Halifax Fringe turns 35 with bold, uncensored performances

The Halifax Fringe Festival is bringing local theatre back to the city for the 35th year.

The Halifax Fringe Festival is back, celebrating its 35th anniversary with more than 60 shows and 350 performances across the city.

Known for being bold, quirky, unjuried and uncensored, the festival has been a stage for every kind of artistic voice since the fringe festival began in 1990.

“Anyone can apply and usually spots are chosen by lottery,” said Tessa Pekeles, board chair with the Halifax Fringe Festival and veteran stage manager. “So, you could be a really famous Canadian actor who is doing a show one night and then you have a 19-year-old who’s never written a play the next night.”

The festival features an eclectic mix of theatre, comedy, circus, improv, burlesque, magic, dance, music and beyond – there’s really no rules to the art and experiment.

Halifax-based improv troupe ‘Hello City’ is returning this year, promising plenty of unscripted laughs.

“This year it’s like just show up, sit down, have fun,” said Hello City member Liam Fair. “It’s very feel good, very funny and very fast paced… A lot of things you might recognize from the show Whose Line Is It Anyways?”

Hello City member Colin McGuire believes this is their seventh year taking part in Halifax Fringe and says he enjoys the collaboration and the chance to mix with other artists the most.

“It’s always great,” said McGuire. “Because fringe is like a collaboration of a ton of different types of artists. There’s theatre, there’s dancers, improvisors like us, and it’s just so nice to get everybody together under that same umbrella.

Vancouver based fight and movement company ‘Affair Of Honor’ is also taking the stage, fresh off a run at the Fundy Fringe Festival in New Brunswick. For Dartmouth native Jackie Hanlin, it’s a homecoming.

“To come home honestly is more nerve wracking than it’s ever been,” said Hanlin.

Their high-intensity show explores the chaos of doom-scrolling and the impact of technology on daily life.

“What we’re trying to emulate is a crazy hour of doom-scrolling and just the whiplash-effect of what technology can do when you are on internet, and how that has kind of affected us as human beings,” said Affair Of Honor co-founder Nathania Bernabe.

The Halifax Fringe Festival runs until Sept. 7. A full list of shows and ticket information can be found on the festival’s website.

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