Dunedin Fringe Festival

The Dunedin Fringe Festival, or Dunedin Fringe, is an 11-day fringe arts festival held each March in Dunedin, New Zealand. Initiated in the year 2000,[1] Dunedin Fringe aims to bring experimental contemporary art to a wider audience and to support the work of emerging artists, attracting artists from throughout New Zealand and overseas.

Fringe Festival Office Dunedin

Stanier Black-Five performing at the 2011 festival

Independent artist events form the backbone of the Dunedin Fringe Festival and are facilitated through an open-access registration process. This takes place from August – October each year. Funding assistance is made available to New Zealand artists.

While the festival programme primarily features independently produced events by artists, it also promotes a handful of high-profile special events run by the festival including an opening night event on the eve of the festival, and late night line up shows.

Events take place in a wide range of locations across Dunedin's City Centre and suburbs, from theatres to bars, museums to churches, and cycleways to shop windows.

In 2021, over 27,000 people attended artist and festival-produced events.

Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust

The Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust was established in 2004 to support the successful production of the Dunedin Fringe Festival.[2] The trust also supports the delivery of other programmes such as the New Zealand Young Writers Festival and the Amped Music Project.[2]

The current director of the Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust is Gareth McMillan.[3] McMillan has served as director since 2017, when he took over from Josh Thomas who had been in role for the previous three years.[3][4]

Programme

In addition to theatrical performances, the festival hosts dancers and live music.[5] In 2016, artists produced 55 shows.[6] The festival is open-access, which means that anyone who registers may perform.

In 2020 there were cancellations to the programme due to COVID-19. Suitcase Theatre rescheduled and presented a performance of Boobs on Stage about breast cancer previously scheduled for a small space to the large Regent Theatre but with the social distancing of the audience to positive reviews.[7][8]

Further reading
  • Heinz Housel, Teresa (4 March 2014). "Dunedin Fringe to feature first theatre captioning". Arts Access Aotearoa. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
  • "Historic Athenaeum Building Sold". dunedin.govt.nz. Dunedin City Council. 8 April 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2016.

References
  1. "About Dunedin Fringe". Dunedin Fringe. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
  2. "Dunedin Fringe Arts Trust". The Big Idea. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  3. McAvinue, Shawn (3 August 2017). "New Fringe director dives in". Otago Daily Times Online News. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  4. Benson, Nigel (21 July 2014). "New Fringe director 'thrilled' to gain role". Otago Daily Times Online News. Retrieved 10 July 2021.
  5. "Dunedin Fringe Reveals First Programme Announcements for 2015" (Press release). Dunedin: Scoop. 19 December 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
  6. McAvinue, Shawn (17 March 2016). "Fringe director thrilled with festival". Otago Daily Times. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
  7. MacTavish, Terry (12 September 2020). "DEAR BOOBS on Stage - Courage, humour and insight". TheatreView. Archived from the original on 13 July 2021. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
  8. Harwood, Brenda (3 September 2020). "The show must go on". Otago Daily Times Online News. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
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