Fringe festival continues with more performances/exhibits from RIT

The popular KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival continues through Saturday, offering hundreds of performances and displays in downtown Rochester, including many showcasing the talents of Rochester Institute of Technology students, faculty, staff and Osher members.

And free shuttlebus service continues for RIT students on Friday and Saturday.

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.

RIT is a founding higher educational sponsor of the community collaborative event, in its eighth year.

Since this year’s celebration of performing and visual arts began on Sept. 10, thousands of people have already attended the 12-day festival.

All of the RIT-related events are free and held at the Little Theatre and Café, 240 East Ave., and RIT City Art Space, in the Sibley Building, 280 E. Main St. Performances at other venues may require tickets.

The RIT offerings at this week’s Fringe Festival include:

• Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Artists, exhibit from the artists belonging to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
• Photo House: Exposed, images from students of RIT’s Photo House are displayed.
• Dangerous Signs, Signed Shorts, a collection of one-act skits and songs performed in American Sign Language. Interpreted.
• Al Biles Quartet, jazz performance
• Home Within: A Journey of a Black Deaf Son with His Father, an hour-long show, written and performed in ASL by Fred Michael Beam, with voice interpreting.
• Bill Dresnack, Versatile CPA, performing original songs on harmonica and guitar.
• RIT Photojournalism Documentary Shorts, a selection of videos created by RIT photojournalism students.
• WADAIKO, traditional Japanese performance drumming.
• RIT Vocal Accent, all-female a cappella group performs empowering and emotionally charged music.
• RIT Ukulele Club, performs both classic and contemporary songs.
• Signatures Literary and Art Magazine, RIT’s undergraduate art and literary magazine offers poetry and prose readings by RIT students, faculty, staff and alumni.
• Sunshine 2.0, “The Wild Design,” traveling theater troupe from NTID, gives a performance inspired by “The Wild Designs” at Peabody Essex Museum which featured works by artists who are looking to nature and living systems for new ideas and creative solutions to human problems. Interpreted.
• RIT Surround Sound, an all-male a cappella group specializing in barbershop music.
• Piano Man, RIT student Garegin Grigoryan performs on the piano, playing some pop and rock songs including some from Queen, Lionel Richie, Billy Joel and Elton John.
• Out of Sync, a live experience that combines abstract art, avant-garde film and experimental music into the realm of live performance, beginning with film loops painted by hand.
• RIT’s Encore A Cappella singing group.
• The Quarternion Drifter(s): Offbeat Song & Dance Interactivaor(s), song and dance routines that spotlight syncopated rhythms and out-of-the-ordinary poly meters.
• Al Biles and GenJam, jazz performed by human and computer.
• RIT Players Presents: “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,” students present 15 short comic, tragic, political, personal and abstract plays in 30 minutes.
• Fowl Play Comedy, a showcase of some of Fowl Play Comedy’s best original sketches.

For a complete schedule of RIT Fringe events as well as the shuttle schedule to and from RIT, go to www.rit.edu/fringefest or contact RIT Assistant Vice President of Special Events Lynn Rowoth, at 585-475-7408 or lynn.rowoth@rit.edu.