who had trouble with loud sounds did “not stay near the speakers”.

An ‘intimidating’ return

Girard said the music itself was a collaboration between Hugues de Courson and Tomás Gubitsch called Songs of Innocence, including songs performed by children from Spanish, Bulgarian, Indonesian, Chinese or Indian cultures, mixed with traditional or classical music.

He said that while the show’s framework remained the same across the world, it was interpreted differently at each location, with Womadelaide a “unique proposition” because it was the first place that it had performed “entirely in a natural environment”.

“The show does not change, but it has been constantly evolving since its creation.”

Girard also said it was the first time Place des Anges was returning to a festival or to a city.

“It is quite a unique experience for us to perform at a music festival, let alone at Womadelaide, which has such a long history.

“It is a little intimidating … It is hugely humbling to be in one of the most important festivals of the history, alongside world-class acts.”