O+ FESTIVAL KINGSTON 2023

October 6-8, 2023
Submissions for our 13th Annual O+ Festival are now open!

Applications Open March 6th, 2023
All submissions due by Sunday, May 1st, 2023 at 11:59p.m.

The O+ Festival is a celebration of art, music and wellness that creates a bridge to accessing health care for its participating artists/musicians while providing the community with access to the healing and transformative power of art in all forms. O+ (pronounced Oh Positive) fosters physical, mental and social well-being by connecting visual artists and musicians directly with a coalition of healthcare and wellness providers and resources in a shared vision to nurture the individual and the community. By exchanging the art of medicine for the medicine of art, O+ empowers communities to take control of their collective wellbeing.

 We welcome folks of all ages and levels of experience to read, recite, perform, sign, or speak words of all forms, languages and genres. We call this annual gathering around the written/spoken WO+rd is not just a collection of works so much as meeting of minds, voices and perspectives. We strongly encourage, and may prioritize, original work but are also open to found text, dramatic interpretations, etc. We expect those submitting to provide appropriate and thorough credit for all text that is not your own.

O+ aims to curate work that contributes to or reflects the meaningful juxtaposition between Kingston’s dynamic, multicultural neighborhood communities and compelling, radical, relevant contemporary work in all forms. 

O+ Festival builds its program around a new theme each year and we invite artists, writers and performers to respond to the theme in their proposals. This year we are focusing on, investing in and celebrating the expansion of health care for artists and musicians, progressing toward our goal of providing medical support 365 days a year.

The theme of the 2023 O+ Festival is FO+rward.

Forward is an action, a description, a position, a choice and a direction.

Forward is where you are heading and the movement of a body through space, through pain, through healing. It is one day at a time. It is an arrow pointed in a direction determined by where you are facing or where you are trying to go. It is sending a letter on to a future location. It is moving ahead more quickly through time than if you were to just sit and wait for something to happen.

Forward, the adverb, is defined as “to move onward so as to make progress; toward a successful conclusion.” And when we consider progress, we think of it as forward movement towards a destination or towards a better, more complete ideal. Forward is movement, it is a choice to do better, to keep trying, to survive. Not back… only forward. 

Additional information and reflections on the theme FO+rward can be found HERE. We look forward to seeing and hearing your interpretations of this theme and to reviewing your work through the lens of all of its meanings.

All submissions will be reviewed, and the festival art program will be curated, by the O+ WO+rd Committee - a group of O+ alumni, practitioners, industry professionals, etc. representing different practices, identities and perspectives. Accepted submissions will be invited to participate at this year’s festival in exchange for access to care in the O+ Artists’ Clinic.

Click HERE for detailed information on our mission. You can expect to be notified regarding your submission by the beginning of June. This year, we expect to receive dozens of submissions for a finite number of performance slots. WO+rd at O+ Festival is typically a 2 hour performance within the broader festival schedule. Each writer/performer with receive approximately 10min during the WO+rd event and no more than 12 folks chosen each year. We ask for your patience and understanding should your submission not be accepted for this year and encourage all who are not chosen for O+ Festival 2023 to reapply next year.

A note to O+ Alum: We may give lower priority to those who participated in the previous three O+ Kingston Festivals, though we encourage all to apply. As our mission is centered in cultivating a diverse community of artists to whom we are offering access to healthcare, we want to make sure we reach those who have yet to participate and may have a need to acquire care.

We are currently expanding our programming towards a year-round model, as we are constantly looking for new ways provide care to artists. If you aren’t accepted for this year’s festival, you may be contacted over the next year if there are other ways to connect you and your work with O+. We thank you in advance for your understanding. 

f you're interested in volunteering for a free festival wristband or in exchange for a clinic visit please click HERE 

Thank you for your interest in O+ Festival and our mission. We look forward to the opportunity to review your submission!

Positively, The 2023 O+ KINGSTON WO+rd Committee

Please do not let any barriers, personal, perceived or technical, get in the way of submitting your work. Reach out to us for assistance in applying if you need support of any kind at info@opositivefestival.org or by phone at (845) 399-5343.