We were standing atop Edinburgh's Calton Hill, looking down across this staid and regal city, when the man in yellow feathers wandered into view.
I thought I was hallucinating. But he was soon followed by a guy in blue fur, then by two women in tangerine tutus. Before long, an entire percussion orchestra had assembled — adorned in bright colors and equipped with all manner of percussion instruments — and as a crowd of bewildered tourists looked on, they began banging out the sort of infectious polymeter one associates with Rio de Janeiro or Mardi Gras.
That impromptu concert is the sort of surreal experience you come to expect at the Edinburgh Fringe, a late-summer festival of performance art where anything can happen. For three weeks each August, artists arrive from across the globe, filling every venue in this imperial city with dance, comedy, performance art, storytelling, song, juggling, sword-swallowing, fire-breathing and other forms of manic creativity. It's one of the most celebrated cultural festivals in the world.
My wife and I had been tempted to attend for some years, but we were always intimidated by its size and complexity: More than 700 artists giving 3,000 performances at some 300 venues spread across an entire city. When I went to print out the official program, it ran to 440 pages. Where do you even start?
As luck would have it, last year Walker Art Center organized a trip for a group of Twin Cities travelers, with a curator who is a veteran of the festival and an expert in the performing arts. Over four days we saw 10 performances at eight venues. They ranged from an elegant reworking of Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" (a production worthy of Broadway or the Guthrie stage), to a one-woman show that started with love songs and finished with a Spider-Man costume and a trampoline. We felt as if we had crammed an entire Walker performing arts season into four busy days. But we also learned that it's possible to navigate the Fringe without being overwhelmed and to come away having seen some of the most brilliant, creative performing artists in the world.
First, a bit of background. What people call "the Edinburgh Fringe," is actually three festivals at once. The center of gravity is the Edinburgh International Festival, a high-culture event that dates to 1947 and draws the world's greatest symphony orchestras, opera singers, dance companies and theater groups. Its three-week program is carefully curated by a professional staff, who start lining up star performers — think Neville Mariner or Yo-Yo Ma — years in advance.
The second festival is the Fringe, which was founded by lesser-known performers who didn't receive invitations to the first Edinburgh International and so invited themselves. The Fringe is not curated and is essentially open to anyone who can raise the cash for a ticket to Edinburgh and book a small theater or the back of a pub. This crowd can range from brilliantly talented alternative theater groups (think Theatre de la Jeune Lune) to cringeworthy comedians you wish you'd missed. This is where you discover stars when they have just begun to twinkle, including famed British comedy actors Rowan Atkinson and Steve Coogan, who both made their reputations at the Edinburgh Fringe. Finally, there is a book festival of more modest ambitions but extremely high quality.
Getting the most from this movable feast requires an odd blend of skills — both meticulous planning and a willingness to improvise at the last minute. Here's a guide, in three steps:
