Welcome back to our Offbeat Spotlight series. Over the next few days we're highlighting all the strange and wonderful things that the Offbeat Festival has to offer. The Offbeat Festival runs from the 9th-15th of September, and is a collaboration between The Old Fire Station, Oxford Playhouse, New Theatre and Gloucester Green Market. In addition to a multitude of shows, there are also workshops, and exhibition, late night events including a poetry slam, comedy scratch night, and listening party, and more.
Here, we catch up with Etain O'Carroll, the organiser behind this year's Offbeat, about the free, creative activities open in Gloucester Green on Saturday. Read on to find out more.
Daily Information: Hi Etain, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us today. What are the Offbeat activities being offered in Gloucester Green?
Etain O'Carroll: We've got a great range of free, family-friendly activities on Gloucester Green this weekend. On Saturday from 10am-3pm we have a range of hands-on activities to choose from. You can just rock up and try your hand at clay lantern making, painting, printing, map making, or create a giant spin-painting to turn into a flower to get Gloucester Green in bloom.
We'll also have the Oxford Poetry Pharmacist on hand to dispense poetic medicine for any ailment you might have, you can help out to create a collaborative quilt with Ark-T, or just have a wander around and see what activity takes your fancy.
And, on top of all this, we've got a fantastic free outdoor performance on the market on Sunday afternoon at 2.30pm. The Trap is a slapstick story about a plan, a man, and a plant that's full of mad music, peculiar props and hilarious audience improvisation. It's by local physical theatre artist Joe Dieffenbacher and is going to so much fun.
DI: Who are these activities for?
EO: Everyone is welcome! With such a diverse range of activities on offer we're hoping all our visitors from young children to adults will find something they love. All the activities are free, family-friendly, step-free and you can just pop along and join in in whatever way you want.
DI: Why is it important for Offbeat to include more hands-on activities and workshops, rather than just shows and exhibitions?
EO: Offbeat is all about local artists showing what they're best at and we want this wealth of talent to be accessible to as many people as possible. Theatre shows and art exhibitions aren't for everyone and so getting outdoors to share creative activities, and to offer free performances is really important for us. We want people to get creative, have fun and be able to join in in whatever way they can so we try to make sure we can offer lots of different ways for people to get involved.
DI: What does the Offbeat Festival mean to you?
EO: I just love Offbeat. At its heart it's all about encouraging local artists to dream, to turn a kernel of an idea for a story into a show with funding, mentoring, skills training, rehearsal space and support all along the way.
There are very few opportunities to do this type of thing, arts funding has been cut dramatically and without support like this there's a risk we'll see the same artists, hear the same points of view and only see shows that theatres know will bring in an audience. Offbeat allows people to take a risk, to dream a little and take their artistic career up a as they go.
And with low ticket prices and lots of free events, it also allows audiences to take a risk on something they might never think of going to see and in the process discover something entirely new.
DI: What was the selection process for the activity leaders like?
EO: We had a call out for applications late last year and asked activity leaders to provide details on what they could provide, who the activities might appeal to and what they would involve. This year we had a panel of six people go through all applications so that we could have a diverse range of shows and activities on offer. Along with assessing the merits of each application, they had of course to make sure that everything would work together without overlapping themes, that logistics of set up were practical, and that it would all gel together as a festival as a whole.
DI: Finally, please describe Get Creative on Gloucester Green in three words.
EO: Fun, hands-on, and free!
Get Creative on Gloucester Green is on at the Gloucester Green Market, on Sat 14th Sep 10am-3pm. For more info, click here.