Now teaches art: Oskar Offermann.
© Schuba
Getting up early is terrible, ”says Oskar Offermann and smiles behind his mask. No wonder that the 40-year-old Nordend resident is bothered by this, as a completely different rhythm has determined his everyday life in the last ten years. The corona pandemic caused a 180 degree turn in Offermann’s life: Until last year, he traveled around the world as a techno DJ and made thousands of people dance to thumping beats.
Offenbach – Now it serves a completely different target audience: children and young people from the sixth to the eleventh grade. Oskar Offermann has packed away the records and is currently working 24 hours a week as an art teacher in front of high school classes – at least for the time being.
Born in Frankfurt, he originally studied visual communication at the University of the Arts in Berlin and switched to experimental media design with a focus on narrative film during his main studies. “Then I actually wanted to become a feature film director,” reports Offermann, “but what annoys me about filming: It’s incredibly exhausting to work on just one project for two years.” The thoroughbred artist had long been accompanied by another passion: music. He has always played in bands and played as a teenager. The latter intensified more and more during his studies until Offermann turned it into a profession and officially started as a freelance techno DJ in 2010. After 15 years with his main residence in Berlin, he returned to the Rhine-Main area and made his home in Offenbach. But he was not often at home for a long time.
“You travel 40 weekends a year,” estimates Offermann. “Monday to Friday you sit in the studio, research and buy new or many old records. And then you also produce music. ”He usually had to leave around Friday lunchtime to travel to a gig by plane or train – and possibly to another one the next day, but then completely different:“ I had extreme weekends where I went to on Thursdays I started Australia, went to a festival in Vietnam on Friday and to one in Holland on Saturday and in London on Sundays. “
Long tours also took him to Asia. “If you are unlucky, your girlfriend is offended on Sundays, because when you come home you want to go to bed,” he grins.
This turbulent life came to an abrupt end a little more than a year ago: Offermann had just played a major tour in Asia when the news of the corona outbreak in Wuhan went around the world and the virus spread across the entire planet at lightning speed. At that time, many festival dates were already planned for the summer: “I thought, by then, all of this will be eaten”. When the situation became clearer and the perspective became more and more blurred, Offermann had to rethink: “Before I sit around stupid, I thought , you could also reorient yourself, because who knows how and when it will continue? “
He also suddenly found pleasure in being able to spend more time at home with his partner. So he wrote to schools in Offenbach’s urban area on the initiative – and was invited by several to talk. Offermann had discovered an open door here: thanks to the great need for teachers, he quickly found a job as an employee under the collective agreement and is now sitting behind the teacher’s desk instead of the music system. Art is the subject that Offermann now teaches over the days of the week at the Albert Schweitzer School and the Montessori School – and that without any pedagogical principles.
“Even though I had insane stage fright, it was very easy for me to get started and the cool DJ status also makes it easier,” says Offermann happily. He also has “wonderful colleagues” and a school management with a “great feeling and understanding for people.”
“It was a completely different lifestyle before”: The alarm clock used to ring once or twice a week, now Offermann finds himself in a ruthless work rhythm. That is okay too, but he still feels “slight sadness”: “You cry after the past.”
But he is also proud to have used the crisis so well and to have reoriented himself in the year with an involuntary amount of free time. The new situation could well have a say in Offermann’s future: “I think I want to continue the teaching thing. It is not wrong to drive in two directions, but also to offer good security. “
However, the new path of the teaching DJ is not without stumbling blocks: With his direct entry as a collective agreement auxiliary, he is paid less, he explains. In order to still be able to maintain its standard, the emergency aid and grants with which artists from the country are supported in the pandemic help. Nevertheless, it is not easy: “You shimmy from one branch to the other”.
By Jan Schuba
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