Marathon Month in Philly

Opening Sept. 5, the Fringe Festival, presented by FringeArts, is the best way to get a survey of all the innovative art coming out of—and going into—the City of Brotherly Love. Philly’s own Brian Sanders, whose site-specific works have become one of the festival’s biggest draws, premieres Hush Now Sweet High Heels and Oak, which considers what nursery rhymes, high heels, and memory have in common. Expect raw physicality and acrobatics from his company, JUNK, named in part for his favored sets of found objects. (More than 130 other artists, many of them local, will produce their own shows as part of Neighborhood Fringe. That’s more than 700 performances in addition to the curated Fringe Festival lineup, in just 18 days. Whew.)

JUNK at the 2012
festival in Sanders’ The Gate Reopened. Photo by Kevin Monko, Courtesy FringeArts.

Also slated to appear is the magnetic Irish step dancer Colin Dunne, who brings his riveting autobiographical show Out of Time. The Society, by Norwegian dance-theater artist Jo Strømgren (whose work is danced here in the States by companies like Cedar Lake), is a satiric look at nationalism through the lens of, of all things, coffee vs. tea. And Reggie Wilson’s Moses(es), for his Fist & Heel Performance Group, will make its highly anticipated world premiere. For the full schedule, see www.FringeArts.com.

Strømgren’s
The Society. Photo by Knut Bry, Courtesy FringeArts.