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Cincy Fringe Festival ’09

The Cincinnati Fringe Festival starts today with the Fringe CityBeat Kick-Off Party and will continue through June 6th with 33 productions, nearly 170 performances, more than 150 artists and some new venues. The art opening will take place tonight from 6pm to 8pm and be immediately followed by the Kick-Off Party ($5 suggested donation).

The festival offers an opportunity for a variety of artists to get exposure by submitting their work to be considered for inclusion. During the festival local, regional, national and international artists come to Cincinnati and for 12 days show off their work in traditional and non-traditional art spaces throughout Cincinnati’s center city. The artists represent a variety of media including theatre, dance, music, poetry, visual art, film and much more.

’09 Overview:
In its sixth year, the Cincinnati Fringe Festival saw a record number of submissions from artists outside of Greater Cincinnati and accounted for roughly 52% of all submissions. The diversity and reach, of the growing festival, is something Eric Vosmeier (managing director) is pleased with.

At this year’s festival some 69% of the applicants newcomers and will provide some new faces for those Fringe Festival stalwarts. This growth in newcomers and outsiders is symbolic of the Festival’s explosive growth and popularity over its six years in existence says Vosmeier.

The 2009 Cincinnati Fringe Festival will have a variety of venues throughout Cincinnati’s center city including Media Bridges, Art Academy of Cincinnati, Know Theatre, Jackson St. Underground, Below Zero Lounge, Coffee Emporium, New Stage Collective, Mixx Ultra Lounge and more.

Throughout Cincinnati’s center city there will be a slew of 200+ dedicated Fringe Festival volunteers. What is interesting about the volunteers this year is that many will be scooting around on Segways to help people find their way, answer question or whatever else.

Single tickets for the festival productions are just $12, but passes are also available for $200 (all access) and $60 (six shows). Single tickets and passes are available now and can be purchased online.

An official 2009 Cincinnati Fringe Festival map can be downloaded here (pdf). For full schedules and lineups see bottom of article.

Visual Fringe:
For the second year in a row a part of the Visual Fringe work will be the creation of a mural over the course of the Festival. This year local artists will create a mural on the north wall of the Know Theatre to compliment the south wall mural done last year.

Woven Wall by John Benvenuto (sculpture) & Horizontal by Kelly Jo Asbury (painting)

“Life on the Fringe”:
New this year will be an experiment in very short social cinema as part of the Film Fringe component. “Life on the Fringe” challenges filmmakers to make a short film that in some way completes the statement, “Life on the fringe is…”

Each filmmaker will decide how the statement ends, and in what context “fringe” is defined. Documentaries, dramas, comedies and experimental films are all fair game. The films should be between three and ten minutes in length and be produced specifically for the “Life on the Fringe” event.

Filmmakers will then be a part of the special Cincinnati Fringe Festival screening, and have their films shown on Northern Kentucky University’s NorseMedia television station.

History:
The Cincinnati Fringe Festival traces its roots to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that started in Edinburgh, Scotland some 51 years ago when eight groups staged their own “fringe” performances at the Edinburgh Festival of the Arts. They set up and created makeshift theatres on the outskirts of the established festival and eventually gained a large following that then outstripped the mainstream festival.

This “fringe” festival concept then jumped the pond to Canada in the 1980s. Canada currently boasts many of these festivals throughout the country and has the largest festival of this type in North America at the Edmonton Festival which regularly draws more than a half a million people annually.

Over time these festivals grew throughout the United States and came to Cincinnati in 2003. There are presently 20 active “fringe” festivals in North America including cities like Philadelphia, Orlando, San Francisco, Minneapolis and New York.

Full Schedules/Lineups
Performance Fringe | Visual Fringe | Film Fringe
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Arts & Entertainment News

A beginner’s guide to local music

If you’ve been down to this year’s Taste of Cincinnati, or plan to do so on this Memorial Day, you’ll notice that alongside the food are five stages of live music. And many of the bands performing hail from right here in Cincinnati.

With events like the Taste, Fountain Square’s Indie Summer, and the Midpoint Music Festival – not to mention the many live shows happening at venues across the city on any given night – it’s clear that Cincinnati has a thriving local music scene.

Similar to the diversity of cuisines you’ll find at the Taste, Cincinnati’s music venues feature a diversity of genres and plenty of unique atmospheres. Around UC, you’ll find Rohs Street Café featuring acoustic acts, while the neighboring Baba Budan’s adds some hip hop and punk shows to the mix. Mad Frog usually features jam bands or metal, and occasionally brings in a touring national act. Heading up to Northside, you’ll find more punk at Blue Rock Tavern, and everything from jazz to indie at the neighborhood hangout Northside Tavern. Across the river, you’ll find both local and national acts at the Mad Hatter in Covington, and the biggest national acts at the Southgate House in Newport. And that’s just a small sampling of our venues.

But what’s most important about Cincinnati’s music scene are the bands themselves. Some are made up of college students or young professionals who play music as a hobby after their 9-5 job, and others feature dedicated musicians who do everything they can to take their band to the next level. Many have even broken through and made a name for themselves nationally. Heartless Bastards have been featured on The Late Show with David Letterman; Bad Veins have played festivals like South by Southwest; Buffalo Killers have toured with The Black Crowes and The Black Keys; and two members of The Greenhornes are also in Jack White’s side project The Raconteurs.

You can always open up the events section of CityBeat or CinWeekly, or visit CincinnatiShows.com, to find out about local shows. But if you want to try a more structured approach to discovering local music, there are plenty of resources. For example, if you’re saddened by the loss of Cincinnati’s alternative rock station “The Sound”, now’s the perfect time to check out Cincinnati’s own independent station WOXY.com, which often features local bands in their “Lounge Acts” sessions. And the “Line Level” television series, developed by UC students, features live performances from some of our city’s best bands.

When you support the many arts that Cincinnati has to offer, don’t forget about the original music being created by our talented bands and musicians. Spend an evening checking out Indie Summer on the Square or another local music show.


Peter Adams and the Nocturnal Collective perform on “Line Level”
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News

A Journey In Every Bottle

In case you haven’t seen Christian Moerlein’s new television commercial here it is for you. The 31 second TV spot will be shown throughout the Cincinnati market over the summer. It is yet another sign of the rebirth of the beer brewing industry here in Cincinnati. Thanks Greg for investing in Cincinnati and bringing back some of our proud German history.

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News Transportation

Bicycle parking love

We could use some bicycle parking love like this in Cincinnati at least in one or two locations. The new Central Riverfront Park might be a great opportunity and is something the park officials have hinted at given the inclusion of the Ohio River Trail into the park design that will potentially bring lots of bicycle commuters into the center city from the eastern neighborhoods.

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News

Two Wheelin’ in Cincy + Update

Norwood might be an unlikely place to sell Vespas and other scooters, but I encourage you to check out Metro Scooter. They sell scooters, gear, and safety equipment. Many of the scooters they sell get upwards of 75 miles per gallon, and some even get 100mpg or better.

Like cars, scooter prices vary depending on the size, style and features, but unlike cars, scooters are far less expensive. They range in price from in the $1,000’s to around $3,000 and up. These vehicles are great for traveling in an urban environment while being light on the wallet, but there are other positive benefits as well.

Parking and maneuvering a scooter downtown is easier than a car. They take up less space than cars, so more people switching to scooters will reduce the need for parking spaces, increasing the room available for economic development. Taking more cars off the road also reduces congestion and emissions. Be sure to check out this great article for more on the scooter scene in Cincinnati.

Two-Wheeler Parking Program Update:
The City’s Department of Transportation and Engineering (DOTE) has been studying the current two-wheeler parking locations throughout downtown over the past couple of months. In addition to the study they have continued to receive lots of community input about where future locations might be best suited.

From early results, one of the most popular parking locations is the 6th & Walnut spot which also happens to be the closest location to Fountain Square. As a result the City is really trying to find another location with close proximity to Fountain Square to offer the 6th & Walnut parking spots some relief.

So far the City has identified three additional two-wheeler parking locations in the downtown area. Mel Thomas, from the DOTE, is really encouraging people to continue to send ideas for more spots as their next round of studies will start to look at additional neighborhoods outside of the downtown area.

Another item that will eventually be studied is whether to keep the parking spots free for two-wheeler users, or whether the city should start charging some kind of rate for the spots. All of this will be worked out as this is still a “pilot program” and is assumed to have kinks that need to be worked out.

Thomas encourages people to share their thoughts on all this and more by June 5th by sending emails to twowheeler@cincinnati-oh.gov.

Proposed additional two-wheeler parking locations (GoogleMap) Downtown:
  1. 100 Central Parkway (Adjacent to Coffee Emporium, close to the Gateway Garage and Kroger Bldg.)
  2. 639 Main Street (Adjacent to the Aronoff Center – Fifth Third Bank Theatre, close to Fountain Square.)
  3. McFarland Street at Elm Street (Close to the Enquirer Bldg at 312 Elm.)
Photo from Scott Beseler