http://fusemusic.com/hoppus

(By Latria Roberts)

I’ll be brief. A fringe festival is an arts festival focusing primarily on theater performances. They tend to be non-mainstream theater but historically, several major productions got their start at fringe. For example, the movie “The King’s Speech” has its roots in a fringe festival. It is called a fringe festival because the performances and spaces are thought to be on the fringes as compared to the main stream. Fringe festivals occur across the world and in many states inside the US.

May of 2005 was my first time at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, and in 2006 I brought my camera and took some pictures of fake plastic trees (I’m a Radiohead fan). In 2007, they needed pictures taken for one of the shows and asked me. From there, I spring-boarded into taking pictures of everything I could point my camera at during the fringe festival and have since been made a festival staff member.

But what does any of that have to do with Make Cincinnati Weird? The Cincy Fringe Festival has been making Cincinnati a little weirder since it started. It has its roots in weirdness. One of the most memorable plays for me at a fringe was called “Ante’ Christ”, which was about gods playing cards over the rights to Armageddon. I saw a play called “wet dreams” which was a lot like a Cirque du Soleil performance. I’ve seen shows made out of dreams, given in classrooms and gymnasiums, taken tours of the underground tunnels (by the way, there are underground tunnels in Cincinnati), and of course seen some of the best karaoke performances ever at the nightly bar series. I’m serious, fringe karaoke is not like you’re used to — these people know how to put on a show.

The performance spaces change every year with a few local theaters participating. The whole festival is headquartered at the Know Theatre, 1120 Jackson Street. Many of the spaces are abandoned or unused buildings in historic Over the Rhine, but some have been very unique, such as one performance that occurred inside a moving city bus. The festival attracts performers and some audience members from across the country, and I have personally heard several traveling performers say Cincinnati was their favorite of the fringe festivals they have been to.

If you haven’t yet experienced a fringe festival show and a bar series after, you should come out May 31st to June 11th this year! For more information, check out the website cincyfringe.com, call 300-KNOW (5669), or stop by 1120 Jackson Street.

[Jeff B.]

Photos are a nice way to see something you might not be able to at first, but they definitely don’t do justice to the quality, ambiance, and awe factor of the real performance. Some acts are just difficult to capture on a still image, and I realized that often while going through the photos and remembering the various fantastic performances.

So what’s the weirdest part? How about: not only is this a showcase of the acrobatic talents of Cirque du Soleil performers, inspired by some of the smallest acrobats in the insect kingdom, but that there is a love story threaded throughout between two unlikely creatures you’ll find flying around your house and garden this season…

Click the link below to see the gallery of photos!

Many more photos can be seen on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lzt/sets/72157626468829555/

[Jeff B.]

“To create the musical score for OVO, Berna Ceppas combined the sounds of bossa nova and samba with funk and electro music. And, as you might expect from a Brazilian – there is a lot of percussion in the score.”

2) The show had feel of a mix of cultures. Was that intentional of the artistic director? What were the different cultures referenced in the show?

“Deborah Colker comes from Brazil, so has Berna Ceppas (creator of the musical score of OVO). Also, OVO means egg in Portuguese. In the cast, we do have performers from all around the world – 16 different nationalities.”

3) How were the mechanical flowers created and what kind of flowers were they?

Here is the answer from Gringo Cardia, set designer:

“An enormous 20-ft mechanical Flower appears on stage. The Flower blooms and becomes much more than an over-scale prop it’s a character in the show. Part sculpture, part puppet, part robot, it is seen from the insects’ point of view as a towering, inspiring (and carnivorous!) feature of their environment.”

4) How does a person go through training to be a part of Cirque du Soleil?

“All depends. Performers are coming from different areas and different fields of study. We have performers that have gymnastic, sports, arts, etc. background. We also have 3 performers that compete in trampoline for the Olympics. People can register online at cirquedusoleil.com, there’s also auditions around the world, and we do have talent finder that is going in different sports/shows to see and to recruit performers.”

5) What was the fragrance sprayed during the show?

“Grass in beginning of the show and Magnolia during Samba Love.”

6) What inspired the artistic director’s imagination to come up with this story?

“OVO presents the world of insects with the emphasis on constant movement and color,” says Deborah. “I have a very physical choreographic language and for me, the insects’ movements translate into emotion. OVO reflects my background in dance, of course, but it also represents my lifelong love of music, the inspiration I draw from sport, and the liveliness you can discover in every aspect of life. I love to work on a large scale and create a big impact with tons of energy and excitement on stage.”

Written by: Latria Roberts

(Posted by Latria Roberts.)