Back in August Julia and I took a trip to Rode Hall, Cheshire to visit Just So Festival. We decided to go for one day – the Saturday – to find out a bit more about the arts at the festival. Throughout our year of the a-n professional development bursary we have been visiting art in expected and unexpected settings. We have been to see work that is indoors, outdoors, in galleries, in the gardens of galleries, in parks and at festivals. This reflects the direction of our practice, which is to create work that is accessible for all in a variety of locations.
We decided to visit Just So Festival as it has a strong art and family focus and we wanted to discover more about it as this is somewhere we envisage creating work for in the future. Despite being a very rainy day, we had a wonderful time. We saw several theatre shows which included: Horse + Bamboo’s ‘Theatre for One’ – a miniature puppet theatre world to watch individually; Sharklegs family show ‘Long, Broad & SharpSight’; Les Enfants Terribles ‘The Fantastic Flying Exploratory Laboratory; and Bash Street Theatre’s ‘Cliffhanger’ – a live silent movie style physical theatre show.
The festival was divided up into different zones, each with a different focus. We particularly liked the woodland area as it had a very immersive feel and consisted of three zones – ‘Tales of Animalia’, ‘The Spellbound Forest’ and ‘The Woodland Theatre’. As well as a stages with timed shows (we saw ‘Reynard the Fox’ by The Fabularium), there were walkabout woodland creatures (also by The Fabularium) and an art trail, which together really helped to create the immersive atmosphere.
Visiting Just So was very valuable as it allowed us to see a festival that has strong focus on family and arts. Previous festivals we have worked at have been very much for adults with the main focus being music, for these festivals we have created site decor as more interactive work wouldn’t have been appropriate. Just So showed us an audience that are very interested in the art and are looking to be immersed by it. After visiting the festival we really feel Just So would be a great festival for our work, as it would allow us to create very immersive work with an appropriate audience.
