We hope you’re all getting ready for art to blossom throughout the city of Philadelphia in September!  Speaking of blossoming, three events will be sprouting up in LOVE Park.  We share a drink with Marc Wilken from Parks and Recreation and three independent Fringe Festival artists: Dana Suleymanova (Dear qupid), Eric Thayer (Give Your Heart), and Leah Stein with Asimina Chremos (RISE: Relationship is Self Existing).  All of the performances are participatory and engage with the City of Brotherly Love as they explore love, the beating heart, and how human bodies share space in LOVE Park this September.

Dear qupid will run September 9, 15 + 22nd.

Give Your Heart will run September 9, 11 + 14th.

RISE: Relationship is Self Existing will run September 14th.

Fringe Festival tickets are on sale now!  To purchase tickets, visit www.fringearts.com or call 215.413.1318.  Tickets and also be purchased through the FringeArts app available on App store and Google store.

The FringeArts Ambassador Program is a cohort of volunteers, artistic participants, long-time fans of FringeArts, and community stakeholders from all professional and personal backgrounds who serve as connectors between FringeArts and new audiences.

Ambassadors work with the Audience Engagement Coordinator, Tenara Calem, to bring new audiences to FringeArts. Ambassadors are active volunteers in the organization, filling a variety of roles and representing a wide range of Philadelphia communities.  In this week's episode, Tenara clinks glasses with two Ambassadors to celebrate another year of the Fringe Festival and what they're looking forward to seeing this year.

If you are interested in learning more about the Ambassador Program, please reach out to Tenara at [email protected].

Fringe Festival tickets are on sale now!  To purchase tickets, visit www.fringearts.com or call 215.413.1318.  Tickets and also be purchased through the FringeArts app.

Looks like another pair of Fringe hosts are phoning it in this week!  Raina and Katy talk to Nature Theater of Oklahoma's Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper about their latest Fringe offering, Pursuit of Happiness. Liska and Copper discuss how reality TV and the current state of American politics have influenced this part-dance, part Western movie, and part comedy of manners.

 Pursuit of Happiness will run from September 20-21st at the Mandell Theater in West Philadelphia.  For tickets, visit us online at Fringearts.com.  Tickets and also be purchased through the Fringearts app.

Zach and Tenara phoned it in this week (drink orders not included), but you wouldn't know it as they talk with the Half Straddle's Artistic Director, Tina Satter, about her production, Is This a Room, for this year's Fringe Festival. Is This a Room is a dramatization of the transcripts of Air Force linguist, Reality Winner, who was charged with leaking evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election, as she was arrested at her home by FBI agents.

Is This a Room will run from September 13-15 at the  Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Pennsylvania's campus.  For tickets, visit www.fringearts.com or download the Fringearts app.

The 2019 Fringe Festival is just around the corner...or subway tunnel...or a refinery.  Who knows?  Raina and Katy are ready to take an adventure with award winning artist and designer Mimi Lien, as they explore unknown depths with  Superterranean, a collaboration with Fringe Festival veterans, Pig Iron Theatre Company.  Superterranean is a new work of visual theater driven by Lien’s fascinations with urban infrastructure and the human body’s place within it. 

Superterranean runs from September 5-15th. For ticketing information, visit us at Fringearts.com, or download the Fringearts app.

In this episode, we depart from our usual watering hole and join the founder and President of FringeArts, Nick Stuccio, to toast The Wilma Theater's Artistic Director, Blanka Zizka, on her newest production,  There: In the Light and the Darkness of the Self and the Other, adapted from the poem by Lebanese-American poet Etel Adnan, with visual art by renown artist Rosa Barba.  There is one of the curated shows premiering in the 2019 Fringe Festival and performed by Wilma's Hothouse Company.

 There: In the Light and the Darkness of the Self and the Other will be at The Wilma Theater this September 11–22.

 Are you the first person to dance at a wedding? Do you turn the music up at a block party? Are you interested in community building?

JOIN US THIS SUMMER FOR ÚUMBAL: NOMADIC CHOREOGRAPHY FOR INHABITANTS, a 100-person participatory dance piece that moves through the streets of Philadelphia!

Part of the 2019 Fringe Festival in September, Úumbal is an exercise in meeting, recognizing, and celebrating a community gathered for the joy of movement and exploring new ways of moving through public space. The choreography of Úumbal is developed of, by, and for Philadelphia residents who donated their best dance moves to the project, and helmed by lead artist Mariana Arteaga and a local choreographic team.

FringeArts seeks Philadelphia residents of all communities, abilities, ages, and experiences to perform in this nomadic dance piece that includes movement, choreography, and choreographic actions in public space along the streets, parks, and sidewalks of South Philadelphia. You do not have to have a dance background in order to participate. Recommended for ages 13-75+.

Information Session and Workshop Audition

Please join us for Úumbal’s open auditions. Come dressed in clothes comfortable to move in. You do not have to prepare anything in advance. The audition dates are as follows:

All auditions will meet at Mifflin Square Park. To register for the auditions, please visit uumbal.fringearts.com, or email [email protected].

On this episode of Happy Hour of the Fringe, Raina and Tenara share a drink with poet, noise musician and Afro-futurist Camae Ayewa and discuss her latest project, Circuit City.  Known as a force of nature in the Philadelphia Arts scene, Camae has also made her mark world wide as the one-woman band, Moor Mother.  Camae discusses how Circuit City explores what the concept of freedom really is, through the lens of the housing crisis and its effects on those who've spent their lifetime in their community.

Circuit City runs from June 20-22 as part of our High Pressure Fire Service. 

On this episode of Happy Hour on the Fringe, we had drinks with Ben Grinberg, Artistic Director of Almanac Dance Circus Theatre, instructor at Circadium and Pig Iron, and the curator and host for Test Flights, a circus scratch night. Join our conversation about how Ben found his way into circus, the growth of contemporary circus in Philadelphia, Almanac's 5 year anniversary celebration season, and a teaser for who you may see at this July's Test Flights! Learn more about Hand to Hand Circus Festival, running June 28—July 1, at FringeArts.com.

Also, this weekend (May 24th) check out the final performances of "Communitas: Five Years Later" by Almanac Dance Circus Theatre at https://www.thealmanac.us/.