This September, Rochester will witness a grand piano dangling from a hot air balloon over Parcel 5.
This, and the usual unusual collection of musicians, jugglers and drag queens, were revealed Thursday morning at the Jewish Community Center’s Hart Theatre, one of more than 30 venues that will be a part of the Rochester Fringe Festival, set for Sept. 12-23.
The piano theatrics will be performed by a French group called Cirque Inextremiste, which Rochester Fringe Festival producer and CEO Erica Fee says is “straight-jacketed acrobats hanging off of a hot air balloon, and at times playing a grand piano which will be suspended above Parcel 5.”
That’s the undeniably offbeat marquee act for Rochester Fringe Festival, with two free shows set for Sept. 15 and 16. Beyond that piano abuse, some of the performers at the 12-day event will have a slightly familiar feel for a festival that has been an annual part of Rochester’s Septembers since 2012. Shotspeare, the alcohol-fueled interpretation of Shakespeare, is back with a new version of Othello that The Bard would likely not recognize. That’ll be in the Spiegeltent, a Victorian version from Antwerp, larger than the ones that have previously occupied the parking lot at E. Main and Gibbs streets.
The Spiegeltent will also host the spooky music duo Charming Disaster, which has played Rochester in the past, but this time will present each of its audience members with a séance kit, which it promises will be good for summoning long-lost friends and relatives. “We’re not doing that until the final night of the festival,” Fee says, “just in case anything bad happens.”
Also familiar from Rochester Fringes of the past will be the Silent Disco, in which dancers move to their own groove while wearing headphones; and Fringe Street Beat, the breakdance competition that draws groups from NYC, Toronto and beyond.
Yet, “The vast majority of the shows are new,” Fee says. That includes the show that will run in the Spiegeltent throughout Rochester Fringe, the Colombian acrobats Circolombia.
Also new to Rochester Fringe are the comic dancers The Fanzinis, who come to the Rochester Fringe through a unique exchange program. The duo is from a festival in Ireland’s County Cavan – sister to Monroe County – with a show called “Ballet Poulet,” or “Chicken Dance,” to those who insist on Hillbilly English. Rochester Fringe will, in turn, send Buchwhacked, one of the local comedic troupes that performs here every year, to perform in County Cavan July 26 – 30.
The Fanzinis are a defining act within the concept of “festival fringe,” created in Edinburgh in 1947. A multi-disciplinary performing arts festival – which means it features everything from bands to puppet shows to drag queens – Rochester Fringe Festival is the largest of its kind in New York State, and one of about 50 in the nation. Since its 2012 debut, the festival calculates nearly 670,000 people have attended more than 4,500 performances.
For the arborist crowd, three lucky trees in downtown Rochester will be turned into huge moving heads through carefully aimed spotlights in Craig Walsh’s “Monuments,” which will run the entirety of the festival. “I don’t know if you’ve walked around downtown looking for huge majestic trees,” Fee says, “but it’s actually a bit of a challenge.” The heads will be representations of three Rochester citizens selected by a panel of judges.
The Rochester Fringe had already announced Tig Notaro as its comedy headliner at Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre on Sept. 16. The Emmy- and Grammy-nominated comedian has a wide-ranging career as a writer and actor, including appearing on 14 episodes of the television series “Star Trek: Discovery.” She has also been outspoken about her battle with breast cancer, sometimes working it into her stand-up routines. Notaro joins a longstanding Fringe tradition of playing host to top comedians such as John Mulaney, Eddie Izzard, Patton Oswalt, Marc Maron and Mike Birbiglia.
All Rochester Fringe Festival tickets are now on sale at rochesterfringe.com or by phone: 585-957-9837 (additional fees apply). Tickets will be available in person during the festival at the door of each venue or at the One Fringe Place Box Office, corner of Main and Gibbs Streets.
Jeff Spevak is senior arts writer for WXXI/CITY Magazine. He can be reached at jspevak@wxxi.org.
This article appears in Jul 1-31, 2023.
