Every year as part of the Rotherham Show, a small corner is taken up by the Diversity Festival.
The events’ strap line is as follows: “The Rotherham Diversity Festival is uniquely positioned to bring people from across the borough together and enables everyone to engage with Diversity in a safe and positive space.”
This corner of the Rotherham Show brings together a number of different organisations in the town, holding stalls and creating a real buzz to those who have a wander around. A vibrant range of performers also take to the stage, providing consistent entertainment throughout the weekend.
A personal favourite of mine this year was seeing Ansuman Biswaz performing on Sunday afternoon. He took to the stage with a hang drum; I had never seen one before. It resembled an upside down wok, and created the most beautiful, soothing sound. The whole performance was quite mesmerising as the weather changed from drizzle to sunlight.
This year ROAR took the Sonic Puppet Theatre to the show, a machine that enabled passerby's to create their own musical composition as a backdrop to their original puppet show:
The machine created a high level of intrigue and, the children especially, really enjoyed listening back to the sounds they had created. A particular favourite of ours was one boy whose Walla Walla Bing Bang composition really flowed and brought together all the elements of the machine. You here a snippet of the piece on our Instagram here.
Here is a link to a highlight video the Rotherham Advertiser created about the event: http://www.rotherhamadvertiser.co.uk/news/view,video-highlights-of-rotherham-show-2017_23778.htm