All set for best party in the city

Danielle Battigelli, executive director of Cowley Road Works, first came across Cowley Road Carnival as an East Oxford resident.

But she’s been part of the team helping to make it happen since 2009 and now heads the part-time freelance staff, each specialists in their own fields.

“What I love about Carnival is the enormous goodwill, creativity, energy and goodwill which surrounds it and makes the big celebration of arts and cultures possible and freely accessible for people of all backgrounds and ages,” says Danielle, who has a background in charity law and long time involvement in a voluntary capacity in the arts.

She came to Britain from Zimbabwe more than 20 years ago and has always lived in the East Oxford area, where she loves the cultural mix and vibrancy.

The first Cowley Road Carnival was held in 2001, under a social regeneration programme, run by East Oxford Action with government funding.

This programme came to an end and, in 2009, custodianship of the carnival was handed over to an independent, community based charity, now called Cowley Road Works.

Danielle was asked initially to help with consultation about the best long term home for carnival, and then to get the charity up and running with a board of voluntary trustees and the other structures it needed to operate effectively.

She was drawn in to supporting the trustees in other ways, and then to taking on an executive director role, coordinating the year-round work of the charity.

Organising Oxford’s biggest street party is not without its challenges.

“Not least that of raising enough money each year to cover the essential costs of the big public event and ensuring that all the many details fall into place after a long period of planning,” says Danielle who, as well as the carnival, works with a range of arts and charitable organisations.

About £100,000 is required each year to cover the costs of the free event and go towards the following year’s preparation.

Costs are kept to a minimum and organisations and businesses give support, such as office, storage and meeting space, food vouchers for volunteers and water for procession participants. And no performers or sound systems are paid.

“We certainly could not put on the event without all of this valuable goodwill and support in kind,” says Danielle.

“However, there are unavoidable costs to pay, for licences, insurance, toilets, road barriers, security, cleaning and professional staff to do the detailed planning, risk assessment and coordination.”

Organising a carnival which involves the closure of a major Oxford arterial road and attracts tens of thousands of people is never going to be easy.

“All the hard work is worth while to see the procession, with all the children and different groups, dressed up and carrying their banners/puppets/props, dancing and making music, and to watch the crowds respond,” says Danielle. “To see musicians of all ages and styles performing all along the road; to see families busy making and doing and watching things together; to see the road transformed into a big open space for people to meet, talk, dance, share food and wonder at how different and how similar they all are.

“And for the legacy of new art work of all kinds along the road, new friends and connections made, new ideas and projects inspired.”

Making sure girl power gets a look-in at the carnival is 26-year-old mum Zahra Tehrani who runs the Oxford Young Women’s Music Project.

Zahra Tehrani with her five-month-old son, SZ Tehrani-Smith

Zahra, who grew up on Rectory Road, between the Cowley Road and the Plain, has been going to the carnival since it started - when there were only two women performing.

“In terms of in Oxford [the music industry] is still extremely male dominated,” says Zahra.

But it’s something she is working to change.

For the second year running Zahra is running the Kate Garrett stage, outside the O2, which will feature a mix of about half and half girls/boys.

“This year the stage has varied line-up from saxophonist Jack Casstles-Jones to MC Mizz Lyrikal, we have mixed up the genres and made sure the male to female ratio is just about equal,” she says.

The stage, aimed at young people aged 14 to 25, will feature urban and alternate music from around the county.

After giving birth to son Sé in January, Zahra was quickly back to working on the carnival.

“I like to have an active mind and needed to get back to work quickly,” says Zahra, a drummer and producer, who as a teenager was in an indie-punk band Baby Gravy, and launched her own record label BG records in 2010.

The name of the stage has special significance for her.

At 14 she met Kate Garrett who encouraged her musically at the Young Women’s Music Project. When Kate, who founded YWMP to empower young females with skills, confidence and knowledge in various musical genres, died of cancer at the age of 37 in 2009, Zahra took over its running.

“Having Kate support us was an amazing help. She knew the scene inside out and gave invaluable advice, which is just brilliant when you are growing up,” says Zahra, who is doing the same and making sure the girls don’t get ripped off or do anything they don’t want to do.

For 10 years, Zhara’s father was manager of the Bullingdon Arms, where she met many bands and her interest in music started to develop.

“I started to write stuff down at 14,” she says. “Dad got me a drum kit, second hand for £20 and I worked out how to set it up from the diagrams in the handbook.

“I started playing along to songs I liked at home and within a couple of months I was in a band and playing gigs.”

She also met Kate and Jon Fletcher, a co-worker and began learning more practicle skills and about the industry.

Zahra thinks there is still a “massive divide” when it comes to women in the music business.

“Especially when it comes to more technical things such as production or engineering,” she says. “There is always some level of undermining and sexism if you play an instrument as a female.

“You get spoken to in a different sort of way, the engineer will always go straight to the boys to find out about a spec – the automatic assumption that females in a band don’t know what they are doing.”

And although she has seen a slight improvement when it comes to technical matters, she’s horrified by negative female role models in the media.

“Music videos are not helping - the recent Lady Gaga video was about rape,” she says.

“It was banned, it is shocking. I couldn’t believe it had been made.”

She thinks change begins at grass roots.

“Girls and females have less confidence in themselves. They come along saying ‘I can’t do that’ or ‘I am alright’. And then when they play you find they are very good. Boys always have so much more confidence, and are more sure of themselves, even if they are not very good,” says Zara.

She played with Baby Gravy from the age of 16 to 21, saying it was a really good experience and a “very sad and difficult time” when the band broke up due to singer Iona Roisin leaving to study.

“Then I started producing my own music, Despicable Z, and released my own EP record,” says Zahra, whose husband Dale White, 26, a messenger for Oxford University, also played in Baby Gravy.

“I have never stopped drumming and still record every day but have been concentrating on projects.

“It is a future aim to get back on stage and do more shows. I have missed it more than anything.”

That may not be too far in the future as she has met up with Iona again, they have started writing and aim to do some shows in the next year.

Meanwhile, Zahra is gearing up for Sunday’s event.

“It is really great to still be a part of a carnival I’ve known since I was a kid. When I got involved and every time I go it makes me think about Kate and Jon, and their stage. Now I am there as a youth leader, the same as they once did.

“It would be amazing to continue the Kate Garrett stage and expand it every year.

“A dream is to see it run by the Young Women’s Music Group.”