Fringe 2019: The Ever So Exciting World of Fringe is Back for its 5th Year with Even More Surprises

MANILA, PHILIPPINES—“Fringe is a powerful platform for artists to tell their narratives on their own terms. As an uncensored, unrestricted, and open-access festival, it leaves plenty of room for surprises. That is the magic unique to Fringe Manila,” reiterates Jodinand Aguillon, 2019 Fringe Festival Creative Producer and Fringe artist himself.

Independent artists have been at the forefront of challenging the cultural and artistic landscape in neighborhoods, towns and cities across the globe. Various Filipino cultural innovators, third culture kids from the diaspora, and international arts practitioners represent the diverse spectrum of what is happening beyond the conventional institutions and glossy façades where art is supposed to exist. Fringe Manila celebrates its monumental 5th year as the Fringe Festival comes out of the peripheries during Philippine Arts Month. From February 7th to March 3rd 2019, Metro Manila’s open-access, multi-arts festival will once again present an inclusive program line-up that reflect the culmination of the five years of Fringe Manila. Since its inception, Fringe Manila continues to be an artist-driven festival that has evolved into a city-wide collaborative effort.

This 2019, festival-goers can expect the comeback of Fringe artists from the inaugural festival such as long-time festival partners The Sandbox Collective with their production of Every Brilliant Thing starring Teresa Herrera as well as PETA with their comedy Charot! presenting Philippine current events for the freak show that it is, imagining the future and consequences of a new charter. Repertory Philippines partners with Fringe this year with the restaging of Silent Sky, and SPIT debuts at the Yuchengco Museum. The Dance Collective led by contemporary performance artist Brian Moreno comes back to the Fringe fold as his alter-ego in Lucinda’s Big Opening at the PARC Foundation. It is an autobiographical and experimental show that looks inside a drag transformation process. Combining elements of drag, dance, aerial arts and cabaret, Lucinda Sky (Brian Moreno) breaks the fourth wall and tells “herstory” of love and self-discovery, and opens up discussion about recent affairs of the country and the world in this most ambitious one man/woman show extravaganza.

The 2019 Fringe Festival also includes city tours for festival goers to get to know parts of Metro Manila. Street artist DeeJae Paeste takes foodies on the streets of Poblacion at the Starving Artist Tour food and street art tour. Manila Art Deco Weekend by Old Manila Walks celebrates the city’s rich and diverse heritage of 1930s modernist architecture, while community partner Bambike explores one of a kind pit-stops, showcasing various creative spaces and the neighborhood’s hidden and not so hidden gems while on their iconic bamboo bikes in Intramuros, BGC, and Poblacion, Makati.

Fringe Manila was started in 2015 as the brainchild of Festival Director Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan, who had previously worked for FringeNYC and in productions at the New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF) and the United Solo Festival. Fringe Manila was born out of the need to provide safe spaces for emerging artists and collectives to create opportunities for themselves in order to produce experimental pieces, perform works they never had a chance to, while developing cross cultural exchanges, and engage with the local community.

The 2019 Fringe Festival is made possible through the support of festival partners: MyTown, Don Papa Rum, The Sandbox Collective, Glorious Dias, DTI-Design Center of the Philippines, Design Week 2019, CINKO PH, Bambike, and Barangay Poblacion, Makati City.

Tickets are available at TicketWorld 891-9999 or at www.ticketworld.com.ph for some performances. For more details and updates, stay posted via facebook.com/FringeMNL and Twitter and Instagram at @fringemnl or visit fringemanila.com

Show venues:

Pineapple Lab

Century City Mall

Hole in the Wall

Alliance Française Manille

Y Space at the Yuchengco Museum

Dulo

Commune

CINKO PH

The Ruins

The Social

Lokal Hostel