Philadelphia's FringeArts Announces Winter/Spring 2015 Lineup

In 2015, FringeArts (formerly the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe) embarks on a bold new chapter: presenting a rollicking array of genre-bending dance, theater, and music at their contemporary arts center on the Delaware River waterfront. Tickets to FringeArts' season performances are available now by calling 215-413-1318 or visiting FringeArts.com.

In addition to eight exciting mainstage productions, FringeArts will host a series of new and returning events: Late Night brings high-energy entertainment to the restaurant stage each Friday; and contemporary works for intimate audiences are featured in the new Studio Series. The popular Music Series expands with rare collaborations by groundbreaking artists in music, video and dance, and the ongoing Scratch Night on the first Monday of each month offers free, behind-the-scenes insights into artists' works-in-progress. Peter Woolsey, Executive Chef of FringeArts' La Peg restaurant and bar, pairs performance art with the art of cuisine with From Scratch, a once-a-month, chef-designed three-course tasting menu inspired by a mainstage production. The From Scratch menu will be available by reservation only. For the most up-to-date schedule, visit FringeArts.com.

"We're growing a community around Philadelphia's most adventurous audiences and artists," says FringeArts President and Producing Director Nick Stuccio. "FringeArts is attracting the best experimental contemporary performers from around the country and the world to our unique arts center, but we're also supporting the deep pool of artistic talent here in Philadelphia, making artists' work accessible to curious Philadelphians year-round. With La Peg, our celebrated restaurant, bar and beer garden, FringeArts offers a complete experience."

The winter season launches its mainstage presentations with Fest (Jan. 13 and 14), a fantasy about sex and power from provocative Bulgarian choreographer and performer Ivo Dimchev. Ringside seats are available in February for Rocco by Emio Greco (Feb. 27 and 28), an intensely physical piece of combat-choreography set in a stylized boxing ring, from Dutch choreographers Greco and Pieter Scholten.

April and May are a feast of contemporary dance and exciting theater from national and local artists, including BeginAgain from Seattle's zoe I juniper (April 9, 10, 11); Dust from Megan Bridge's (April 16, 17, 18), and Now Now Oh Now by Austin-based Rude Mechanicals (April 22 - 30). In May, Philadelphia favorites are on stage with world premieres from Thaddeus Phillips and Lucidity Suitcase International, Alias (May 14, 15, 16) and from Pig Iron Theatre Company, I Promised Myself to Live Faster (May 22 - 31). Documentary filmmaker Sam Green arrives May 1 for a special presentation with Music. MashUp Bodies from anonymous bodies/Kate Watson-Wallace premieres in June.

Dates for the 2015 Fringe Festival are announced: September 3 through September 19.

SCHEDULE OF MAINSTAGE EVENTS:

A compete schedule of events is available at FringeArts.com. To purchase tickets, call 215-413-1318 or visit FringeArts.com.

JANUARY

Fest

January 13 and 14, 7 p.m.

Ivo Dimchev

Fest opens at an imaginary arts festival in Copenhagen, where a performer played by Dimchev attempts to persuade administrators to present his latest show. The dry professional negotiation quickly devolves into a hallucinatory and hilarious exploration of ambition, lust and control. Anchored in Dimchev's intensely physical performance, Fest makes visible the subconscious connections between power and desire in any professional relationship. A "From Scratch" tasting menu is available for pairing with this show.

FEBRUARY

Rocco

February 27 and 28, 8 p.m.

ICKamsterdam

Ringside seats are available in February for Rocco by ICKamsterdam, created by Dutch choreographers Emio Greco and Pieter Scholten. An intensely physical dance event set in a stylized boxing ring, Rocco pits dancers face to face in a suite of choreographed bouts that take them to physical and psychological extremes.

APRIL

BeginAgain

April 9, 10, 11

zoe I juniper

Sound, video and stage magic meld with extraordinary dance in BeginAgain from Seattle-based duo zoe I juniper. Choreographer Zoe Scofield and visual artist Juniper Shuey create an enchanted environment for mysterious dance rituals that explore identity and self.

Dust

April 16, 17, 18

Megan Bridge,

Philadelphia's, a collaboration between dancer and choreographer Megan Bridge and interactive designer and musicologist Peter Price, will premiere a choreographic staging for five dancers of Dust, a 90-minute experimental opera by the late composer Robert Ashley, known for his multilayered musical and theatrical dreamscapes. Lucinda Childs served as choreographic mentor for the project.

Now Now Oh Now

April 22 through 25

Rude Mechanicals

Austin, Texas theater collective Rude Mechanicals dazzles audiences with what they describe as a "genre-defying cocktail of big ideas, cheap laughs and dizzying spectacle." Now Now Oh Now leads an intimate audience through an immersive theatrical experience that is part locked room puzzle, part lecture on evolutionary biology, and definitely the world's weirdest night of Dungeons and Dragons, asking big questions about how choice and chance impact our lives along the way.

MAY

The Incredibly Dangerous Astonishing Lucrative and Potentially Completely TRUE Adventures of Barry Seal

May 14, 15, 16

Thaddeus Phillips/Lucidity Suitcase International

Thaddeus Phillips (Red Eye to Havre de Grace, WHaLE OPTICS, ¡El Conquistador) spent the last two years on location in Colombia playing the role of infamous American drug smuggler Barry Seal in the Spanish-language telenovela, Alias El Mexicano. Phillips brings his Barry Seal character to the FringeArts stage for a solo performance that blurs the lines between television and theater, reality and serialized drama. The tale continues with the epic-scale, bilingual, Alias Ellis MacKenzie, which will be presented at the 2015 Fringe Festival.

I Promised Myself to Live Faster

May 22 through 31

Pig Iron Theatre Company

Directed by Dan Rothenberg
Text by Gregory S. Moss and Pig Iron Theatre Company
Conceived and created by Pig Iron Theatre Company

Tim's out trolling for a good time when an order of intergalactic nuns charge him with a quest: retrieve the Holy Gay Flame from the clutches of the evil emperor to save the race of Homosexuals and restore the balance of power in the universe. But when he's captured by the fabulously androgynous Ah-Ni, Tim's chances look bleak. An original melodrama inspired by theater legend Charles Ludlam, founder of Greenwich Village's Ridiculous Theatrical Company, Live Faster melds delirious sci-fi, Shakespeare, Wagner, high camp and drag queens to paint a 21st-century allegory of epic proportions.

JUNE

Mash Up Body

June 4, 5, 6

anonymous bodies / Kate Watson-Wallace

Kate Watson-Wallace's Mash Up Body is a collaborative performance installation and a meditation on the many attentions and influences of our bodies. Part runway, part club, part proscenium, the experience is a series of confessionals and a dance version of what happens when your mind wanders.

SEPTEMBER

September 3 through 19

2015 FRINGE FESTIVAL

ABOUT FRINGEARTS - FringeArts supports artists and brings the world's newest and most cutting-edge cultural experiences to Philadelphia, amplifying the vibrancy of the city as a renowned cultural center and an unparalleled place to live, work and visit. Founded in 1997 and formerly known as the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe, the organization serves local, national and international artists of all disciplines and levels of achievement through an annual 16-day Festival along with year-round series of high-quality contemporary dance, theater and music performances; commissioned public art installations; and a residency program that continues to expand and grow as a state-of-the-art incubator for artists.

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