It's the 15th annual Philadelphia Fringe and Live Arts Festival. It started Friday, and over 16 days, there will be 200 works and more than a thousand performances of cutting-edge music, dance and theatre by some of the most renowned artists in Philadelphia and around the world.
The Live Arts Festival will bring 16 innovative acts to the city, including Montreal's Seven Fingers, a cirque-de-soleil style contemporary urban circus troupe.
Nick Stuccio, Producing Director of the Philadelphia Live Arts & Fringe Festival said, "They are world -class circus artists but have lost the costume and makeup and giant hats and things so you see them as people. They show up in jeans and t-shirts and bare feet and blow your mind with their circus arts."
The centerpiece of the festival is the US premiere of Play, an intercultural dance duet.
For the first time in its history, Kensington-based Pig Iron Theatre is working from an existing script rather than producing a new work. Its Shakespeare's farcical Twelfth Night with the twist of a live gypsy band threaded throughout.
Dito Van Reigersberg, Co-Artistic Director of the Pig Iron Theatre Company said, "It's going to feel a little bit more raucous and about sort of gypsy culture in Eastern Europe and that sense of abandon and chaos, organized chaos".
The Live Arts Festival is curated and includes 9 world and 3 US premieres. While Philly Fringe is unfiltered, featuring 183 works.
"Each Fringe show has its own venue just about so it takes over the city .Every neighborhood of Philly is dense with performance work," added Stuccio
Visit "Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe" for the full lineup and tickets.