Slounge is a good word and a much needed antidote to an overpressured world of breakfast conferences and soap operas. There should be more slounging. The performance event entitled Slounge started earlier in the year. It has now moved to the Vaults Café under the University Church, where the first autumn event took place on Sunday. This is a good venue - intimate, measured with history; the acoustics are clear and the organic food is exceptional.

Slounge starts with food for those who wish and drink for all and then moves gently on into performance, with breaks for refills, giving the evening the feel of art in a private space. The programming varies and this time there was a mix of short films, poetry and music. Sophie Blackwell was an energising blast of fresh air. A member of Hammer and Tongues she writes poems to be performed rather than picked over on the printed page and it's wonderful there are such talented poets getting up on stage and performing with such vitality and grace. Blackwell's poems have edge, humour and passion yet remain accessible without falling into easy traps.

Harpist, Serafina Steer (pictured), a musician with a classical background, has developed her own sharp-witted yet quirky genre of songs. Singing in the shadow of her orchestral harp there was a feeling of the late Ivor Cutler. But Steer has a strong voice that wanders off key with sophisticated deliberation, plays the harp with a virtuosity and feeling that Cutler never managed on the harmonium and writes lyrics that have a feminine and 21st-century slant to eccentricity. In other words she is very much her own musician and songwriter and was loudly applauded for being so.

There was a rich variety of short films from Oxford Film and Video Makers in two sets showing both narrative and visual expertise. First Date was sharp and humorous while Borderlands, by Ana Barbour, was a very imaginative piece with extraordinary performances and an intense soundtrack. Check www.ocmevents.org for further Slounge events.