10 Offbeat Fringe Festivals From Around North America

by Jessica Festa on

An array of fringe festivals are happening around North America, bringing together the most out-of-the-ordinary artists from around the world. From dancers, to acrobats, to buskers to unusual performance artists, these fringers will show that they are not only talented, but were born to perform. Want to see a show in the near future? Check out these 10 great fringe festivals to check out before the end of 2012.

Edmonton International Fringe Festival
Edmonton, Alberta

Advertised as “Canada’s largest and longest-running Fringe Festival,” the Edmonton International Fringe Festival features many bizarre events that will take place in Edmonton’s historic arts district, Old Strathcona. Themed “The Village of the Fringed,” spectators will see 1,600 performances of 220 uncensored productions. In fact, the festival refuses to restrain performances, which are chosen using an unbiased lottery system. Some acts to look forward to include:

  • “The Kif-Kif Sisters,” featuring twins who twist and intermingle themselves, make bananas appear, enter giant balloons and juggle umbrellas.
  • “Dr. Fondoozle’s Fantastic Show Of Awesome,” which features bizarre feats like whip mastery, contortion, contact juggling and poi spinning.
  • “The Lol Brothers Show,” which takes you on a tour of rock ‘n’ roll through risky circus acts and humor.

If you’re bringing children, KIDOPOLIS is safe and free for junior Fringers 12 and under, as well as their caregivers.

This year’s Edmonton International Fringe Festival will take place from August 16 to 26, 2012. Click here for more details. IndyFringe
Indianapolis, Indiana

Taking place in the Massachusetts Avenue Cultural District, IndyFringe provides opportunities for audiences to partake in the Indianapolis arts community. This wacky and wild festival allows emerging artists to display an eclectic mix of performances. From dancers, to story tellers, to visual art groups, this fringe festival is sure to entertain all festival goers. Some performances to look forward to include:

  • “Do Re Mi Fa So Latino,” which features President Rodriguez, the first openly non-American citizen President, and Mexican Harriet Tubman, smuggling hard working Hispanics out of Arizona to the less oppressive north.
  • “Iris and Rose – Wild and Thorny,” a show which features a pub singing duo belting out dirty tunes.
  • “Donating Sperm to My Sister’s Wife,” a performance about a man’s lesbian sister and her wife, and how he helps them get pregnant.

This year’s IndyFringe will take place from August 17 to 26. Click here for more details.

Boulder International Fringe Festival
Boulder, Colorado

The Boulder Fringe is actually a tax-exempt organization with goals to revitalize the community, help artists inspire each other and support local businesses by hiring administrators, technical crew and artists. This year’s Boulder International Fringe Festival will feature jaw dropping performances from over 300 artists. Some of the shows include:

  • “What To Do About Delusion,” where Andy Pratt will attempt to tame four personalities using juggle therapy, an experimental psychoanalysis technique for narcissists.
  • “Tobo’s Magic & Marvel Show,” which weaves magic, stories and history into an astonishing and inspiring experience.
  • “Flying Shoes,” where dancers use choreography to explore their relationships to each other, gravity and architecture.

Along with viewing artistic expression, attendees can enjoy the Fringe Encore Brunch, free Fringe Beer Garden, educational panels and presentations, west African song and dance classes, performance workshops, an interactive flea market and more.

This year’s Boulder International Fringe Festival will take place from August 15 to September 26. Click here for more details.

Chicago Fringe Festival
Chicago, Illinois

Taking place in the Pilsen neighborhood, the Chicago Fringe Festival features 50 unique performance groups like actors, dancers, impersonators, puppeteers and scientist-comedians. Some acts to look forward to include:

  • “55 Minutes of Sex, Drugs and Audience Participation,” a sketch-comedy performance where the audience is asked to suggest awkward topics and actors create emotionally honest stories of the pleasures of forbidden love, wretched excess, reckless living and making a good confession.
  • “Bruiser: Tales From a Traumatized Tomboy,” a true story of how a misplaced tomboy blossoms into an even more awkward adult.
  • “Konetic Concoction,” a bizarre yet thought provoking dance show where you’ll see acts like a ballerina dancing on pointe in a straight jacket and a dancer performing in a 24-foot long skirt.

This year’s Chicago Fringe Festival will take place from August 30 to September 9. Click here for more details.

New York International Fringe Festival
New York, NY

Pushing the limits with new ideas and new perspectives, the New York International Fringe Festival features innovative performances by over 200 companies from around the world all over downtown Manhattan. The festival boasts being the “largest multi-arts festival in North America,” with 1,200 unique performances from musicals to dances to rock ‘n’ roll Shakespeare. Some of this year’s performances to look forward to include:

  • “#MormonChief,” where Connor, an unassuming Mormon, becomes the center of media attention when he tweets inflammatory statements inspired by a Mormon presidential candidate.
  • “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche,” a sketch comedy piece taking place in 1956 where communists threaten the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of the Gertrude Stein during their annual Quiche breakfast.
  • “Magic Trick,” a burlesque-style love story.

This year’s New York International Fringe Festival will take place from August 10 to August 26. Click here for more details.

Atlantic Fringe Festival
Halifax, Nova Scotia

The Atlantic Fringe Festival has an “anything-goes” attitude. Displaying a wide variety of original plays, shows, and presentations, the Atlantic Fringe is the definition of an artist-driven festival. This entirely volunteer run event is filled with musicals, dramas, comedies, dances and belly dancers. Moreover, these fringers will prove to audiences they were born performers in over 250 performances and 40 different shows. The website will be up sometime this week with the performance schedule.

This year’s Atlantic Fringe Festival will take place from August 30 to September 9. Click here for more details.

Vancouver Fringe Festival
Vancouver, British Columbia

As British Columbia’s largest theater festival, the Vancouver Fringe Festival brings in more than 30,000 attendees for over 750 performances by 97 groups. Audiences will see an eclectic mix of uncensored theatrical performances by artists who break traditional boundaries. Additionally, the artists receive 100% of regular box office revenues generated during the festival. Some shows to get excited for include:

  • “Say Wha?! Readings Of Deliciously Rotten Writing,” where some of the worst writing in print will be made fun of by performers.
  • “One Human Race,” a live music show based on traditional Igbo roots rhythms, evoking the spirit of highlife and Afrobeat with a splash of funk, jazz, blues, and reggae.
  • “Does This Turn You On?,” a lighthearted look at sexual fetishes in the modern imagination.

Along with watching unusual performance art, you’ll get the opportunity to partake in improv, puppetry and other performance workshops. Don’t have a date? Make use of the festival’s escort service, where a knowledgeable representative will not only help you choose a show, but will also go along with you.

This year’s Vancouver Fringe Festival will take place from September 6 to 16. Click here for more details.

Seattle Fringe Festival
Seattle, Washington

After almost a decade, the Seattle Fringe Festival is returning to Capitol Hill. The event will feature a variety of genres, and will showcase everything from raw, untested acts to perfectly executed performances. Moreover, all performers are chosen by a non-adjudicated lottery. Some acts to look forward to include:

  • “First Born,” where life and death comes down to a game of rock, paper, scissors.
  • “Chop,” which focuses on a man who is isolated from the world around him, until he meets a mysterious tattooed woman who brings him to an underground amputation fetish group.
  • “The Ukrainian Dentist’s Daughter,” a show about a woman who relives her life while being stood up at the alter.

This year’s Seattle Fringe Festival will take place from September 19 to 23. Click here for more details.

San Francisco Fringe Festival
San Francisco, California

The San Francisco Fringe Festival is an open-minded event where performers will showcase an array of talents. With 40 different shows and over 200 acts, attendees will have the opportunity to watch a slew of creative, daring and fun productions. The event is in its 21st year, and is offering some interesting acts like:

  • “Aerial Allusions,” a fusion of multiple performance styles such as acrobatic dance, clown and theater that come together to bring chaos, humor and control to the stage.
  • “Antipodes,” a mix of tightly synced video projection, acting and live music that tells the story of an American man and a Chinese woman who find stable selves by being deconstructed.
  • “Jesus, Do You Like Me? Please Mark Yes or No,” a complicated love story featuring murder, religion and “answers to all existential crisis.”

This year’s San Francisco Fringe Festival will take place from September 5 to 16. Click here for more details.

New Orleans Fringe Festival
New Orleans, Louisiana

As a city known for embracing artists, it’s no wonder this show is a display of wild, weird, fearless and original theater. The New Orleans Fringe Festival features artists such as buskers, puppeteers, dramatists, improv folks, skit-makers and hula-hoopers, who will take the stage at the crazy circus tent known as the Fringe Free-For-All. Because the official schedule isn’t out yet, you still have time to apply to be a performer if you think you have some original performance art to show the world.

This year’s New Orleans Fringe Festival will take place from November 14 to 18. Click here for more details.

The Steep Canyon Rangers are worth a road trip

by Meg Massie on

My 200-mile list is a collection of musicians for whose concerts I am willing to travel up to 200 miles (and often farther, really). Traveling for music is a great way to discover small towns, eclectic venues, and meet cool people who share your interests.

I’m not talking about stadium headliners — nothing against these concerts or musicians, but with many of these shows, you might as well be watching on television at home. You’re so much more present when you’re part of a smaller group, which is why I especially love the folk scene, hosted by all the best coffee houses in America. All members of my 200-mile list are folk musicians. Of course, “folk” covers a lot of ground.

Near the top of my list is the Steep Canyon Rangers, a young bluegrass band from North Carolina. Winners of the 2006 International Bluegrass Music Awards’ Emerging Artist of the Year title, the Rangers are up for Album of the Year and Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year at this year’s IBMA’s. Their sound is a solid mix of instrumentals, traditional and original bluegrass, and gospel, with lots of humor and fun thrown in.My favorite part of each Rangers show is a toss-up between their a capella gospel performance of Wade Mainer’s “I Can’t Sit Down” and their fan-favorite Nascar tune “Feelin’ Just a Little Like Dale.” Though I couldn’t care less about Nascar, I love how much fun the band has with this one — especially Nicky Sanders’ creative use of his fiddle to impersonate cars on the raceway and police sirens. In this song and all their others, the band has so much fun on stage, it spills into the audience and you can’t help but enjoy yourself (even if you hate Nascar).

In addition to great music, witty banter is a part of every show, and bass player Charles Humphrey will have you busting a gut. Check the Steep Canyon Rangers’ tour schedule to see if they’ll be coming within 200 miles of your hometown. If you want to say hi, you can find me at the Third Annual Mountain Song Festival, hosted by the Rangers themselves in Brevard, NC.

Below is a video of the Steep Canyon Rangers performing the title track from their latest album, Lovin’ Pretty Women.

Band on the Run: A Roadie Without The Heavy Lifting

by Ember Swift on


Alright, this is the first post of a new series entitled “Band on the Run,” (as you can see above.) This is a blog about travelling on the road as a musician here in North America. It’s about what we see and where we’ve been – the stories that go along with those journeys and the images to accompany them. It’ll be like you’re the roadie that gets to witness what happens behind the scenes without having to carry any heavy equipment.

Lucky.

(I mean, I’m the bandleader and I don’t even get out of carrying the heavy stuff!)

Specifically, I’m a Canadian musician with a Canadian band who performs more than half of my shows south of the border. And yes, I have provincial license plates on my van and work permits for the U.S.of A. for all of my band members, so I’m down on American soil legally, don’t worry!)

We are on the road A LOT, which sometimes means that we’re home less than we’re away. In fact, at one point just a few years ago, we peaked at 200 days on the road during the year. I am happy to report that we’ve calmed down slightly and probably are out only half the year now. That’s slightly healthier all around, for everyone.

The downside of this life is the fact that we’re travel-tired most of the time and we spend copious amounts of time in moving vehicles, most notably our van (or occasional rental vans if there’s a flight involved.) Sometimes we joke that we’re professional drivers who moonlight as musicians.

Sometimes it feels like that.

The upside of this life is that we get to make music for different audiences sometimes four and five times a week. Music is what we love to do the most in this world. Music is the drug of choice for this band; it’s the art; it’s the heart; it’s the fuel. Without it, why would we do this to our bodies? Why would we sit in a van for ten hours in a row, for example?

Honestly, music has taken me far and continues to pull me farther still. I am tempted by its long distance promises and its moments of brilliance on foreign stages, no matter what it takes to get to them. (So tempted that I sometimes make bad touring decisions, but I’ll leave that for the blog as they happen…)

Music is my nightlight. It’s the good dream. It’s consistent.

Stylistically, it’s a rather mixed-up folk-jazz-funk-pop-world combo (check out samples here). It’s lyrically-driven music and the show is as much about what’s being said in the songs themselves as it is about what’s being said between the songs. I sometimes write about topics that people don’t want to discuss. I also write about love and beautiful summer days and funny situations worth laughing at. All in all, the music has listeners and that’s all that matters.

After ten releases (counting the 2005 documentary-stye DVD, of course), five vans (we’re on our fifth now), uncountable tours across various parts of Canada and the U.S., eight trips to Australia, two tours to New Caledonia (link to where that country is, as it’s little known!), and one solo trip to China, the adventure continues.

We’re not famous, but we’re well-known in some circles. We have fans – listeners and supporters and friends – and we continue to sell albums. We continue to perform live. People continue to buy tickets to hear those shows.

Life is good.

We’re independent, too, which is important. These tours are not being funded by big label tour support or sponsorship dollars or product placement. We aspire to sustainability and this means we ride waves of occasional prosperity and occasional poverty. In the midst of it all, we find the balance of a living and breathing career that has careened along the corners of mountain passes for over a decade now.

No complaints.

I don’t think it’s poised to stop anytime soon. It always changes shape a little as time loops around us, but the wheels keep turning on these travelling vehicles and we keep finding ourselves in them along with gear and contracts and passports and a well-calculated number of clean underwear tucked away in our suitcases and stashed around guitars and amps and on top of boxes of CDs to stop that incessant rattling of plastic against plastic.

It’s not all glamorous, but what is really?

Behind the scenes is just behind the scenes. It’s my job to strip the scene for you, I suppose. It’s my job to bare all.

(But it’s not that kind of show, so get your mind outta that sticky trench now!)

Now if you do enjoy these stories and we end up in your town all of a sudden, we won’t deny you the opportunity to lift some heavy stuff if you show up early to help us load in or you stay long after the rest of the audience has gone home until we’re finally loading out.

In fact, temporary roadies are the BEST.

They have enough strength to lift the bass amp…

And that same strength didn’t require a meal buy-out.

Love it.

[All photos except the van shot by Desdemona Burgin, a fantastic friend and photographer]