School holidays Fringe

By DAVID IVANI

Now that the school holidays have officially kicked off, you can look forward to the plays on offer by the Sydney Fringe Festival’s Youth Hub. 

The Sydney Fringe Festival is the largest independent arts festival in NSW, with over 450 events presented across Greater Sydney, each year. 

From the Youth Hub, there are ten fun-packed plays to pick from – genres ranging from contemporary dance, and classic jazz, to clever improvisation, and wacky comedy. 

All theatrical plays are adult and under-eighteens friendly, perfect for a family night out. The Youth Hub is designed as a family affair featuring shows designed with teens in mind. On top of that, you can use the code ‘TEEN15’ for $15 tickets. 

Here are some of the plays on offer in the upcoming days:

BLACKLUX: PERSPECTIVES IN TIMELAPSE. (September 27-29, Newtown High School of Performing Arts)

This is a contrast-based dance performance, where black and white visuals are used to explore objects in space, the body, the body’s relationship to space (positive and negative), and progressively, the relationship between two moving bodies in high contrast space. 

Lucky Lartey will visit and re-discover his traditional culture, combining contemporary dance and West African Dance – the contemporary and the traditional. Shape, form, and storytelling are drawn out to capture an exploration of an unspoken landscape, capturing different bodies and skin tones sharing space in stills and moving images.

THE MUSEUM OF THIS MORNING (September 27-28, Newtown High School of Performing Arts)

Champion improviser and real-life museum curator, Jim Fishwick invites audience input in this  gallery exhibition for the ages. 

A mix of one-man show and art project, The Museum of This Morning dives into the audiences’ experiences, drawing them into the play, giving them a sense of involvement and control. Fishwick picks out fine details which occur in the present, and creates a uniquely magical show made up of things that happen during a particular show. 

EGG (September 30 – October 2, Newtown High School of Performing Arts)

Hilarious, topical, and moving – this is the new solo work by the award-winning performer Erin Fowler. Issues of femininity and the environment are common themes of her work. 

The play takes on the position of a 32-year-old, single, woman whose biological eggs are “dying off”, according to a Facebook ad. When presented with the option of freezing her eggs, she is faced with questions that put her morals and values to the test. 

Egg questions all things fertility and motherhood, the making of big decisions, and how we live with them. It merges dance, theatre, martial arts, clowning, bagpipes, a life-sized egg, and an energetic ’80s soundtrack.

WHEN SHAKESPEARE MET SHAKESPEARE (October 1-2, Newtown High School of Performing Arts)

This well thought-out comedy pits four Shakespeare conspiracies against one another through a playwriting contest in which only the audience will survive. The theatrical piece attempts to unmask the conspiracy theories through a playful piece of fast-paced banter between four central males who all claim to be the real William Shakespeare. 

Interestingly, When Shakespeare Met Shakespeare subliminally raises the question of whether William Shakespeare was a living individual or simply a made-up character. 

For the full program of Youth Hub events, visit sydneyfringe.com/youth-hub/