For 30 years, the Minnesota Fringe Festival has been an event to celebrate artistic expression and a beloved highlight in the Twin Cities theater calendar. But it's also a great place to see dance.
This year, the Fringe's dance offerings run the gamut from contemporary works and theater-dance hybrids to fairy-tale-inspired creations and comedic forays. Here's a sneak peek to some of the highlights on the festival's list, and they run from Aug. 3-13.
"Rope Dances" by BodyTalk and Friends: It's Rebecca Trost Abas' fifth time at the Fringe fest, and they have all been at Four Seasons Dance Studio, which she operates in Loring Park.
"Rope Dances" is a series of works inspired by shibari, the art of Japanese rope tying. "It is not a bondage show," Abas clarifies. "It's more the artistic aspect of it — the fashion and the costumes and the designs that the ropes themselves make."
It spans ballroom dance, mime, performance art and contact improv, with the ropes providing the through-line.
"Ropes can sometimes mean restriction but it can also mean freedom to some people," Abas said. "I just opened it up to the dance artists to interpret it."
(8:30 p.m. Aug. 4-5, Four Seasons Dance Studio, 1637 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls.)
"Doline: Emerging Into the Light" by Shelter Repertory Dance Theatre: In this 48-minute solo piece, Shelter's artistic director, Kim Neal Nofsinger of Norwalk, Wis., contemplates the notion that in most situations in life, you can either see it as something you can't get out of, or you can escape. Through dance and text, including writings by 17th-century poet John Donne, he interrogates the concept of a doline.
