FOREST FRINGE Transforms Abrons Arts Center in 'Microfestival' This Weekend

Edinburgh Festival sensation, FOREST FRINGE will transform Abrons Arts Center for a building-wide microfestival, this weekend, October 3-5, 2014.

Forest Fringe makes exciting, improbable, spectacular things happen. Not a theater. Not a company. They are an international community of artists who create a space for risk and experimentation at the Edinburgh Festival and beyond. Forest Fringe began in 2007 as a totally independent, not-for-profit space in the midst of the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland. Co-directors Andy Field, Deborah Pearson and Ira Brand sought to build an artistic community around a space in which experimentation and adventure were cherished. Despite coming from a variety of backgrounds and artistic contexts, the group shares a radical, independent approach to performance-making. Since 2007 they have won numerous awards and continued to explore how this space/idea/spirit of experimentation can move outside of the Edinburgh Festival format. Versions of Forest Fringe have taken place throughout the UK and internationally -- at Fusebox Festival in Austin, in an old cinema in the center of Bangkok, as a series of performances on night buses across London and as a traveling library of audio experiences.

For their first ever project in New York they're collaborating with Abrons Arts Centre and the British Council to create a microfestival of stage shows, secret encounters, installations, durational performances, conversations and audio-experiences featuring a number of the UK-based artists: Brian Lobel, Tim Etchells, Made in China, Deborah Pearson, Andy Field, Ira Brand (who have helped to make Forest Fringe's Edinburgh venue such a uniquely exciting place over the last decade) and NYC artists: Karen Davis, Banana Bag and Bodice and Erin Markey, this micro-festival of live performance will kick off Abron's 2014 season with an iridescent bang.

Highlights Include a text-based instillation piece created for Abrons and Forest Fringe by Tim Etchells, a audio-journey in a parked car in the middle of a busy city for an audience of two people at a time, excepts from Christopher Brett Bailey Edinburgh smash hit This Is How We Die, Made in China's (a company described by The Guardian "achingly hip and terrifyingly savage") Gym Party, DeborahPearson's The Future Show - a performance piece that is rewritten every night to be site and time-specific, Ira Brand and Andy Field's put your sweet hand in minea meditation on love and a discussion event staged in a pop-up venue on the loading dock of the theater.

Performances of Forest Fringe will take placeFriday October 3 at 7.30pm-10pm, Saturday and Sunday October 4 &5 2pm-10pm at Abrons Arts Center. Tickets; $25 for a full festival pass which reserves the buyer admission to every ticketed performance are available online at abronsartscenter.org or by phone at 212 598 0400. Critics are welcome as of the first performance.

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FESTIVAL LINEUP:

Free Events Running Throughout

Forest Fringe Travelling Sounds Library
A mobile library of audio pieces including sound art, poetry, music and more by Forest Fringe artists including Blast Theory, Stan's Cafe, Sleepdogs and Ryan Van Winkle.

Microperformances for New York
A collection of miniature performances created by Forest Fringe artists especially for Abrons Arts Centre, to be performed by audience members anywhere in the building.

Tim Etchells
A new text-based installation piece created especially for Abrons and Forest Fringe by Tim Etchells, part of an ongoing remote-collaboration between Tim and Forest Fringe that has taken the form of posters, booklets, video and a series of imaginary films on a cinema marquee in Bangkok.

Ticketed Performances

put your sweet hand in mine - Andy Field & Ira Brand
This is a show about love. It is a show about candlelight and longing and catching the eye of a stranger unexpectedly in the theatre or on a train. It is a show about romance. But it is also a show about battlefields and power cuts and power ballads, about thunderstorms and wildly flocking birds. They invite you to imagine being in love, and all the many different meanings that might have. They invite you to imagine yourself in Paris. They invite you to imagine yourself looking up and unexpectedly catching the eye of the person sitting opposite you.

Forest Fringe Guests - Banana Bag and Bodice
The first of Forest Fringe's invited New York guests. Banana Bag and Bodice will be presenting a first look at some completely new material as part of the Forest Fringe programme.

Banana Bag and Bodice are a Brooklyn-based collaborative of artists/technicians that make live-event-theater-play-show-things. They mash together original writing, music composition and collective design in order expose and celebrate the inspiring awkwardness of being a human. So far they have made nine unique shows that vary in style and scope - from large-scale spectacles (Sandwich, a musical about killing animals) to intimate portraits (Space//Space, a sci-fi study of claustrophobia). Sometimes they function as an anarchic punk band (The Fall & Rise of The Rising Fallen) and at others with the precision of surgeons sucking ether (The Sewers). Their design is inspired by the objects and materials thrown into the theatrical dumpsters of midtown Manhattan. Their elastic approach to creating live theater has one common goal - to entertain and confound through thoughtful provocation.

The Is How We Die - Christopher Brett Bailey
Exclusive to Forest Fringe and Abrons, Christopher Brett Bailey reads from his award-winning show THIS IS HOW WE DIE, a big hit of Forest Fringe's 2014 Edinburgh Festival programme, alongside extended cuts, alternate scenes and brand new material.

The Future Show - Deborah Pearson
The Future Show plays with what is expected, what is foreseen and what is ultimately unknowable about the future. Rewritten every night to be site and time-specific, The Future Show will be presented in two different space across two different evenings to headline the Forest Fringe programme.

Mourning Glory Trilogy - Brian Lobel - Installation
Alongside the performance of Purge taking place as part of Saturday evening's programme, Brian presents installative elements from his Mourning Glory trilogy.

Motor Vehicle Sundown - Andy Field
A audio-journey in a parked car in the middle of a busy city, for an audience of two people at a time. Available in English or in Spanish.

20 Instructions for a Successful Conversation
A playful, instruction-based discussion event bringing together Forest Fringe and New York artists to talk about art, hope, politics, community and survival. First pioneered by Forest Fringe as part of PuSh Festival in Vancouver.

Forest Fringe Guests - Karen Davis and Friends
The second of Forest Fringe's invited New York guests. Jess Barbagallo will introduce the unique talents of Karen Davis and friends.

Purge - Brian Lobel
Purge addresses where online friendship stops and real friendship begins (and if this is a distinction that is possible or important).

Gym Party - Made in China
"A company that knows full well how to be both achingly hip and terrifyingly savage"
The Guardian

In the main space at Abrons, Made In China present Gym Party, an epic tale of hopeless determination and the brilliant, terrible, universal human desire to win, and go on. Three intrepid contestants compete in a series of games that range from hilariously stupid to uncomfortable, arbitrary, and downright heartbreaking. The contestants are fearless in their commitment to doing whatever it takes in the showpiece games. But they are also eager to share their stories, perspectives and awkward dances in between: to please the audience and influence the course of the show. Entertaining, thoughtful and anarchic, Gym Party speaks to anyone who frets about the state of the world and how we treat each other; then gets distracted by a dumb celebrity tweet.

Love Letters & Lehman Brothers - Brian Lobel
In this installation Brian attempts to find the presence of his boyfriend Grant's inside the words of the 2000-page Lehman Brothers Examination Report (which Grant wrote shortly before his death). Throughout the day, Brian will cut pieces of the historic report to recreate emailed love letters written between Grant and Brian from 2005-2006.

Motor Vehicle Sundown - Andy Field
A audio-journey in a parked car in the middle of a busy city, for an audience of two people at a time. Available in English or in Spanish.

Inspiration Exchange
A playful, durational event bringing together artists from the UK and NYC to share things that have particularly inspired them.

The Future Show - Deborah Pearson
The Future Show plays with what is expected, what is foreseen and what is ultimately unknowable about the future. Rewritten every night to be site and time-specific, The Future Show will be presented in two different space across two different evenings to headline the Forest Fringe programme.

Forest Fringe Guests - Erin Markey, with Brian Lobel
The last of our Forest Fringe's invited New York guests, Erin Markey will be presenting some completely new material for the first time alongside an opportunity to see Brian Lobel's beautiful and acclaimed short piece An Appreciation.

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Performance Schedule:

Friday October 3

put your sweet hand in mine - Andy Field & Ira Brand
7:30PM
Venue: Experimental
38 seats maximum

Forest Fringe Guests - Banana Bag and Bodice
7:30PM
Venue: Underground
60 Seats

THIS IS HOW WE DIE (recut) - Christopher Brett Bailey
7.30pm
Venue: Loading Dock
20 Seats

The Future Show - Deborah Pearson
9pm
Venue: Playhouse
150 Seats

Saturday October 4

Mourning Glory Trilogy - Brian Lobel - Installation
2 pm Experimental
Free

20 Instructions for a Successful Conversation
4:30pm Loading Dock
Free

put your sweet hand in mine - Andy Field & Ira Brand
7pm Experimental
38 seats maximum

Forest Fringe Guests - Karen Davis and Friends
7 pm Loading Dock
20 Seats

Forest Fringe Guests - Erin Markey, with Brian Lobel
7.30pm Experimental
50 Seats

Gym Party - Made in China
8:30pm Playhouse
150 Seats

Sunday October 5

Love Letters & Lehman Brothers - Brian Lobel
2pm Experimental
Free

Motor Vehicle Sundown - Andy Field
2pm - 2 people
2.30pm - 2 people
3pm - 2 people
3.30pm - 2 people
4pm - 2 people
4.30 - 2 people
5pm - 2 people
5.30pm - 2 people

20 Instructions for a Successful Conversation
4:30 pm Loading Dock
Free

4:30 pm Loading Dock
Free
Inspirational Exchange

The Future Show - Deborah Pearson
7pm Underground
60 Seats

Purge - Brian Lobel
7.30pm Underground
60 Seats

Gym Party - Made in China
8:30 pm Playhouse
150 Seats

About The Founders of Forest Fringe:

Andy Field is an artist, writer and curator based in London. He creates formally unusual, interactive projects that invite us to consider our relationships both to the spaces we inhabit and the people around us. Andy writes regularly on theatre and performance for publications including The Guardian, This Is Tomorrow, Exeunt, The Stage and Contemporary Theatre Review. From 2012-2013 he was Associate Artist Curator at Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol. Andy has a practice-based PhD from the University of Exeter exploring new relationships between contemporary performance practice and the New York avant-gardes of the 1960s and early 1970s. Andy has been the co-director of Forest Fringe since 2008. www.andytfield.co.uk @andytfield

Deborah Pearson is a writer, performer and producer. Innovation is central to her work, as is an interest in intimacy and narrative. Deborah makes and tours solo pieces but also works collaboratively, frequently as a dramaturg for companies including Paper Cinema and Action Hero. In 2007 Deborah founded the multi-award winning Forest Fringe, of which she is a co-director with Ira Brand and Andy Field. Deborah is also an associate artist with Volcano Productions in Canada. Deborah is also currently researching a practice-based PhD at Royal Holloway, focusing on the nature of narrative in contemporary performance. www.deborahpearson.com @shysecretagent

Ira Brand is a London-based artist, performance-maker and writer, originally from Germany. She works across theatre and live art, creating live performances that are rooted in a fascination with what it means and feels like to be human. Ira regularly works in collaboration with other companies and artists, currently Made In China (Gym Party) and Andy Field (put your sweet hand in mine). She has been a co-director of Forest Fringe since 2012. www.irabrand.co.uk @irabrand

The Abrons Arts Center is the OBIE Award-winning performing and visual arts program of Henry Street Settlement. The Abrons supports the creation and presentation of innovative, multi-disciplinary work; cultivates artists in all stages of their practice with educational programs, mentorships, residencies and commissions; and serves as an intersection of engagement for local, national and international audiences and arts-workers. Each year the Abrons offers over 250 performances, 12 gallery exhibitions and 30 residencies for performing and studio artists, and 100 different classes in dance, music, theater, and visual art. The Abrons also provides New York City public schools with teaching artists, introducing more than 3,000 students to the arts.

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