“I really want this festival to remind us of the joy in why we’re doing what we’re doing, because it’s hard. It’s really hard out there. We all know that it’s really difficult, and we need these moments to remind ourselves why we’re doing this, because we can’t give up.” Domi Uçar, Artistic Director of Side/Step festival, radiates a can-do attitude, and an almost stubborn positivity. We welcome Domi into the Voidspace to talk about curation, transcending genres and holding onto that joy against the odds.
Voidspace:
Hello and welcome to the Voidspace. I’m so happy to have you here. First of all, it would be great to get an introduction to who you are and what you do in this space.
Domi Uçar:
Hello! My name is Domi Uçar. I am a theatre director, a theatre maker, and I run Side/Step, which is an interdisciplinary theatre festival, or an experimental arts festival. I’m still trying to arrive at some tagline to describe what it is.
Side/Step is a festival that takes over unconventional spaces to showcase new, exciting work. The festival is focused mostly on theatre, but it also showcases other art forms, such as visual art, film, performance, etc. I want to encourage people to think outside the box a little bit, and step out of the prescribed definitions of what their art should be.
Voidspace:
You let me do Voidspace night at the first Side/Step in February, which made me so happy because not every theatre or performance-rooted festival makes space for the sort of things that the Voidspace does, that sit in that space between. It was lovely having that space to do something a little different and to find a wider audience for it.
Domi Uçar:
I think I’ve similarly sat in that space before, because my background is in visual art. I was doing a lot of theatre whilst I was at university, but that was not my degree.
Then I decided in my final year that I wanted to do a Master’s degree in theatre. But I didn’t really know exactly where I sat in the theatre space. I was doing a lot of directing at the time and I was really enjoying that, but I think maybe I lacked the confidence to just call myself a director and do a directing course.
Voidspace:
So much of it is about confidence, and this sense that we have to have permission from someone, to call ourselves one thing or another.
Domi Uçar:
Yeah, totally. I always knew that I wanted to find a way to bring my visual art practice into theatre, without just going into set design, which I never really wanted to do.
I felt like there would be a way of combining my directing and performing practice with visual art, but I didn’t really know what that would look like. And so that’s how I ended up on the Master’s that I did, which was Advanced Theatre Practice at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. I chose that course because it was quite interdisciplinary, and it encouraged a bit more experimentation within the field of theatre.
Being on that course really opened my eyes to what theatre could be, and what other art forms could be, too. Because it wasn’t really until we did The Manikins and discovered the wider community, that my eyes were opened a lot more not only to immersive and interactive theatre, but interactive art in general. That’s something that I was so unfamiliar with until we entered that scene ourselves.
Voidspace:
You formed Deadweight during the Advanced Theatre Practice course, didn’t you?
Domi Uçar:
Yes, we did. There were four of us: Anna Niamh Gorman, Hannah Gintberg Dees, Jack Aldisert and I. We formed Deadweight during the Master’s programme.
The first independent show we made was called Rubbernecks. We staged it in an unused restaurant space in Islington. I directed and wrote it, and Hannah also was there devising with me, and Maddie Wakeling, who I’ve worked with since, directing her show, Roadside. The three of us performed in it, alongside Olivia Steele, who ended up being a big part of The Manikins.
Voidspace:
I love how these networks of connection form.
At the first Side/Step, which took place in the same restaurant space, you talked about using visual art as a part of theatrical practice. Am I right in thinking you used some of these techniques when creating Rubbernecks?
Domi Uçar:
Yes. The workshop was about adapting images into theatre. It was based around some of the devising methods that we used to create Rubbernecks, which was an adaptation of a series of Edward Hopper paintings.
We tried to find ways to dissect an image, to really understand what the essence of it is, and what the elements that create this very specific atmosphere. We looked at the characters in the paintings, and then let our own imaginations go wild. We did a lot of writing from the perspective of those characters, and then connected the different paintings together.
We mostly worked in a very scenographic way: We took specific images, or ideas that came from them. We did a lot of research into thin places and transitional places.
Then we created a lot of scenographic fragments. Tiny, tiny pieces of work: little fractions of work that were mostly visual, and mostly based in that space. Then sometimes we would add characters to it, or we would add text to it. Then we worked on how those specific things made us feel, or how they could make an audience feel. And that led us to creating a bit of a narrative.
Voidspace:
What I love about this is that quite often, in the more commercial space particularly, there’s a temptation to come up with the narrative or the IP, and then work backwards from there. I have a lot more time for stuff that starts from the other end: what is it that we’re feeling, and what is it that the audience are feeling? And what is it that we’re creating by tweaking these little elements? Because I feel like when you do that, you’re actually getting to the heart of the experience first, rather than the outside of the thing.
Because it’s one thing to build a set to replicate the environment of a story world. But unless you know how to do the work on the inside, you’re never going to create or recreate the feeling of it.
Domi Uçar:
It’s really interesting, actually, that you say that, because I have actually always really struggled with narrative. It’s something that I really want to improve on as a maker.
I think I’m really good as a director, taking a narrative and really trying to find ways to evoke the specific feelings and the emotions that are presented in that narrative already. But I find it really difficult to construct the narrative itself from scratch.
Voidspace:
I hear you. It’s like poetry – atmosphere first.
That takes me nearly to Roadside, which you directed earlier this year, which was written and performed by your Rubberbecks collaborator Maddie Wakeling. That was densely atmospheric piece: you managed to evoke the feelings of this is a modern traveller’s story.
Domi Uçar:
Maddie is such a talented storyteller and performer. The story of Roadside is really personal to her, and her experiences. I think what was really lovely about Roadside was that it is a story that comes from a very specific community and a very specific experience, and yet it is still able to connect to something that a lot of people have felt. Trying to figure out where we belong. What is our sense of home, how do we want to build our own homes, what’s important to us, and what do we surround ourselves with?
That connection that you can build with a piece of art, I think, is what makes it so special.
Voidspace:
That heightened sense of connection plays quite specifically into what people are looking for in immersive or interactive art, too.
I’d love to hear more about your relationship to this sort of work. Most people in our community first heard of your work through The Manikins: A Work in Progress.
Domi Uçar:
The Manikins is the third interactive show that we’ve made. The Manikins was the first time, I think, we started being introduced to the community.
But even when I was at university working on my degree show, which then sadly never happened because of COVID, I was interested in this kind of dynamic.
My dissertation was looking at the curtain, in that very theatrical sense, but also in that Lynchian sense. This weird object that belongs to quite a liminal space. It’s a hard barrier or separation, but it’s also so soft by nature, and so movable.
That was at the core of my dissertation and my degree show. The installation that I was creating for that final show was intended to bring the paintings I’d created into the space, and to allow people to walk in between the objects themselves, to almost become part of the space of the painting. Rather than have, in a very traditional sense, this rectangular canvas which is hung on a wall, and you, the viewer, stand and observe the piece.
I’d draw a parallel between that traditional type of viewing and how the audience relates to proscenium arch theatre. I am an audience member standing here, and I am viewing something that’s over there. So even before I started going into theatre in a more professional sense, I was already thinking about that division between viewer and object. That division made no sense to me.
So I was already really interested in that relationship between audience and art, or audience and performance. And when I then started my Master’s and was much more involved in actually making theatre, the predominant question for me was: what is that space between an audience and a performance? And I mean that in both a physical and a metaphorical sense.
Voidspace:
It’s so interesting to hear you talk about that relationship between work and viewer in relation to visual art in the same way that one might talk about it in relation to immersive theatre. You may feel that traditionally there’s a demarcation between viewer and work, and what you were proposing in your degree was something a lot more fluid, porous, relational. Questioning why that demarcation exists, and what you can do to break it, or subvert it, or bend with it.
Domi Uçar:
Yeah, for sure. I think that’s something that I’ve always been really interested in. Looking at the reasons for the rules of a specific art form. If paintings are not hanging on a wall and painted on a canvas, and they’re hanging in the space, then they become sculptures. It’s so weird that we have these rules: this is a painting, but this is a sculpture, this is an installation.
Voidspace:
That’s so true. And it’s so true for theatre. Thinking about the history of the theatre and how those conventions, what we think of as the conventions of theatre, have built over time and for different reasons.
Domi Uçar:
I’m interested in questioning what those conventions are, in my visual practice and in the theatre as well.
Our first piece that Deadweight made as a company, Keep Me In The Loop, was also an interactive piece that took place in a surreal office situation, across different spaces in Camden People’s Theatre. That was very sensory as well.
During that first year, which culminated in making KMITL, we did a lot of research into immersive and interactive theatre. We went to see Ontroerend Goed in Amsterdam to experience it. That was my first encounter with that more sensory interactive work, that really was not conventional, by my own definition of theatre, at all.
That led to Rubbernecks, which was also questioning the relationship between visual art, an audience and theatre, and then The Manikins. At that point, we knew as a company that this was a form that we’re really interested in. This interrogation of convention, and how, as an audience, you can connect to a piece of theatre in a less expected way, and how that can affect you differently.
Voidspace:
Challenging expectations.
Domi Uçar:
I think all of that – and this is a really big circle back! – all of that has led us to Side/Step.
Because all of that is in the spirit of challenging those conventions and asking ourselves: why are the rules this way? And that even translates to why we choose the spaces that we’ve been using for Side/Step.
Partially, it was because that’s what is available to us. But I’m also really interested in the idea of why we have to put on shows in a nice black box theatre with all of these professional lights and rigged seating, when you could make something very different, and evocative, and unique in a restaurant or whatever.
Now we’re going to be at Colab Tower, which has a whole range of different spaces. We have the railway tunnels, which are quite dark and dingy. Then we have the studio, which feels like a meeting room, which brings a completely different vibe.
Then we have the basement, which also feels very weird. There are pipes everywhere.
Voidspace:
It has a big backrooms vibe, doesn’t it?
Domi Uçar:
It really does.
I think the basement used to be a storage room. I feel like I’m on a ship. What work can you put in that space?
Making something for a less conventional space is a really great creative challenge, that can lead to some really amazing discoveries.
And I think in general, with Side/Step, I’m very interested in exploring where the lines are between different disciplines. It’s the same, for example, with theatre and film: it’s so weird to me that those things are so segregated.
And what I really loved about the last edition of Side/Step was being able to programme a short film screening, workshops, theatre performances, readings, an art installation, and then have several big parties where then all of those people can be in the same room. Maybe that’s the best way of combining those things – getting people talking about what they do and how they could collaborate. Hopefully that can make a nice fertile soil for something to bloom from.
Voidspace:
I agree with what you’re saying about the challenges but also the benefits of making something for an unconventional space. It’s good to see that sense of the site-specific coming back into public consciousness.
Working with what you’ve got and what that is going to inspire in you.
Domi Uçar:
It’s a response to the conditions that artists are working in now. To be an artist at the moment, when resources are really limited. Nobody’s getting any funding. There’s no space anywhere. Rehearsal rooms are really expensive. Performance spaces are really expensive.
And yes, all of that is really sad and depressing. I feel like we’re in a bit of a state of emergency. But at the same time, we might as well make something of it. I think that I try to stay in as much of a positive mindset as possible, because if I didn’t truly believe that we can make this work, or we can do something about this, then what would be the point of still continuing to do it? It’s about not waiting for institutional permission.
Voidspace:
Yes, exactly.
Domi Uçar:
I just really don’t like the idea of needing to have the permission to do the work that I want to do. I know that that’s really frustrating when it comes to funding.
I don’t think that Arts Council England (ACE) is particularly interested in funding the work that we make. And hopefully that will change down the line with Side/Step, and being able to show how many artists it is actually supporting and how those creative and experimental playgrounds are really, really needed for the artistic community and the artistic landscape at the moment.
Voidspace:
I agree. Unfortunately, I think ACE is not really concerned with the artistic community. It’s very much to do with other definitions of community. And focussing on ACE can turn out to be a bit of a poisoned chalice for a number of reasons.
It feels like we’re such allies in this because I’m a huge believer in the grassroots, and not waiting for permission. Just trying to find a way of doing it yourself, through growing goodwill and mutual solidarity in community, and all of those things. It’s very heartening to see that we both have endeavours that have managed almost against the odds so far.
I think even if ACE doesn’t eventually wake up to how great we are and give us loads of money, the doing of it is in itself so important because not only are we just getting it done, but we’re also setting that example for people coming after us.
The more one can encourage that flexibility of thinking, just working with the resources before you, not waiting for the perfect setting, accepting that it’s a struggle at the moment for everybody, but we can keep creating just out of sheer bloody mindedness, and that if we do, we will find our people to support us and to make it work.
Sorry, that’s just my little soapbox.
Domi Uçar:
No, I think it’s true.
Also, I think it’s important also to acknowledge that it’s really easy say, “Oh, just make the work and just make it happen anyway.” I think that is obviously not an easy thing at all. Just being able to put on a production and make it work is an extreme privilege. A lot of people don’t have that privilege and need to work really hard, don’t have time, or they face many, many other barriers in the way of just putting on a show. It’s obviously not that easy.
So I’m hoping that we see more things like Side/Step and Voidspace as well, who can say: Hey, you know what? It’s okay. We’ve got the space, we’ve got the programming, we’ve got the website, we’ve got the social media, so you don’t have to worry about this stuff. And we can’t really have any tech or any other technical equipment set up here. So you don’t need to worry about tech or set design. Here’s a space. You can do what you want, and invite who you want.
And hopefully, that can be a platform for people to put on work that goes somewhere.
Voidspace:
I know what you mean. I think a lot of people who are managing, myself included, we all have different privileges in play. For me, it’s the day job. Even though that comes with its own challenges, it means I have a stable source of income, so I don’t have to worry about where the next paycheque is coming from.
But we all have privileges, and we all have challenges that go with it. But for those of us who have those privileges, I think it’s so important to be able to find creative ways of using them to lift up others in the community and to try to spread that opportunity further.
I love the fact that you’re doing that with Side/Step and that you’re offering the space completely free, you’re offering marketing support, you don’t charge submission fees. I mean, very rare. I used to be able to trumpet it as my USP, and I love the fact that I can’t anymore. The fact that you’re not charging artists for the privilege of being there. It’s so important. It encourages people.
It’s important structurally, in terms of supporting artists and keeping the hope alive.
But also, artistically, it’s important, and exciting, because when you offer that space (and a growing audience) with no strings attached, it gives people the ability to take risks that they might not otherwise feel able to take with their work. That’s super exciting.
Domi Uçar:
Yeah, it is exciting.
Voidspace:
The original Side/Step in February 2025 took place over the course of a week in a single space. This time you have multiple spaces over a single weekend. How are you finding that change, as a producer?
Domi Uçar:
It’s a lot.
It’s a really different process this time. Programming is so hard. We’ve got so many amazing submissions this time around, and we need to find ways of jigsawing all of it together, not only across different spaces, but also in terms of a festival and a programme.
Last edition, we got some submissions for sound pieces, radio plays and other audio things. I really loved the idea of having them, but because we only had the one space, we just couldn’t fit them into the programme. So, that was something that we couldn’t accommodate then, but can now.
Then, this time around we haven’t had that many film submissions. And because there are certain spaces which are being used for other things, I think we’re going to not do a film screening.
There is a lot of wishing that we could do so much more, but then obviously still having limitations, and wanting to make a satisfyingly curated programme.
There is a degree of picking and choosing and curating, which does sadly mean that not everything can be included. Not because of the quality of the work, but just because of how the programme is shaping up.
Voidspace:
There are practical limitations, and then also just the act of going through submissions and working out what’s a good fit. The very process of going through submissions and working out what makes a good fit, helps you start to understand your own curatorial vision as well.
Domi Uçar:
Every time I do it, I really start questioning the line between being a programmer and an artistic director, and having my own opinions and tastes as an artist?
The line can definitely be blurred, and I think when we approach submissions, we try and look at everything as objectively as possible. When you’re looking at art and you are an artist yourself, there are certain things that don’t feel like the right fit, for whatever reason. Then there are other times where you can see that this seems like a good quality piece of work, it’s just maybe not to my taste.
Voidspace:
I deliberately programme some things that aren’t to my taste because I know what I like, but I know that what I like has its own limitations and what I like to make has its own limitations.
I tend to think about specific people I know when programming. If I can find a specific friend in my head who will love a piece, and a specific friend in my head who would be challenged by it, but in a good way, then it will definitely be in.
I know a lot of people with very distinct and different tastes in this very specific niche. But for me, that worked really well, because it meant that everything had its own little litmus test of sorts, because I’m not just thinking about my own reactions as an artist or curator.
I think also, if you’re going to take a risk as a curator and deliberately create oxygen for unknown work, and people outside of your bubble. If you want to genuinely support people who don’t have the privileges and resources and aren’t already plugged into the network, then you have to be prepared to take some risks and take a punt on something that may or may not succeed.
The act of curation is a creative discipline in itself. There’s no such thing as an objective view, but you’re thinking about what you want out of your community, what opportunities you want to give people, versus what experiences you want to give people. You end up realising that you’ve grown a little ideological circle.
From the outside, it’s really clear that Side/Step has an ideological circle that it is drawing, about being interdisciplinary, about pushing certain formal boundaries, but also being quite a broad church in terms of form as well. Having works in progress and workshops and finished pieces and an art exhibition. It’s great to see that done quite intentionally.
Domi Uçar:
The thing about being an artistic director or a creative director, is that there are definitely going to be things that will be programmed because you can see the quality of it. It might not necessarily be your taste, but you believe in the work anyway.
At the end of the day, it’s hard to draw a distinction between creative vision as an artist and as an artistic director. I’ve started a festival because I have a particular vision in my mind.
There is a balance between following that vision, and keeping an open mind and being willing to take a chance.
Voidspace:
Who else is involved in bringing the festival to life?
Domi Uçar:
Hannah Gintberg Dees. Hannah is our producer. She’s great. She started Side/Step with me and is very much my right-hand man. I see this as a joint endeavour that we have started together.
Hannah and I do Side/Step together, and then we have other producers that come on as well. Last year we had Amber Williams and Reese Campbell, and then this year we have Morgan Brame, who was in Uncle Barry’s Birthday Party.
And we’ll have more hands on deck as we get closer to the weekend. It’s very much not just me. There are a lot of people working on it.
Voidspace:
That’s really nice.
I think it’s interesting what you were saying about following your vision as artistic director versus taking a risk with things. I think it’s probably also part of what we were saying. That the decision to take that risk is part of your wider vision.
This is why artistic directors are sought after, because you can’t actually replicate one person’s particular vision, even if it’s hard to put into words.
Bringing it back to this iteration of Side/Step. What are you looking forward to the most?
Domi Uçar:
Side/Step is happening on 5-6 September. It’s our second edition. It’s going to be a really fun weekend of experiments, and joy and creativity.
What’s going to be really great about the transition from week-long but one space to two days but five spaces is that there are just going to be a lot of people there.
We’re really trying to foster a sense of community and joy and celebration and thinking outside the box.
I really want this festival to remind us of the joy in why we’re doing what we’re doing, because it’s hard. It’s really hard out there. We all know that it’s really difficult, and we need these moments to remind ourselves why we’re doing this, because we can’t give up.
So come to Side/Step, experience some joy, meet some great people, have a drink, see some art. It’s just going to be really fun. We’ll be around. Come say hello. We always want to talk to people. We’re always looking for collaborators, for artists, all of that.
We’ve had so many submissions from people completely outside of our network that we don’t know.
Voidspace:
Isn’t that a beautiful thing?
Domi Uçar:
That just makes me so happy as well, because being on the receiving end, as in being on the other side of applying for things, even if it’s jobs or festivals, opportunities, whatever, it always feels really disheartening if it feels like it’s about who you know.
I want this festival to show we don’t need to know each other. If your art has artistic integrity and it looks interesting and you’re passionate about what you’re doing, and you want to try something different, we will make space for you.
Voidspace:
Based on your journey so far, do you have any advice that you would give to people starting out in this thing, be it performance or programming or anything else?
Domi Uçar:
The first thing is meet as many people as you can, not for the purposes of networking, but for the purpose of being genuinely interested in what your fellow artists are doing. That will be the best form of networking.
Second: organisation will help you so much. Always try and go the step further and use your initiative. What’s going to make you stand out is being able to take initiative, not waiting for other people to ask you to do the things that you probably know that you need to do.
Last, and most importantly:
Don’t forget why you’re doing it. Remember to find the joy, and to stay positive. I think a positive mindset is really key.
We all have moments of doubt, and we all lose hope, and we all feel shit. But remember to keep the hope alive.
Stay strong. You’ve got this.
Side/Step festival runs 5 & 6 September at Colab Tower, London