The Offering (A Plastic Ocean Oratorio) | Scottish Poetry Library
Jul 24, 2025 (UTC+1)
Edinburgh
“Rapper, poet, author and visual artist, Omar Musa is arguably one of the most exciting creators in Australia right now” — The New York Times Style Magazine: Australia
Mariel Roberts Musa: a “fearless explorer” in her field (Chicago Reader) and member and co-director of the Wet Ink Ensemble (named “The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018” by The New York Times).
"The Offering
(A Plastic Ocean Oratorio)"
“When the world drowned, we had lived in the fire so long it felt mundane.”
Turtle eggs. Volcanos. A plastic ocean. Award-winning Malaysian-Australian author, poet and rapper Omar Musa and internationally renowned American cellist and composer Mariel Roberts Musa bring a dramatic seafaring epic to the stage with
The Offering (A Plastic Ocean Oratorio)
. Set on a post-apocalyptic world, the show combines storytelling, poetry, hip hop and live cello with sound recordings made in Bornean forests and coral reefs. Using Omar's family history in Borneo as a springboard,
The Offering
grapples with themes such as environmental destruction, climate change, South-East Asian colonial history, belonging and borderlessness. Think
The Odyssey,
set in a post-apocalypse South-East Asia,
performed by Gil Scott-Heron.
Artist biographies
Omar Musa is an award-winning Bornean-Australian poet, rapper, author and visual artist. He has published four volumes of poetry, four hip hop albums and the acclaimed one-man play
Since Ali Died
. His debut novel
Here Come the Dogs
was was long-listed for the Dublin International Literary Award and the Miles Franklin Award, and Musa was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Young Novelists of the Year. Musa's work of poetry and woodcuts
Killernova
won the Special Book Award at the ACT Notable Book Awards, was longlisted for the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal and received an honourable mention for the ACT Book of The Year. His second novel
Fierceland
comes out through Penguin Random House Australia and PRH South-East Asia in September.
American cellist and composer Mariel Roberts Musa is widely recognized not just for her virtuosic performances, but as a “fearless explorer” in her field (Chicago Reader). Her deep commitment to collaboration and experimentation as an interpreter, improvisor, and composer have helped create a body of work which bridges avant-garde, contemporary, classical, improvised, and traditional music. Roberts is widely recognized for her “technical and interpretive mastery” (I care if you listen) and for performances which seethe with “excruciating intensity” (The Whole Note). Roberts has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across four continents, most notably as a member and co-director of the Wet Ink Ensemble (named “The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018” by The New York Times), as well as with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Mivos Quartet, Bang on a Can All Stars, and Ensemble Signal.
www.omarmusa.com.au
www.marielroberts.com
Information Source: Scottish Poetry Library | eventbrite