Minnesota Fringe Festival's dance shows explore life, love, absurdity

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.

"Most people think of it as a sinkhole, but it's also an underground cavern," he said about the dichotomy. "So it's like, what perspective do you have — sinking into something or emerging from something?"

The 63-year-old dancer said it was a new exploration for him, having gotten tired of the concept that dancers need to be young.

"You don't lose your expressive ability just because you've reached the age of 30," he said.

(8:30 p.m. Aug. 3, 4 p.m. Aug. 6, 7 p.m. Aug. 8, 10 p.m. Aug. 11, 5:30 p.m. Aug. 13, Mixed Blood Theatre, 1501 S. 4th St., Mpls.)

"Little Pieces" by Mary Willmeng/Willmeng Dances: The choreographer, dancer and teacher will be showing a work she's been developing over the past few years. The pieces, created at different times, explore relationships through movements and gestures and will be performed by local dancers.

For Willmeng, choreography comes naturally. But she finds renting a theater and presenting a show over multiple days to be quite daunting. In addition to the logistics of the theater such as lighting, she points out that advertising and selling tickets for the show can be challenging. So she is looking forward to presenting the biggest thing she's done on her own.

"That's where the Fringe offers a lot of really great support," Willmeng said. "To have a nice theater with a decent stage and a number of shows seemed appealing to me. So I joined the lottery, and I got in."

(5:30 p.m. Aug. 3 & 13, 4 p.m. Aug. 6, 7 p.m. Aug. 8, 10 p.m. Aug. 11, Theater in the Round, 245 Cedar Av. S., Mpls.)

"When You Hear the Chime" by Alchemy Arts: Andrew Lester and Nichole Carey met in high school and acted together. But the husband-wife team have not been able to collaborate creatively in recent years. Lester has worked as a professional dancer, while Carey is a writer and vocalist, who recently has been breaking into a cabaret performance career.

They decided to go back to where they started, by pulling their resources together and creating a play that includes music and dance. Carey wrote the script and Lester handled the designing and choreography.

"It's mostly showing a love letter to ourselves and to the stories that made us," Lester said.

"Chime" is a whimsical journey that will make an adult feel like a child again, Carey added.

It "explores the power of stories through a childhood lens and touches on themes such as belonging, facing fears, growing older and what it means to believe in magic at any age," she said.

And heartstrings will be tugged.

(8:30 p.m. Aug. 3, 10 p.m. Aug. 6, 5:30 p.m. Aug. 11, 2:30 p.m. Aug. 12, Southern Theater, 1420 S. Washington Av. S., Mpls.)

ALL MANNER OF MOVEMENT

Here are other dance shows to check out at the Minnesota Fringe Festival:

(10 p.m. Aug. 5 & 6, 8:30 p.m. Aug. 9 &13, 7 p.m. Aug. 12, Rarig Center Trust, 330 21st Av. S., Mpls.)

(10 p.m. Aug. 3, 5:30 p.m. Aug. 4, 7 p.m. Aug. 6, 8:30 p.m. Aug. 10, 4 p.m. Aug. 12, Rarig Center Xperimental, 330 21st Av. S., Mpls.)

(2:30 p.m. Aug. 5, 10 p.m. Aug. 6, 8:30 p.m. Aug. 7, 5:30 p.m. Aug. 11, 7 p.m. Aug. 13, Theatre in the Round, 245 Cedar Av. S., Mpls.)

(8:30 p.m. Aug. 4, 1 p.m. Aug. 5, 10 p.m. Aug. 9, 5:30 p.m. Aug. 10, 7 p.m. Aug. 12, Theatre in the Round)

(7 p.m. Aug. 4 & 13, 5:30 p.m. Aug. 8, 10 p.m. Aug. 9, 8:30 p.m. Aug. 12, Southern Theater, 1420 S. Washington Av. S., Mpls.)

(7 p.m. Aug. 3, 6, 7, 10, 12 & 13, 2:30 p.m. Aug. 6 & 13, Maison Bodega, 1911 Pleasant Av. S., Mpls.)

Minnesota Fringe Festival

When: Aug. 3-13 at various venues in Minneapolis.

Tickets: Festival buttons are $5 and required for admission. $18 advance, $19 door, passes $70-$120, minnesotafringe.org)