Houston Fringe Festival, Going On Now

sigh. I’d meant to post about the damn thing before it got underway, but, as with these things, that didn’t happen… So, instead, here we are, and the FrenetiCore group’s Houston Fringe Festival is under way, having started its first week yesterday.

Even though I’m late on this, though, I’d heartily, heartily recommend the Festival — we went last year, primarily to see a play (Brunna Bunny and Baby Girl) that was directed by a friend and starred two other friends, and I have to say, I was pretty impressed by the pieces we were able to see.

Not everything was my cup of tea, admittedly, but I was won over even by some of the stuff that I kinda went “ick” at to begin with — like one of the dance pieces, Beyond The Sphere, which at first looked like a handful of dancers doing totally random crap but slowly evolved into something very complex & beautiful. The show we saw also featured video by Kutiman, who splices/orchestrates together random YouTube clips into funky-ass, genre-shifting compositions; some of ’em drag on a little long, but I found myself staring at the screen with a big grin, marveling at the layered-ness of it all.

This year’s program looks as good as the last, with a mix of short plays, avant-garde dance performances, poetry recitations, and musical pieces from all sorts of folks unfolding each weekend between now and September 11th (8/19-8/21, 8/26-8/28, 9/2-9/4, & 9/10-9/11, to be precise). I recognize a few of the names on the list, like Dug Falk‘s Nonsense Music Band, Ray Hill, Jacqueline Nalett, & Loueva Smith (the playwright of the play we were mostly there to see last Festival), but it’s all bound to be interesting, at least. (Although be warned that a friend brought kids last year and, um, we kinda regretted that later on.)

Anyway, the shows all start at 8PM, I believe, at the Frenetic Theater at 5102 Navigation. Tix are $15 in advance and $18 at the door. Check it out…