Odd Arts performs to Shoosmiths audience during Race Equality Week

Shoosmiths Manchester office charity partner Odd Arts recently gave two performances to colleagues in the Manchester office during Race Equality Week. Race Equality Week is an annual UK-wide movement uniting hundreds of thousands of organisations and individuals to address the barriers to race equality in the workplace.

Odd Arts uses theatre to challenge inequalities and increase opportunities for people facing the greatest level of discrimination and disadvantage.

 For this event, Odd Arts delivered two live theatre performances, including some audience interaction. The first play 'Knock Out Blow' celebrates the life of the local boxing legend Len Johnson. The performance aims to address racial inequalities, but also provides people with more realistic and positive Black history, stories, and role models.

Odd Arts then delivered its play 'Going Home' which realistically depicts the racism and discrimination faced by people from racially minoritised backgrounds in the UK today. It is based on the racism seen in the Euros 2021 final. After watching the performance, audience members stepped into parts of the play to make change - they called stop at moments they felt could have been dealt with better and interacted with the characters to provide a more anti-racism response. The audience became a team, unpicking what worked, and what didn't and sharing ideas on how we can avoid being a bystander to racism.

Find out more about the work of Odd Arts here. To find out more about how Shoosmiths has supported Odd Arts see our article here.