OBSERVER: Melbourne Fringe Festival
The Melbourne Fringe Festival runs from September 30 to October 19, bringing 500 events over more than 130 venues, and turning the city itself into a stage.
Fed Square, Elizabeth Street, Queen Victoria Market, and more will be transformed into free, interactive, and immersive artworks that invite the public to play, move, and connect at this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival.
The city’s laneways, parks, gardens and iconic buildings like Trades Hall and Meat Market will be presenting works as part of the experience.
The centrepiece to the Festival is Power Move, which places a kinetic dance floor at Fed Square, challenging the city to dance hard enough to power the event off-grid. Power Move features a rotating daily program of DJs, dance and participatory events and opens with eight-hours of Non-Stop-Go-Go dancing on Tuesday September 30.
Also at Fed Square, Unwoman (the protest) is a durational performance confessional by Melbourne feminist theatre company The Rabble, celebrating the multitude of experiences around birth, fertility, and pregnancy. Everyday citizens will take the stage in civic space at Fed Square’s The Edge on Sunday October 5 to share their testimonies and personal stories.
At Arts Centre Melbourne’s forecourt, the participatory installation Voices invites audiences to control a 50-voice philharmonic choir triggering light and movement and creating a collaborative, ever-changing soundscape.
Kummargii Yulendj Barring Gadhaba / Projections of a Current Future is a cycling and walking tour across the city, narrated by Boon Wurrung Senior Elder and Professor N’arwee’t Dr Carolyn Briggs, reawakening hidden waterways and ancestral memory beneath Melbourne’s streets, with projections on buildings created by Amina Briggs.
Lygon Street’s iconic Trades Hall is the Melbourne Fringe Festival Hub, hosting over 110 shows across pop-up theatres, meeting rooms, cupboards and carparks.
Joshua Ladgrove: Guest Host on The Denis Walter Show will present a late-night comedy variety spectacular; The Subplot: A hyperfixation on the Titan submersible, a deep-dive into obsession; How to Art, a clown-fruit mash-up about creativity, survival, and gallery chaos, and Murder in the Graveyard: A Murder Village Improvised Whodunnit, a ghostly, audience-driven Halloween mystery. Punters can also linger at late-night Club Fringe.
Queen Victoria Market bursts to life with the Fringe Flavours Night Market, a pop-up stage for circus, cabaret, comedy, and music, and in North Melbourne, the historic Meat Market is transformed into a multi-space performance hub with a leafy courtyard bar, performance hall, and black box theatre. The program includes
Decadence: 10 Years of Yummy, a high-octane cabaret celebrating a decade of circus, drag, and burlesque; Birds, a darkly comic beach apocalypse; The Village Square, a musical storytelling experience weaving fables of love, loss, and mischief; and Cabaret Time Machine, where audience suggestions send performers spinning through history in a rollicking improvised cabaret.
Other works across the city include Canada’s Speed Dating with Cacti by Mammalian Diving Reflex at the Royal Botanic Gardens, a playful exploration of consciousness across people, plants, and time, and Runway in the Rainforest at Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium, where fashion designer Aron Katona and fellow artists present designs inspired by tropical wonders.
Melbourne Fringe Creative Director and CEO Simon Abrahams says: “Melbourne Fringe Festival is the city’s creative playground, where artists are free to experiment, take risks, and make work that could only happen here in Melbourne. This year, we’re excited not only to be the home for Melbourne’s independent artists, but also to welcome renowned international artists who are bringing bold, immersive, and thought-provoking experiences to the streets, squares, and venues of our city.”
Melbourne Fringe Festival: September 30-October 19.
melbournefringe.com.au
Cheryl Threadgold