The Guelph Fringe Festival is adding new programming this year directed towards children called Fireflies on the Fringe to expand the festival's age demographic with the magic of theatre.
Children’s Fringe performances aren't new to Fringe festivals in Canada but it is a first for Guelph Fringe.
There will be four performances from two artists Aug. 12 and 13. At the Guelph Civic Museum Juno nominated artist Beppie will perform an interactive musical performance for young children. At Red Brick Cafe a shadow puppetry show called Circle of Animals will be put on by Kitchener-Waterloo’s Puppets & Shadows Theatre.
The performances are both at 10:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased online or with cash at the door.
This is an inaugural event and Fringe hopes it continues in years to come free of charge or pay-what-you-can.
“The idea came about because we wanted to offer the kind of high quality performing arts programming that already exists in Guelph for adults and extend that to younger audiences,” said Dunja Lukic, coordinator for Fireflies on the Fringe.
Beppy’s performances are music driven, fun, groovy and genre bending. “I think it’s going to be guaranteed to get people up and dancing,” said Lukic.
The performances are geared towards children ages 10 and under. The length of the shows are a bit shorter than the rest of Fringe because children have shorter attention spans. It allows them to keep engaged throughout the duration of the show.
The purpose of the programming is for youth to connect with the performances and the magic of the arts.
Lukic hopes it ignites their imagination and takes them out of the screen based reality children have been living with over the last couple of years.
“Guelph Fringe Festival already offers an incredibly diverse array of performances for adults but Fireflies on the Fringe the intent there is to expand the reach of the Fringe festival across a wider age demographic,” said Lukic.
As for the name “I was thinking about the magic and the luminescence of the firefly and how illusive that light and that spark is and how short the light of a firefly is kind of like childhood in a way. Childhood is short, it’s brief, it’s magical,” she said.
The programming for children matches the ethos with the rest of the festival because the shows have small casts, minimal production requirements, flexible and adaptable to unusual venues and both performers are used to performing in community based settings.
“It’s a really unique opportunity to see music and see shadow puppetry that you’re really not going to get a chance to see otherwise,” said Lukic.
“There’s a lot of untapped potential in Guelph to really think about offering the kind of festival programming that we offer in the community but geared specifically towards the youngest members of our community."
