Interview | CEO and Artistic Director of Anywhere Festival, Paul Osuch

Next up on my Brisbane local artists interview segment is the incredibly hardworking and generous CEO and Artistic Director of Anywhere Festival, Paul Osuch. This is probably one of my favourite interviews I've done and I really cherish Paul's vulnerability and openness in his responses. Here's what he had to say...

VIRAG: How has COVID impacted your creative practice?

PAUL: Oh my, that's a huge question. Could you ask my favourite colour first just or the date of the next Anywhere Festival - 6-23 May 2021 since you asked - to warm up?

COVID has thrown all the balls up in the air, even the balls I didn't know I had, and you can interpret that in as many ways as you want. It feels like one of those moments of realised l'appelle du vid where we've collectively plummeted into the pits of despair and uncertainty waiting for the juggling balls to rain down on us.

So, umm, covid-19 has been making me think a lot ;-)

It's impacted me beyond the obvious one: that the 2020 Anywhere Festival in May didn't happen. It was probably a few days after Friday the 13th of March when the public gathering restrictions came in and we'd made the call to cancel the festival that I remember sitting down and feeling pointless and without direction. I realised how much I defined and structured my life around the running of an annual festival. Then you start getting up in the morning and after a breakfast coffee wondering the point of existence, as if you've been transported in a French novel from the turn of the 19th century.

Like everyone else, I tried to keep going but eventually reached a point where I wondered why and it was only then that I stopped and thought "Ok, what's important, why am I still running around like a chicken with it's head cut off and why don't I just chill the fuck out for a moment." that I was able to focus on the present for a while before being able to think about the future again.

VIRAG: In terms of Anywhere Festival, how have you been able to support independent artists to have their work go ahead? Have you been able to use a different platform?

Anywhere Festival has always been about making it possible for artists to create performances without the financial risks. So it really worried us when we saw so many organisations fill the void with free streaming. Either it was stuff they already had in the vaults or streaming concerts that they hoped people would donate to, and on the whole they didn't and the stats show audiences didn't even watch most of it.

What worried me was that organisations with a brand were putting free content out just as a way to remind people of their brand without really thinking about the impact on the artists they were using.

We knew it was vital for performers to be paid and that audiences put a value on performances and had to pay as well. There were Anywhere artists that were going to present at the 2020 Anywhere Festival and they came to us with some cool ideas to present under restrictions. You can see it on www.anywhere.is. That's when we put a program together of ticketed events where you could pay what you want from $5 to $100 and the average ended up being about $20, which was brilliant.

We haven't commissioned and paid in advance for works in the last nine years, instead focussing on ticket sales, but an incredible donor came along who wanted to contribute and make a difference for independent artists straight away. That gave us the ability to pay artists up front as the box office.

This meant that during the period from May in which no theatre, no performance venue was open, we were able to present over 80 performances of 21 productions to 8,466 people in spaces that weren't performance venues. With 3b Creative, Vulcana Circus and Judy Glen we presented performances in driveways in 32 suburbs across Brisbane and Sunshine Coast when the Street Serenade idea was still a twinkle in Brisbane Festival's eye.

VIRAG: Do you think using online platforms is the way forward for theatre, and if we are using online platforms, is it still 'live' theatre?

We are at a crossroads with theatre and live performance. It will either become an artefact to be preserved that struggles to evolve like much opera and ballet or it remains relevant and changes.

What I've seen online since covid has felt, on the whole, incredibly embryonic. There are a couple of exceptions and the Social Distance Slumber Party by Glitter Martini was one of the best I've seen: something that kept you watching a screen and feeling you were there in the room with others.

What we saw is that as soon as everything went online, the big name acts ruled supreme. All of the success stories people mention have been from people with huge fan bases already: Powderfinger, Nick Cave, NT Live. I think they used it more as a way to build up and refresh their followers and subscribers than to make money.

How does a small indie act in Brisbane put on a show at 7pm on a Friday when anyone in the world can tune into Rufus Wainwright or Melbourne Theatre Company at the same time with better production values and also, umm, free?

Having said that, what all these shows have forgotten, as much as I hate to admit it as a director, playwright and producer, is that the show is a destination. It's a way to be able to go out with friends and family and have something to experience together in new surroundings. Sitting at home in your pj's with a glass of wine watching a streamed show is a different experience and doesn't satisfy that social part of us. Until we find an answer to that, it isn't going to replace the in person experience.

VIRAG: How have you managed to stay creative and connected to the arts community during this time?

Can I tell you how tired I am of being connected to every body? Everybody is trying to be connected and running all these connection sessions. I'm saying this for all the fellow introverts out there who were actually happy for everyone to go away and leave us alone for a while.

I didn't do as many of these sessions in real life before covid. I actually just want everyone to leave me alone so I can go and create some arts, write, play music, paint, walk and stare at the river.

I want to create, and being alone for me is a way to do it. I need the blank page, no distractions. It feels like I am only reaching that point now as even though we didn't have the festival in May, we've had a rolling program for over three months now.

VIRAG: Do you have any advice for independent artists who may be feeling uncertain about 'what comes next'?

Channelling that uncertainty is one of our gifts as artists, and what we pick up on from others. We take it and create something - a feeling, a movement, a thought. We present that back and people go "fuck yeah". Just be present and something will come. Or it won't. But you can't force it and you shouldn't beat yourself up about it either way.

Credits for show photos are Travis McFarlane, Stuart HIrth, Geoff Lawrence, Travis McFarlane, Travis McFarlane