Clymove comes to Fringe Credit: Phtot by KASAI NYC
As the City Beautiful rings in the new year, it also embraces the unconventional by welcoming the experimental and uncensored world of Fringe once more.
A bite-size spinoff of the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival in May — the longest-running Fringe fest in the country — the 10th annual Winter Mini-Fest returns this week to the Lowndes Shakespeare Center in Loch Haven. The Mini-Fest offers a compact but wide-ranging snapshot of Fringe’s boundary-pushing spirit, bringing together artists from across the country (and abroad) for a short, adventurous run from Wednesday-Sunday, June 7-11.
Joining this year’s shindig is former Orlandoan and now New York-based artist Clymene Aldinger, along with her modern dance company Clymove Dance. Although this will be her first run in the Mini-Fest, Aldinger is very familiar with Fringe mania.
“Each performance is completely different, and each performance is in a different theater,” Aldinger tells Orlando Weekly. “So it’s like, for lack of a better analogy, a pub crawl for the arts. You could go to one theater and see a one-man show that’s just acting. And you could go to another show that’s a drag show with 30 people in it. And you could go to another show like ours, that is concert dance from New York City.”
As an artist, Aldinger describes her experience with Fringe as uniquely impactful: taking in as many shows as possible and exchanging creative ideas with her fellow performers. When it comes to the Mini-Fest, she sees it as a way to offer the arts to the community on a more regular basis. It gives anyone who wasn’t able to attend the May Fringe another chance to experience it, while also creating space for family and friends to come together and enjoy the new year in eclectic fashion.
“The Winter Mini-Fest is a curated event, meaning you are invited to participate, and I believe that they usually make their choices from acts that were in previous Fringe festivals that were well-regarded or highly praised. It’s an opportunity to be able to see something maybe that you didn’t want to miss or missed, but would be able to get to see those acts again. Also, for example, we’re coming all the way from New York, so it’ll be Orlando’s opportunity to see dance that is thriving in New York City but right there at home.”
As Winter Mini-Fest marks its 10th (!) anniversary, Aldinger sees the milestone as a testament to both the festival’s longevity and Orlando’s commitment to the performing arts. She sees an abundance of arts in Florida as something to cherish and fight for; it’s an accomplishment that the Orlando community should be proud of.
“[The festival] gives an offering of a place and a time and a curated artistic event performance for the community to come and experience and learn or have a cathartic moment, or heal or connect and be heard,” she says. “There are so many things that can happen for a human being when they witness and experience the arts. I believe it to be incredibly healing and important for our emotional and mental well-being. I think any offering, but especially one that you know is good, like the Fringe, is kind of a no-brainer. You should be there.”
Central to that experience is Fringe’s commitment to staying unapologetically unconventional. It’s a value Aldinger holds close in her own work at her dance studio.
Clymove Credit: Photo by KASAI NYC
“At Clymove, we find it incredibly important to stay, and remember to be, weird — because that’s how we stay connected to our authentic voices, our authentic selves, being able to take in and comment on the present times and our own personal truths in a safe environment where we are supported and witnessed and heard,” says Aldinger. “It’s an open-minded space and, typically, it’s uncensored or unadjudicated, and so it’s just completely free. I think that is incredibly important for us to be able to learn and experience what the artists of our communities are saying, because they usually have a pulse on the important truths that are maybe being overlooked or unattended to.”
For this Mini-Fest, Aldinger and Clymove are revisiting a longtime (and mostly long-distance) collaboration with adventurous Orlando DJ and musician Kurt Rambus (aka Nigel John). Their CLYMOVE X RAMBUS — with two performances at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 10, and 6:20 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 11, both at Orlando Shakes’ Yellow Venue — promises a boundary-pushing melding of creative sound and movement. The troupe will present some of their “greatest hits” choreography accompanied by beat-heavy original music composed by Rambus especially for these shows.
In a political climate where many struggle to remain true to their authentic selves — in the Sunshine State in particular — Aldinger sees the Mini-Fest as an opportunity to embrace freedom and self-expression. Despite attacks on art and often the people who create it, she remains steadfast in her belief in its resilience.
“I think [art] is trying to be repressed, but I really don’t believe the arts could possibly ever die, no matter what they do to us,” she says. “There are too many people who have to do it, who need to do it, who know how important it is, who believe in it, who have the calling for it. And when people are suppressed, they tend to make pretty good art because they are experiencing and documenting history and that is shared and experienced by many people.”
For first-time Fringe-curious out there, Aldinger says to expect catharsis amidst the shared humanity, time and connection with others. Her advice? Attend as many diverse performances as possible and stretch yourself to see shows you wouldn’t normally think to see.
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