The Rochester Fringe Festival concluded on Saturday, September 26, with a slate of outdoor events, from Kid’s Day activities to a Fringe Street Beat showcasing urban street dancers from across the region. These events and more wrapped up the 15th year of the 12-day festival, which featured a staggering 715 performances across 45 venues.
Festival Founder and CEO Erica Fee said that joy was this year’s festival’s leitmotif.
“It seemed to me that those shows that sparked joy in attendees seemed to be the ones that people were really being drawn to,” she said in a phone interview this week.
Among standout performances, Fee called out FLIP Fabrique, the Quebec acrobats-turned-summer-camp attendees flipping off a fully featured camp bus, one of four circus arts acts featured at Parcel 5 for Fringe’s free Circus in the City. [See the featured photo up top.] She recalled seeing kids trying out some of the moves after the show.
Of the modern circus acts, also known as street theater, she said, “I think it made you aware of what exactly the human body can do.”
The festival doesn’t expect complete attendance data until well into October, but has heard anecdotally of strong attendance at shows like “The ABBA Reunion Tribute Show” at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, a new venue this year. For Fringe-curated shows, the 12th run of Dashboard Dramas sold out, as did Tim and Pammy Shea’s Pamper Camper and several showings of Tea Party at the End of the World, among others. Fee says Rochester Fringe is the first organization in the area to highlight immersive shows, which tend to be a festival highlight.
Known as the “Rochester Model,” the festival production team curated shows at One Fringe Place, in venues like the jewelbox Spiegeltent, the newer Garden Tent, and the Spiegelgarden, plus free, open-air shows across downtown Rochester; independent venues across Rochester organized and hosted the rest.
If anything affected attendance, Fee said, it might’ve been the cooler weather.
Overall, the unique arts festival featured multidisciplinary, broadly appealing work, even when experimental.
Fee emphasized that it’s a break from an increasingly AI-ified world. “Anything that causes people to put down their phones and really lock in and live in the moment seemed to be enjoyable.”
Rochester Overture spent the festival’s final day taking in the scene at One Fringe Place and MLK Park, plus catching the Paradigm Shift Dance Company for a venue show at the School of the Arts. See our photo essays of the day below.
Fringe concluded with a day devoted to kids in the Spiegelgarden. Adorable children participated in activities that included streamers, face painting, dancing, chalk art, pumpkin painting, and more. Circus performers even spun plates and balls and juggled. We heard, too, that the family edition of Cirque du Fringe: Anchors Away in the Speigeltent, which followed the outdoor activities, sold out.
Few performances at Fringe were more joyful than the Paradigm Shift Dance Company’s “And now… with extra bits,” held on Saturday afternoon in the Allen Main Stage Theatre at the School of the Arts. An all-inclusive dance company featuring performers of all body types and abilities, the dancers put on a series of short dance skits, each of which comically unraveled and devolved into hilarious hijinks. One especially funny skit began with the premise that the prima “Russian” ballerina didn’t show up, so a larger, less coordinated male dancer had to don the pink tutu and step in for a pas de deux. Awkward, uncoordinated moves ensued. Although the concert’s premise sounds like it could’ve been a cover for poor dancing, it was the opposite: The dancers were so talented they could confidently pull off the funny stunts. They were as impressive as they were entertaining.
Opportunities to see street dancing at its best are rare, but Rochester Fringe hosts a yearly street dance battle at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park at Manhattan Square. Teams of dancers dueled on Fringe’s final Saturday for a cash prize. They twirled on their backs, isolated minute parts of their bodies, kicked and jumped to the hip-hop beats, and more. Styles like breakdancing, popping, locking, krumping, and others were surely featured. These dance styles are athletic, precise, and theatrical, and they require talent and practice. It was exciting to watch.
That’s a wrap on our 2026 Rochester Fringe Festival Coverage. Thanks for reading!
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