{"id":10873,"date":"2015-08-20T06:36:25","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T13:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=10873"},"modified":"2015-08-21T08:44:49","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T15:44:49","slug":"bringing-old-plays-back-to-life-and-connecting-artists-together-with-the-return-of-victorias-fringe-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2015\/08\/20\/bringing-old-plays-back-to-life-and-connecting-artists-together-with-the-return-of-victorias-fringe-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing old plays back to life and connecting artists together with the return of Victoria’s Fringe Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a summer finale: during the span of 11 days, the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival will bring spoken-word poetry, dance performances, and fully-produced shows to nine different venues around town.<\/p>\n

One of the interesting things about Fringe, which is now in its 29th year, is that it gives young companies (from all over the world) the ability to showcase their new material to a wider audience than they would normally have.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is encouraging for new artists,\u201d says Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival guest producer Heather Jarvie. \u201cThey can try something that may be considered weird or out of the box and someone will love it. Victoria audiences are excited to see unusual things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given that the Fringe fest has over 300 shows in 11 days at nine venues, including two site-specific pieces, it\u2019s no wonder it is the \u201cbiggest beast\u201d Jarvie has scheduled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had two companies approach Intrepid Theatre expressing their desire to bring their own venue and do something different,\u201d says Jarvie. The site-specific pieces have landscapes incorporated into the performances; one location is in Macaulay Point Park in Esquimalt, and the other is at the Congregation Emanu-El, Canada\u2019s oldest synagogue.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A moment from For Body and Light<\/em>, just one of the 300-plus shows happening during the 2015 Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the site-specific performances is Lieutenant Nun<\/i>, produced by Theatre SKAM and performed at the Fringe Festival in 2002 and 2004. As part of Theatre SKAM\u2019s 20th anniversary, they invited artists to reimagine their past work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some pretty contemporary themes in it,\u201d says co-artistic director Kathleen Greenfield. \u201cIt\u2019s about a nun who escapes the convent and runs away as a conquistador in the new world as a male: the contemporary version of Mulan. We are really exploring the character\u2019s gender and their self-identification. It\u2019s less Joan of Arc and more about the internal struggle within her own body.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Lieutenant Nun<\/i> is more relevant today than it was when it was first launched, according to playwright Elaine Avila.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are much more aware of transgender and indigenous rights and accepting of multiple languages in plays than we were in 2003 and 2004,\u201d says Avila.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the performance of For Body and Light<\/i> focuses on \u201ca search for the heart of winter, whenever and whatever that may be,\u201d says scriptwriter Ian Ferrier.<\/p>\n

Jarvie says that the connection the Fringe Festival participants share after 11 days is amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredible how much of a family we are,\u201d she says. \u201cThe staff, the volunteers, the artists. They are long days; it\u2019s exhausting. You come to the end of the festival and you feel like you should be burned out, but you\u2019re not, because of the community\u2019s support.\u201d<\/p>\n

The support the volunteers give does not go unnoticed. Ferrier says that he doesn\u2019t think this project would happen without volunteers and he adds that he loves that the volunteers offer their homes to the artists during the 11 days of the fest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the best,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Fringe Festival itself has travelled across Canada, giving artists the ability to witness each other\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kinship of fellow artists going across the country together,\u201d says Greenfield, \u201cis extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival
\nThursday, August 27 to Sunday, September 6
\nVarious prices and venues
\nvictoriafringe.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a summer finale: during the span of 11 days, the Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival will bring spoken-word poetry, dance performances, and fully-produced shows to nine different venues around town. One of the interesting things about Fringe, which is now in its 29th year, is that it gives young companies (from all over the world) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-august-19-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10875,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10873\/revisions\/10875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}