The Fort Collins Fringe Festival held their opening night at the Lyric Cinema in Fort Collins, Colo. July 26. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Cheri Kush Lightening in all of pink fringe glory during a performance for the Bluestocking Burlesque show. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Bang Bang Von Loola practicing the art of the Geisha. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Ryan Stone gets ready to heat things up during his act for the BlueStocking Burlesque at the Lyric Cinema in Fort Collins, Colo. July 26. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Bach in Black performs live at the Lyric Cinema. Liam Kimball serenades the crowd with the song City of Stars from La La Land during the Fort Collins Fringe Festival in Fort Collins, Colo. July 29. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Liam Kimball, a Junior at Rocky Mountain High School, plays his cello for the sold out performance of Bach in Black at the Lyric Cinema for the Fort Collins Fringe Festival on July 29. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Herman Chavez has been playing the cello for 7 years. Here he performs with Bach in Black for the Fort Collins Fringe Festival at the Lyric Cinema in Fort Collins, Colo. July 29. 100% of Bach in Black’s profits were donated to Trees, Water & People, an organization that provides resources to underprivileged communities in Central America. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Stephanie Morphet, doing business as “The Flying Brain” and Bobby Ackerman perform aerial tricks for their lyra duet. Stephanie and Bobby have been working together for 3 years. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Laura Shiels doing business as “Laurali Firefly” spins poi at A Midsummer Night’s Fire Circus. Laurali Firefly is from Hawaii where she learned to spin poi. She owns a company called Scintillating Fire Circus and performed at Buring Man in 2017 and ARISE in 2017 and will be there this year as well. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Corinne Watson, doing business as “CoCo Hula Hoop Extraordinaire” (left) hula hoops during the fairy act. She is the producer of A Midsummer Night’s Fire Circus and owner of Spectra Circus Entertainment. She has been hula hooping since 2009 and differentiates herself professionally by adding fire to her hula hoop acts. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Lucille Glassman, doing business as “Lucille Grace” performs an act that represented the fairy’s in A Midsummer Night’s Dream being mischievous. Lucille Grace is 14 years old and is also a member of Fractal Tribe Fort Collins. This was her first time performing with Spectra Circus Entertainment. The thing Lucille Grace loves most about performing is inspiring others. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Drake Bruner, doing business as, “Dazzling Drake” shows off his contortion skills during his performance for A Midsummer Night’s Fire Circus. Dazzling Drake is completely self taught and is also an aerial teacher at Live Beyond Limit in Fort Collins, Colo. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Lindy Zuroski, doing business as, “Lindy Spindy” hoop dances to represent the sunrise and everyone waking up from the night during A Midsummer Night’s Fire Circus. Lindy has been performing with Spectra Circus Entertainment since 2016. She also has a husband and three children and is a pharmacist when she is not doing circus things. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Laura Shiels, doing business as “Laurali Firefly,” (pictured on top) and Jes Schultz, doing business as “Super Jes” (pictured on bottom), perform an acrobatic yoga duet about two lovers falling in love after one of them gets potion dropped into their eyelid. The two completed this act together for A Midsummer Night’s Fire Circus on July 29. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Krista Lockwood and Scooby Dive perform a duet with their fire fans during a Midsummer Night’s Fire Circus. Krista helped choreograph a lot in this show according to CoCo the producer. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Kris Napier, doing business as “Scooby Dive,” dances with his fire dragon staff during A Midsummer Night’s Fire Circus in the Big Backyard at Fort Collins Museum of Discovery on July 29. Scooby Dive has been performing with Spectra Circus Entertainment since 2017. (Sara Graydon | Collegian)
Last weekend marked the sixth annual Fort Collins Fringe Festival, a time for circus performers and musicians alike come together and wow the Fort Collins community.
This festival sets a stage and a spotlight to local artists delivering an array of performances, showcasing many local talents including theater, film, dance, music and visual art. The festival featured about 90 performances by over 180 different local artists in five venues across Fort Collins.
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Fringe Festivals are centered around the performing arts, without a focus on a single discipline or genre. Fringe provided an open opportunity for local artists to showcase their talents to attendees for four days, and the local talent did not disappoint.
These festivals can be found all around the world, and Fort Collins Fringe is but one of dozens around the United States. Fort Collins Fringe has a specific mission in mind, “to provide a platform for emerging and established artists to perform fun, original, affordable theatre for our community while creating connections between artists, audiences, businesses and organizations.”
Fort Collins Fringe had something for everyone, featuring performances from a fire dancing, acrobatic circus called A Midsummer Night’s Circus, to captivating and gripping short films, burlesque shows and everything in between. Audiences and artists engaged and attended plays, dance performances, improv and even a ghost tour of Fort Collins.
Jesse Nyander, co-created the short film “As You Find Yourself in the Ground” and his creative process embodies the vision of Fringe.
“I wanted to bring everyone [of the collaborators, artists] to the front, to let them do their work,” Nyander said. “I wanted to use animators to bring the story forward, and I sought animators who wanted to grow, to seek out the hard work and let the art come from there.”
Corrine “Coco” Watson, producer of the Midsummer Night’s Fire Circus also believes in showcasing and promoting local talent.
“Our main goal for Spectra Circus Entertainment is providing local events with local performers,” Watson said. “You can go to Denver and hire a performer and have them come here, but we already have performers here. It’s just about getting it out to the community and letting people know that we’re here, and we’re really good too.”
Awards for the Festival were voted for by attendees and artists. The awards for Fort Collins Fringe Festival were as follows:
Salt Magazine Award – “Women Working”
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Windsor Committee Playhouse Award – “Comedy Brewers Long Form Improv”
Audience Choice Award – “Midsummer Night’s Circus”
2018 Artist Choice Award – Winner: En Route Runners Up 3-way tie: Slouch and Grouch, Midsummer Night’s Circus, and Women Working.
More information about Fort Collins Fringe Festival can be found at:
http://www.fringefestivalfortcollins.com/
Collegian Reporter Ryan Lueck can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com and on twitter @ryanelueck
