Fine Contemporary Art
Littleton, Colorado
Boulder Fringe Festival
Fringe Benefits
By J. Gluckstern
Too often, the summer theater experience revolves around a group of actors in period costumes speaking lines you’ve heard before while pretending that the audience isn't there. And you can bet that the organizers spent long hours deciding what you should see.
That’s not quite the way things happen at the Boulder International Fringe Festival, which is set to run from August 14-25. And believe it or not, it works.
“One of the most frequent things I’ve heard is that audiences expect to see some really bad stuff because the festival is unjuried and uncensored, but have been surprised by seeing the best collection of work that they’ve seen in most other curated/juried festivals,” says Boulder Fringe Fest president David Ortolano. “When the artists’ personal integrity is on the line, they tend to work very hard at getting their work to be the best it can be.”
The first Fringe fest erupted spontaneously in the margins of the 1947 Edinburgh International Festival, when eight theater groups showed up uninvited and staged their own performances in several small and unconventional spaces far away from the big public venues. While Boulder’s version – as well as numerous local Fringe fests around the world – is far less anarchic, that original impulse to challenge audiences and risk all artistically and financially remains sturdily intact. And for their trouble, the artists receive 100 percent of the box office.
“When I began the festival in 2005, the city council was asking for something that could focus the ‘creative culture’ of Boulder in an unbiased, cross-discipline and accessible way,” Ortolano says. “It seemed pretty clear to me that creating a Fringe could answer many, if not all, of the questions on the table. We wanted to emphasize community, something that offers a venue to every artist in the region, a platform for international and national artists to bring a ‘world view’ to the local scene. There was also a strong desire to keep the art unique and open to groups that wouldn't normally be a part of a more mainstream artistic culture.”
Beyond theater companies, the Fringe hosts dancers, musicians, filmmakers and other performers who don’t exactly fit into such clean categories. There’s an irreverent “late-night talk show with Eddie the Eskimo,” for instance, which promises to provide daily running commentary as the festival unfolds; there’s a workshop with Japanese Master Butoh artist Katsura Kan; there’s “52 Pick Up,” where scenes from a short play are performed in a random order based on a deck of cards; there’s an evening of films, including a screening of Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman’s “What About Me,” a new documentary featuring Michael Franti, Tim Robbins and K.D. Laing that explores human nature on a global scale and how creativity brings us together; and there’s even a KidsFringe planned for Aug. 17 in Boulder’s Central Park to sow the seeds for the next generation’s sense of the possible.
It all starts with that impulse to create, according to Ortolano. “I believe very strongly that art and creativity are primary parts of being human.”
And this August in Boulder, the Fringe Fest gives us a chance to appreciate the human in all its myriad forms.
For more information on the Boulder International Fringe Festival, go to www.boulderfringe.com
By J. Gluckstern
Too often, the summer theater experience revolves around a group of actors in period costumes speaking lines you’ve heard before while pretending that the audience isn't there. And you can bet that the organizers spent long hours deciding what you should see.
That’s not quite the way things happen at the Boulder International Fringe Festival, which is set to run from August 14-25. And believe it or not, it works.
“One of the most frequent things I’ve heard is that audiences expect to see some really bad stuff because the festival is unjuried and uncensored, but have been surprised by seeing the best collection of work that they’ve seen in most other curated/juried festivals,” says Boulder Fringe Fest president David Ortolano. “When the artists’ personal integrity is on the line, they tend to work very hard at getting their work to be the best it can be.”
The first Fringe fest erupted spontaneously in the margins of the 1947 Edinburgh International Festival, when eight theater groups showed up uninvited and staged their own performances in several small and unconventional spaces far away from the big public venues. While Boulder’s version – as well as numerous local Fringe fests around the world – is far less anarchic, that original impulse to challenge audiences and risk all artistically and financially remains sturdily intact. And for their trouble, the artists receive 100 percent of the box office.
“When I began the festival in 2005, the city council was asking for something that could focus the ‘creative culture’ of Boulder in an unbiased, cross-discipline and accessible way,” Ortolano says. “It seemed pretty clear to me that creating a Fringe could answer many, if not all, of the questions on the table. We wanted to emphasize community, something that offers a venue to every artist in the region, a platform for international and national artists to bring a ‘world view’ to the local scene. There was also a strong desire to keep the art unique and open to groups that wouldn't normally be a part of a more mainstream artistic culture.”
Beyond theater companies, the Fringe hosts dancers, musicians, filmmakers and other performers who don’t exactly fit into such clean categories. There’s an irreverent “late-night talk show with Eddie the Eskimo,” for instance, which promises to provide daily running commentary as the festival unfolds; there’s a workshop with Japanese Master Butoh artist Katsura Kan; there’s “52 Pick Up,” where scenes from a short play are performed in a random order based on a deck of cards; there’s an evening of films, including a screening of Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman’s “What About Me,” a new documentary featuring Michael Franti, Tim Robbins and K.D. Laing that explores human nature on a global scale and how creativity brings us together; and there’s even a KidsFringe planned for Aug. 17 in Boulder’s Central Park to sow the seeds for the next generation’s sense of the possible.
It all starts with that impulse to create, according to Ortolano. “I believe very strongly that art and creativity are primary parts of being human.”
And this August in Boulder, the Fringe Fest gives us a chance to appreciate the human in all its myriad forms.
For more information on the Boulder International Fringe Festival, go to www.boulderfringe.com
Copyright . Downtowner Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
