Fringe Festival continues with more performances and exhibits from RIT

Rochester Institute of Technology students, faculty, and staff will contribute music, acting, comedy, poetry, photojournalism, and more during the final weekend of the 10th annual KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival, which continues through Saturday in downtown Rochester.

More than 425 eclectic performances were planned during the 12-day festival. More than 120 of the festival events are free, including all of the RIT performances and exhibits, most of which will be held at Little Theatre #1, 240 East Ave.

Free shuttle bus service to and from campus is being provided for RIT students wanting to attend the weekend events at the festival.

RIT also is a major educational sponsor of the community collaborative event. The festival is a celebration of the performing and visual arts in more than 24 venues in downtown Rochester, featuring world-renowned performers as well as up-and-comers.

In 2020, the festival was held virtually due to the pandemic, with 170 performances.

This year, all performers, participants, staff, volunteers, and festival-goers 12 years of age and older will be required to show proof that they are fully vaccinated in order to attend indoor performances and events during the festival. Vaccine status will be checked at the doors to indoor venues. 

Rochester’s Fringe Festival is the largest multi-genre arts festival in New York state and is renowned among the world’s more than 200 fringe festivals for its large-scale, outdoor, free-to-the-public performances.

Click the link for the RIT offerings at this year’s Fringe Festival for show details: (* denotes interpreted):

Friday, Sept. 24:

• 5:45 p.m.: Into the Light, a celebration of coming out of the darkness of the COVID-19 quarantine and back into the light of live performance. Dangerous Signs provide song and dance, poetry, humor and monologues signed and sung to celebrate live performance, togetherness, and community.
• 7 p.m.: RIT Photojournalism: Documentary Shorts, featuring a selection of cinematic documentary short stories created by photojournalism students from RIT’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences.
• 9 p.m.: Howie Lester & Benny Bleu: The Stolen Song: Music and Story from Around the World, music and stories of wild imagining from around the world, with the Intergalactic Kazoo Orchestra, root music, and Himalayan-Appalachian fusion.

Saturday, Sept. 25:

• 12:30 p.m.: A Cappella Showcase: RIT Brick City Singers and Kaminari, two of RIT’s a cappella groups join for a half hour of vocal music, with Kaminari specializing in songs from Japan.
• 1:45 p.m.: *Mental Graffiti and Signatures Showcase, poetry by students who will share original poems and favorite pieces.
• 3:15 p.m.: Taiko: Japanese Drumming Performance, combined with dancing performed by RIT students in the area’s only Taiko group.
• 4:30 p.m.: RIT Steel Band Ensemble, students performing calypso, socas, and more.
• 6 p.m.: *RIT Players: 20 Neo-Futurist Plays from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, featuring a collection of two-minute plays performed in random order with an interactive audience.

In addition, two exhibits will be at the RIT City Art Space, 280 E. Main St.:

• FEELS: A Global Emotions Visualizer. FEELS gathers and visualizes emotional data from a Twitter API and manifests it as a viewer-interactive and digital sculpture installation.
• Sarah Kinard and Joshua Enck. Two solo exhibitions featuring contemporary printmaking and sculpture.

For a complete schedule of RIT Fringe events (and notations on interpreted performances) as well as the shuttle schedule and map to and from RIT, go to RIT's Fringe Fest website or contact RIT Assistant Vice President of Special Events Lynn Rowoth at 585-475-7408.