Frank reviews 'Dance Macabre' and checks out Friday on the Fringe

By Frank De Blase

I started the second day of Fringe with a chamber quartet, The Chanson String Quartet to be exact, who played pieces focusing on death so gingerly and gently that the audience in the near-empty Xerox Auditorium (the TheatreROCS Main Stage) didn't quite know where or when to applaud. The group played Camille Saint-Saens' "Danse Macabre," naturally, and one of my favorites -- didn't think I had one, did you? -- Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain." Those and a few other selections made for an overall peaceful death.

That was the only performance of "Dance Macabre" for this year's Fringe.

I hung out for the rest of the day at Parcel 5 which seemed to act as Fringe Central for Friday on the Fringe. The space was occupied by every type of humanity you can think of, from the starry-eyed and hopeful to the criminally insane.

First at bat was The Buddhahood who played a delightfully aggressive set with Nate Coffey playing his head off and essentially leading the charge. He is one of this town's most underrated guitarists.

The Sisters of Murphy played a tight set of music culled mostly from its latest CD, "Working Stiffs Unite!" The crowd really started to pick up during the show, and by the time they were done, several hundred had become several thousand.

click to enlarge

STREB performed in Parcel 5 as part of Friday on the Fringe. - PHOTO BY JOSH SAUNDERS

PHOTO BY JOSH SAUNDERS
STREB performed in Parcel 5 as part of Friday on the Fringe.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary, STREB -- choreographed by Elizabeth Streb (a Rochester native) -- performed SEA (Singular Extreme Actions), a piece on three large stages that had the audience squealing in delight.

I too was gob-smacked, but it also awoke something dark in me. While they were defying gravity, and flying through the air, and doing impossible feats of balance, I kind of wanted to see something go wrong, someone falter or slip. It's kind of like wishing hockey players will start slugging it out on the ice, or watching NASCAR: without the accidents, we'd just be sitting there watching traffic. That urge aside, the act was a mind-blowing spectacle.

KOPPS concluded and positively rocked the joint with a dynamic set including synchronized dancing that could rival Beyonce. But what I really like is the band's organic output as is intermingles with the cyborg within. Tight and precise, but you could sill hear the people in charge.

The real star of the night has to be Parcel 5. I'm leaning toward keeping it open for events like Fringe. Let's hope the City of Rochester doesn't step on its dick with this one.

Saturday on the Fringe will fill Parcel 5 again, with performances by STREB (5 p.m., 7:30 p.m., and 10 p.m.), Mansfield Ave, and The Demos, and the Fringe Street Beat competition. Free. Appropriate for all ages.

Slideshow Rochester Fringe 2016: STREB and KOPPS

23 slides

Rochester Fringe 2016: STREB and KOPPS

By Josh Saunders

Click to View 23 slides

In This Guide...

Rochester Fringe Festival

Leah reviews 'A Blue Sky Like No Other' and The 24-Hour Plays

Everyone has a September 11 story -- whether it's an eerie coincidence, a "where I was when I found out," or a "my neighbor was there" -- but perhaps none can tell the story of that fateful day quite like someone who was in Manhattan when the Twin Towers collapsed. Steven Fetter, who grew up and worked in the city, has a story like that.

By Leah Stacy Sep 20, 2016
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David reviews 'Dangerous Theatre' and 'Marx in Soho'

Hallie Flanagan is not a well-known name today, but in the 1930's she was vastly influential as the director of the Federal Theatre Project, a WPA initiative that sought to employ actors, writers, designers, and other out-of-work theater professionals by assigning them to "theater enterprises" throughout the United States, many in areas that had never seen a live play before. The project was a great success, but to New Deal-hating politicians, subsidizing "culture" -- including plays that seemed to have a leftist political message -- was an unpatriotic waste of money.

By David Raymond Sep 19, 2016

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Rebecca reviews 'Next Fall,' 'Commotion Dance Theater,' and 'No More Words'

My Sunday at Fringe began with "Next Fall," a Geoffrey Nauffts play directed by Thomas Markham and staged at TheatreROCS. The show is about a group of family and friends struggling to reconcile differences in faith and sexuality.

By Rebecca Rafferty Sep 19, 2016

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Adam reviews 'Muddy Track' and Big Wigs

I started off day three of Fringe by catching a screening of the little-seen documentary, "Muddy Track" at the Dryden Theatre -- the only Fringe event held at that venue this year. Scheduled as part of the Dryden's series on the films of Bernard Shakey (the pseudonym used by musician Neil Young in his little-known career as an independent film director), the screening was retrofitted to fit the Fringe lineup and the film makes a great addition.

By Adam Lubitow Sep 19, 2016

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Adam review the RIT Student Honors Showcase and 'Murder Night'

Every year at the Fringe, I look forward to attending the RIT Student Honors Showcase, the annual event held at The Little Theatre that highlights student work from RIT's School of Film and Animation. It's always fun to see what the talented group of up-and-coming filmmakers are up to, and this year's program didn't disappoint.

By Adam Lubitow Sep 18, 2016

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Rebecca reviews 'The A-is-for-Abortion Play,' and 'Underground Episodes'

It was sort of a bummer that only about a dozen people attended the first staging of "The A-is-for-Abortion Play" at the TheatreROCS venue, which can hold an audience of 700. The meager attendance might be explained by Fringe-goers wanting to spend their Saturday afternoon on more uplifting productions, but the show's subject is an ever-important one -- and this point was hammered home a few times in the course of the story.

By Rebecca Rafferty Sep 18, 2016

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Rochester Fringe Festival

Frank reviews Left for Dead Improv and 'Flatfoots, Floozies & Murder'

Left for Dead Improv split my guts with its astute deadpan and quick wit. In front of a packed house at Writers & Books, the group took shots at individual stories whose characters had maxed out on their quirk quotient.

By Frank De Blase Sep 18, 2016

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Casey reviews PUSH Physical Theatre

PUSH Physical Theatre, the brainchild of artistic directors and founders Darren and Heather Stevenson, has a satisfying repertoire built from the local company's 16 years in existence, but it's always exciting to see a new piece. The Fringe audience Saturday night at the School of the Arts' main stage was shown the world premiere of "0's and 1's," a work still in progress.

By Casey Carlsen Sep 18, 2016

Fringe 2016 Fringe Review PUSH Physical Theatre Darren Stevenson Heather Stevenson
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Rebecca reviews 'Confessions of a Prairie B;+@h,' and Patton Oswalt

Admittedly, I was never a huge fan of "Little House on the Prairie." But I knew enough about the show that I got the joke each time Alison Arngrim (who played Nellie Oleson) referenced it during her debut Rochester Fringe Festival performance of "Confessions of a Prairie B;+@h" at School of the Arts.

By Rebecca Rafferty Sep 17, 2016

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Leah Stacy reviews 'The Kiss'

There were almost too many performance choices on opening night of the Fringe (a good sign, of course, for the festival's fifth year). After attending the opening night party where we toasted to the success of 500 shows taking place over the next 10 days, I headed to School of the Arts on Prince Street.

By Leah Stacy Sep 16, 2016

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Jake reviews 'Anomaly'

Well, that was a beautiful way to start my 2016 First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival. A buzzing crowd filled the Strasenburgh Planetarium for a resurrection of "Anomaly," which premiered to acclaim at the 2013 Fringe, and has already sold out its 2016 run.

By Jake Clapp Sep 16, 2016

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Meet the writers covering Fringe 2016

Get to know Rebecca, Leah, Adam, David, Frank, and Jake

Rebecca Rafferty

Sep 16, 2016

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Frank reviews Cirque Du Fringe: 'Miracle Cure'

The Spiegeltent strikes me as a steampunk spaceship sent down to teach us the art of the spectacle. In an unrelenting fast-paced show, a sold-out crowd was treated to Cirque Du Fringe -- jugglers, contortionists, dancers, acrobats, slapstick comics, one guy who balanced 10 spinning plates on sticks the way I saw it done on the Ed Sullivan Show, and two maniacs with crossbows.

By Frank De Blase Sep 16, 2016

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Our picks for Free at the Fringe

There are more than 170 free performances and events during this year's First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival. So if you're looking for a night on the Fringe without stretching your wallet, there's likely a program out there for you.

By Kiara Alfonseca Sep 16, 2016

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Rebecca reviews 'Somnium,' 'Here I Lie,' and 'East of the Sun, West of the Moon'

My first evening of Fringe began at School of the Arts, where RAPA presented Dramatic Space's debut production, "Somnium." The zany adventure story started with the premise that a small group of scientists had observed that there was more to CERN's discovery of the Higgs Boson "God Particle" than previously thought.

By Rebecca Rafferty Sep 16, 2016

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Rochester Fringe 2016: City's Daily Fringe Blogs

The 2016 First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival runs Thursday, September 15, through Saturday, September 24, and City Newspaper will be out EVERY NIGHT of the festival covering multiple shows. Check in first thing each morning for photos and reviews of the previous night's entertainment, listed below by date.

Sep 15, 2016

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