Houston Fringe Festival: Anything Goes

The Houston Fringe Festival's signature performing arts showcase mash-up, Anything Goes, comes to Matchbox 2 on Sept. 1, featuring both returning Fringe artists and first-time participants. From contemporary dance to original music to spoken word to comedy, this year’s roster features an array of beloved Houston artists, including HOUSTON CONTEMPORARY DANCE COMPANY performing “Beer and Skittles” by celebrated choreographer Kia Smith. Last year’s Audience Favorite award-winner, CAI CIRCUS, returns with two unique cirque acts featuring their dynamic and versatile performers. Perennial festival favorite MARGO STUTTS TOOMBS returns with “Urban Street Music,” an autobiographical work that explores her erratic homelife, including a narc father who used confiscated drugs at home.

Several acclaimed dance artists will be presenting new work on this year’s program, including LOREN HOLMES’ “Black Love,” a look at what it means for two young Black people to experience raw and genuine love. The duet will utilize dancers from different styles to express the full range of the narrative. Director of Dance Afrikana, DR. LINDSAY GARY will show “I don’t speak French,” which premiered as part of her Fresh Arts Spacetaking Residency. Developed while in Dakar, Senegal, the piece explores the colonial pressures she unexpectedly experienced in Africa as a member of the African Diaspora, and the internal conflicts they force her to face. Spoken word collective INVISIBLE LINES, a participant in the Houston Fringe Festival since its early years, returns with The Conqueror Worm: Poe describes life's pageantry, like Shakespeare, as a play. But in Poe's version humans are only the stage. The hero is the worm who eats us after death, the chorus are angels, and God is a mime. Invisible Lines will explore this in costume, dance, music, and carnival barking.

The rest of the Anything Goes line-up includes DORIANNE CASTILLO, THE MAGPIE PARLIAMENT SOCIETY, pre-professional dance company artistic edGe, KIMA, ESTEFANIA VALLE CRUZ, and THE BROOKDALE GALLERIA’S OFF OUR ROCKERS ENSEMBLE.