In addition to 24 countries, we followed the new Olympic tradition of including an “international refugees” section. And to honor Native Americans, we added a section for the Lakota people, as well as a section for Palestinians and Yiddish culture—opening the parade of countries from Argentina to Zimbabwe.
A warm welcome to all displaced populations and refugees from troubled parts of the world. Check out d1ASpORA by the TangenT Art Collaborative, whose visual meditation on global population disruption originates with stories of refugees. For details on how to explore ideological and environmental causalities of mass disruptions on your own computer or cell phone, check out personal.psu.edu/wrc11/diaspora/D1aspora. Fringe catalog p. 113.
LAKOTA PEOPLE
Taŋyáŋ yahí. Welcome to Uncharted Territories by Ian Grant. Through corrupted video stills and commentary this program articulates that the Lakota culture is obscured in the space of broadcast media. However, brief snapshots of the reservations give the Lakota people a space in a new media gallery—a more empowered form of media. Ongoing and live. For more information, click Uncharted Territories and Uncharted Territories. Fringe catalog p. 115.
PALESTINE
أهلابك. Ahlaan bik. Welcome. Humble Mumbles by Rebecca Katherine Hirsch is a bumptious queer ‘n feminist podcast of a social-psychological nature. Currently mumbling about Palestine, oppressor mentalities and omni-accusation. Reporting live from the West Bank, sometimes. Humble Mumbles has been joking about adopting humility atop defensive arrogance since 2014. Liberation through accountability, etc. For more information, click Humble Mumbles and Humble Mumbles. Fringe catalog p. 114.
YIDDISH CULTURES
באַגריסן.Bagrisn.Welcome to Barry: Mamaloshen in dance!by Asya Zlatina and dancers, a show that celebrates life, the beauty of Yiddish culture, and “Mamaloshen” through the beloved music of the Barry Sisters, and the soundtrack of many families expressed in an evening of nostalgia and an iconic sound of the past. The decimated communities of the Holocaust are not forgotten and live forever in dance. L’Chaim! For more information, click Barry: Mamaloshen in dance! Fringe catalog p. 76.
ARMENIA
BELGIUM
COLOMBIA
CONGO
CUBA
ECUADOR
ENGLAND
Welcome to the Omeletto: Like Hamlet, Only Scrambled team and the Mask Ensemble. Told through the lens of commedia dell’arte, the story of Hamlet gets a deconstructed re-imagining that only Ombelico Mask Ensemble can deliver—with your favorite commedia characters’ (Arlecchino, Pantelone, Capitano, and the rest) taking on the Bard. Performed in English, Italian, and French. For more information, click Omeletto. Fringe catalog p. 85.
Welcome to the Bedlam: Shakespeare in Rehab team and the Manayunk Theatre Company. This performance takes everything you know about classic theater and turns it on its head. Shakespearean Heroines are ripped out of their respective stories and thrown into a haunting, run down institution. Characters and audience alike are immersed in a world of mental health. For more information, click Bedlam. Fringe catalog p. 89.
Welcome to John Schultz and the Let’s Fuck Around With Hamlet team. For more information, click Let’s Fuck Around With Hamlet. Fringe catalog p. 93. Due to unforeseen circumstances, this show will no longer be performed in the 2016 Fringe Festival.
Welcome to King John, director Dan Kern, actors Kevin Bergen, Mitchell Bloom, Carlo Campbell, Jared Michael Delaney, Adrienne Hertler, Matt Lorenz, Merci Lyons-Cox, David Pica, James A. Reilly, Raina Searles, Cathy Simpson, Sarah Stryker, Jahzeer Terrell, and Hannah Van Sciver, lighting designer Andrew Cowles, costume designer Natalia de la Torre, scenic designer Andrew Cowles, and sound composer Christopher Colucci, and Revolution Shakespeare, founded by Griffin Stanton-Ameisen.
Expect: Intrigue. Murder. War. This King John is set in a future after the collapse of civilization. A corrupt ruling class, after seizing power, finds itself embroiled in a vicious struggle for total dominance. With political relevancy that mirrors our own time, King John asks “Where do you stand?” For more information, click King John. Fringe catalog p. 100.
Welcome to the Margo Jones Syndicate in Shakespeare @ the Bar: The Taming of the Shrew. Be prepared for great plays, serious drinking, and inspiring theater. Fire up your Tinder profile (seriously) and get ready for Shakespeare @ the Bar, a no‐holds‐barred experience of Shakespeare like no other in Philadelphia! Grab a beer at City Tap House (3925 Walnut St.) and drink in The Taming of the Shrew! This lightly rehearsed production of the Bard’s most irreverent romantic comedy exposes one man’s lusty, raucous scheme to “take one for the team” and get filthy rich in the process! For more information, clickShakespeare @ the Bar. Fringe catalog p. 107.
Welcome to Benjamin Smallen in So Soon Forsaken: An R&J Story. Two households, both alike in dignity, where Friar and Nurse in love do intervene. Two lives their arbitration brings to end, but grudge and strife this loss does help to mend. What if love’s greatest tragedy was not entirely tragic? Who and what drive Romeo and Juliet’s story? For more information, click So Soon Forsaken. Fringe catalog p. 114. Due to unforeseen circumstances, this show will no longer be performed in the 2016 Fringe Festival.
ETHIOPIA
Room 21 is an inspired musical response to the artworks of Room 21 at the Barnes Foundation and Albert Barnes’ extensive record collection. The actual Room 21 displays an eclectic mix of Pennsylvania German furniture, Modigliani’s painting Reclining Nude from the Back, African masks, religious works, and paintings by Barnes students. Carefully choreographed, Clayton’s concert rewards roaming through the performance, much like visitors roam through the art collection. For more information, clickRoom 21. Fringe catalog p. 35.
FRANCE
Bienvenu. Welcome, Jérôme Beland the entire Philadelphia Gala team. A spectacle where the act of dancing, or the act of trying to dance, is celebrated, Gala showcases the desire to dance without complexes. Twenty dancers take the stage, from professional dancers to first timers—including children, teenagers, pensioners, and people with disabilities. Interpreting a series of dances across a range of eras, their performances reveal each person’s desire to move, to strive for joy, perfection, to transform with unabashed expression. With a simple framework, like an end of year assembly, audiences become deeply connected to the individuals on stage, their dance revealing a world of their own imagination. For more information, clickGala. Fringe catalog p. 47.
Bienvenu. Welcome, Louise Bourgeois, Michelle Beshaw, Deborah Beshaw-Farrell, and the entire En Mer Avec Louise Bourgeois: A Thundering Notion puppet team. This work explores associations between Bourgeois’ biography and visual vernacular of the creator of this show. Playing with puppets, toys, and other objects, the piece will travel across time and space, moving from a small courtyard off Elfreths Alley, through the Alley to the Museum House. The piece is being developed and will be performed by sisters, Michelle Beshaw and Deborah Beshaw-Farrell. For more information, click En Mer Avec Louise Bourgeois. Fringe catalog p. 93.
Bienvenu. Welcome Silvana Cardell with choreographer Mariano Pattin and a live video stream from Buenos Aires, Chloe Felesina with poetry and live music (keyboard and voice), composed by Manfred Fischbeck. Laina Fischbeck with live music (guitar), composed and performed by Christophe Gateau, and the entire Group Motion Multi Media Dance Theater Vibrato team. For more information, click Vibrato. Fringecatalog p. 105.
Bienvenu. Welcome, Albert Camus’ The Just and the entire Übungsflugzeug Performance Art Theater. Behind the curtained window of a Moscow apartment, four terrorists plot to assassinate a tyrant. But can justice grow from the ashes of murder? Can hate be a weapon in the service of love? For more information, click The Just. Fringe catalog p. 106.
GERMANY
Willkommen. Welcome, Der Vorfuhreffekt Theatre, Mr. Darwin, and the entire The 7-Person Chair Pyramid High Wire Act cast: Charles Darwin goes out in search of the yeti. A bat tries to woo the electromagnetic spectrum. Smokey Robinson plays on the radio. For more information, click The 7-Person Chair Pyramid High Wire Act. Fringe catalog p. 106.
GREECE
IRAN
ITALY
In this reinvisioning of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, we meet a Julius Caesar who “speaks” only through gestures—an old Caesar, no longer possessing power, his gestures move the air and produce a sound. Mark Anthony’s funeral oration is delivered by a man without vocal chords, whose voice is produced solely from his stomach and esophagus. A third actor delivers a dialogue on the state of Rome, an endoscope inserted through his nostrils so the audience can see his vocal chords vibrating in real time. In life, in theater, what do words hide, where does their power emerge from? For more information, click Julius Caesar. Spared parts. Fringe catalog p. 55.
Benvenuto. Welcome, Paul Manganello, Filippo Mazzei, and the Fratellanza Theater Company in Zealous Whig, a show that is Italian and American, historical, hysterical, kinetic, subversive, fictional—and completely true. For more information, click Zealous Whig. Fringe catalog p. 94. Due to unforeseen circumstances, this show will no longer be performed in the 2016 Fringe Festival.
JAPAN
ようこそ. Yōkoso. Welcome,Ryuzo Fukuhara in RHIZOMAS, Improvisational Music and Movement,performing in the traditional style of Japanese Butoh, live improvisational musicians connect with the space and audience using concepts based on rhizomes, a subterranean stem system that grows shoots and roots at serendipitous intervals.For more information, click Rhizomas. Fringe catalog p. 99.
MEXICO
ROMANIA
RUSSIA
SÉNÉGAL
SERBIA
SOUTH AFRICA
SPAIN
Bienvenido. Welcome, Federico García Lorca and the entire Duende Cycle, in Bodas de Sangre (The Blood Wedding)—the classic tale retold in modern-day Miami: a bride escapes with her lover into the swamp on her wedding day (performed in Spanish and English). For more information, click Bodas de Sangre. Fringe catalog p. 85.
SWEDEN
VENEZUELA
ZIMBABWE
Physically and emotionally tough, with humor, guile, fashion, and rage, chipaumire makes her subject a man who can embody all men, embody the ancestral as well as the modern—a man both strong and fragile, smart and beautiful, a man between worlds. For more information, click Portrait of Myself as my Father. Fringe catalog p. 53.
Originally published by Phindie.