Off Beat

Off Beat A jam-packed three-day festival of theatre, dance, spoken word and sound art 15-17 June 2023. Off Beat is a hive of new performance in Oxford. 15-17 June 2023.

It’s a place for artists to show work for the first time in the city, and a place for audiences to see something which wouldn’t usually come here. It’s a blind date with a show you could fall in love with. And – lucky you – it’s right on your doorstep. Take a chance on something exciting. A collaboration between Oxford Playhouse, Arts at the Old Fire Station and New Theatre Oxford, with performances across the Old Fire Station, BT Studio and New Theatre.

This Friday!Workshop 5 Elements Movement Practice with Juan Sánchez Plaza+ Conversation with OFS CEO regarding its Artis...
04/03/2025

This Friday!
Workshop 5 Elements Movement Practice with Juan Sánchez Plaza+ Conversation with OFS CEO regarding its Artistic Vision

Friday, March 7th
10am to 12pm
£10
Tickets at the OFS website: https://oldfirestation.org.uk/whats-on/5-elements-movement-practice/

What’s included: A wrap and drink from Damascus Rose Kitchen (to enjoy during the post-workshop conversation)

Join the Conversation:
12:15 PM – 1:30 PM
Contribute to the Artistic Vision of OFS in an open conversation with its CEO, Clara Vaughan

About the Workshop:
This session explores movement through the five elements—Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Space—blending Movement, Meditation, Sound Bath, and Aromatherapy to inspire self-expression and artistic connection.
Led by Juan Sánchez Plaza – Developer of The 5 Elements Movement Practice, Founder of Nomad Dance Collective, and a familiar face at OFS, having performed in the past two editions of Offbeat. Juan is also a commissioned artist for Moving with the Times, performing at Dancin’ Oxford.
This event is supported by

It’s the final day of Offbeat 2024, and it’s a big one! Our backstage tours at the Old Fire Station take place first thi...
15/09/2024

It’s the final day of Offbeat 2024, and it’s a big one!

Our backstage tours at the Old Fire Station take place first thing, but are already booked out. Sorry!

Join us instead at the Old Fire Station at noon to learn a song with Starling Sessions in preparation for tonight’s show where you’ll be welcome to join the event on stage.

At 2.30pm on Gloucester Green we’ve a got free outdoor performance for all the family. The Trap features sublime slapstick, mad music, peculiar props and hilarious audience participation. No need to book, just come along.

Cancer B*tch at 3.30pm is a sold-out show about dealing with a cancer diagnosis in your early 20s.

At 5pm, Oxford’s own Rawz performs Portals and Parallels: Oxford’s Hidden Worlds which offers a window into a hidden Oxford seen through his experiences of gorwing up in the Leys and working with Oxford University.

HEAD, at 6.30pm at the BT Studio, merges the absurd with reality, and explores the unique challenges and joys of growing up with ADHD.

And our final show of the festival is guaranteed to be a whirlwind of fun as Starling Sessions bring us songs from around the world in a joyous celebration of music’s ability to bring us together.

It’s followed by the festival closing party – come join the fun, hit the dancefloor to the DJ AJ Jones and celebrate the end of the festival with us.

Anthology of Touches rehearsing for tonight's Dance Night featuring three separate performances. It's going to be great!...
14/09/2024

Anthology of Touches rehearsing for tonight's Dance Night featuring three separate performances. It's going to be great!

Old Fire Station
8pm

Book now: offbeatoxford co.uk/whats-on/dance-night

It's Day 6 at Offbeat and we’ve got a bumper crop of events and activities for you today. We’ll be back with all our ar...
14/09/2024

It's Day 6 at Offbeat and we’ve got a bumper crop of events and activities for you today.

We’ll be back with all our arts and crafts activities on Gloucester Green from 10am to 3pm.

At 11am at the Old Fire Station, The Witch Without a Wand is a wonder-filled, BSL-signed story about a young witch who finds her power within.

The Untold Story of Alice Breakspear follows at 1pm at the OFS Studio and follows the modern-day consequences of a fall from a carousel at St Giles fair in 1892.

At 3pm, the Playhouse Playmaker Showcases features six script-in-hand readings of brand-new work.

Troika: Recollections, a documentary that celebrates the incontrovertible power theatre has to bring people together is at the OFS Studio at 5pm.

At 6.30pm at the BT Studio we have Motherhood a powerful story of knife crime and its impacts.

Dance Night at 8pm in the Old Fire Station Theatre features three performances, Anthology of Touches exploring memories and lived experience of touching and being touched; The Renegade Master, a vibrant celebration of Queerness, intricately woven with a poignant critique on privilege and societal politics; and Don't Tell Me What Bharatanatyam Is, an experimental performance that will challenge your perceptions of Indian classical dance.

The night finishes up with Offbeat Sonics at 9.15pm in the OFS Cafe, an ecclectic, live electronica event featuring performances from three local, leftfield artists.

Come join us!

Check out the full listings on www.offbeatoxford.co.uk

Offbeat Festival is a creative partnership between , and .

It's Day 5 at Offbeat! We'll be on Gloucester Green from 10am-3pm with a host of free, fun activities for you to do. You...
13/09/2024

It's Day 5 at Offbeat!

We'll be on Gloucester Green from 10am-3pm with a host of free, fun activities for you to do. You could so some painting, printing or collage work, help put together a collaborative quilt, make a spin painting flower to get the market square blooming, visit the poetry pharmacist, help map Gloucester Green or make a clay lamp. No need to book, just drop by!

At 6.30pm at the BT Studio Pigeons in Transit is a daring solo performance by composer and songwriter Hannah Fredsgaard-Jones. A woman grappling with the overwhelming weight of environmental despair experiences a surreal awakening when mysterious parcels appear on her doorstep. Each parcel contains a live pigeon, delivered daily without a trace of the sender.

At 8pm in the Old Fire Station, She Vaniches in the Air is a reconstruction of the case of a woman who went for a walk with her dog and never came back. An interactive theatre game that challenges the audience's perceptions by exploring the impact of cancel culture on artistic creation, it promises to be an intrguing performance.

Finish your evening at a free event at the Old Fire Station Cafe were Tina Sederholm will be presiding over the Offbeat Poetry Slam where eight poets will battle it out with blade-sharp wit and killer lines to be crowned Offbeat Slam Champion. Who will win? The audience decides.

Old Fire Station, Oxford Oxford Playhouse Ark-T

It's Day 4 at Offbeat and we've got some more amazing shows coming your way! At the BT Theatre tonight at 6.30pm join us...
12/09/2024

It's Day 4 at Offbeat and we've got some more amazing shows coming your way!

At the BT Theatre tonight at 6.30pm join us for Have You Met Stan? a musical that weaves together the complexities of identity, family, love and heartbreak into a poignant, powerful story. Set in an Irish pub in London, it takes the audience on a journey through the intersecting lives of two immigrants - Stan from Poland and Séan from Ireland - as they come to terms with their identities and their struggles as LGBTQ+ individuals.

At 8pm at the Old Fire Station, DELUGE puts a magic realist spin on dealing with and overcoming grief. The show blurs imagination with reality by invoking a surreal, tender and humorous dreamscape that touches simultaneously on the intensely personal and the universal aspects of loss and how we live with it.

And at 9.15pm in the Old Fire Station Cafe, there’s entertainment of an altogether different nature with Stilly’s Mildish Urges for Childish Dirges, six illustrated nursery rhymes intended more to give you gleeful nightmares than sweet dreams. Vengefully macabre infants, morbidly obsessed youngsters and cursed minors all have stories to tell. This event is free, but please do book a ticket as capacity is limited.

Book your tickets on www.offbeatoxford.co.uk/whats-on

Old Fire Station, OxfordOxford Playhouse and


It’s day 3 of Offbeat and you’ll have to be fast to grab the last few tickets for today’s shows! At the BT Studio at 6.3...
11/09/2024

It’s day 3 of Offbeat and you’ll have to be fast to grab the last few tickets for today’s shows!

At the BT Studio at 6.30pm today is a compelling story about knife crime and its impact on families in the fabulous Motherhood. Today’s show is a sell0out but we’re hoping to arrange a second performance later in the week. Watch this space!

At 8pm in the OFS Theatre it’s time to get back to business with Justine Malone’s incredible solo show, I’ll Be Back, the story of an embittered Cyberdyne Systems scientist (UK branch) who, when captured by the human Resistance, is forced to become a Windows 95 Terminator. This troubled and malfunctioning killing machine is sent back to a world before Judgment Day to discover what it means to be human.

The evening finishes off at the Old Fire Station Cafe with the Offbeat Comedy Scratch Night where you can scratch that late-night comedy itch with a selection of some of Oxford's up-and-coming comedians as they test out brand-new and off-beat material ... which may or may not work. Hosted by award-winning comedy performer, writer & director Nathan Peter Grassi.

It’s going to be a great day for entertainment in Oxford. Book your tickets on www.offbeatoxford.co.uk/whats-on

Old Fire Station, Oxford Oxford Playhouse

What's on at Offbeat today?We've got a free all-day workshop with Starling Sessions who are teaching their music facilit...
10/09/2024

What's on at Offbeat today?

We've got a free all-day workshop with Starling Sessions who are teaching their music facilitation methods.

At 6.30pm in the New Theatre Piano Bar, enter a 70s Lynchian talk show lounge that celebrates the weird and wonderful. Expect comedy, art, cabaret and possibly even a life-changing experience at Live & Peculiar.

At 8pm at the Old Fire Station Theatre catch Electra Untitled a modern-day telling of the classic tale that combines dance, puppetry and visual storytelling to bring forward the role of women who provoke change in times of hostility.

And at 9.15pm join Oxford Contemporary Music for a free Listening Party at the Old Fire Station Cafe. It’s an open event for you to share your favourite music and discover something new.

Check out our full programme and book your tickets on www.offbeatoxford.co.uk

Old Fire Station, Oxford New Theatre Oxford

09/09/2024

We've got a week packed full of exciting performances, new voices, local talent and lots of fun coming your way!

Check out the fulll line up and book your tickets at www.offbeatoxford.co.uk

9-15 September across Old Fire Station, Oxford, Oxford Playhouse, New Theatre Oxford and Oxford Outdoor Market.

Can't wait to see you there! Join us for a launch party tonight at 6.30pm at the Old Fire Station cafe to hear all about it!

08/09/2024

The festival opens tomorrow and if you're wondering what it's all about, just take a look at some of the highlights from 2023.

We support new ideas, unheard voices, and early career artists get their stories to the stage with funding, mentoring, workshops, rehearsal space and lots of encouragement.

This year we've got lots of fun-filled shows and activites, lots of free events and big-hitting stories tackled in innovative ways.

Offbeat Festival is a creative partnership between Old Fire Station, Oxford, Oxford Playhouse and New Theatre Oxford.

Check out our full programme on www.offbeatoxford.co.uk.

With thanks to for the lovely video.

Address

40 George Street
Oxford
OX12AQ

Telephone

+441865305305

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Off Beat posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Off Beat:

Shortcuts

Share