| Fusebox Festival Fuses A Bit of Everything |
| Written by Dante Dominick | |
 Visual, performance, musical, and “other” arts on display throughout Austin.Being scattered at different locations can at times decentralize the feeling of a unified festival. But at the same time, it spreads the interaction throughout the city, oftentimes to folks passing by on the street who aren’t even aware of the festival. In the end, both attributes serve the Fusebox Festival well. For ten days (April 23-May 2), the Fusebox Festival takes to Austin streets, theaters, museums, and venues with a confluence of innovative performance art, visual art, installation art, music, and symposiums. In all more than 70 performances/showings of 20 different events. For the most part, unlike many festivals, Fusebox forgoes the addition of huge name headliners and shines light on emerging art forms from new talent who share a common thread of shunning boundaries. It would be hard to package such a wide range of emotive expression into one, solidified structure. By nature, these artists are challenging structure. So the disparate location of events, while really a simple matter of logistical necessity, follows with the very essence of the Fusebox Festival: human expression is everywhere, and can manifest in almost any manner. Scratch the “almost” actually. And as an added bonus, you might just be minding your own business downtown and be approached by a ten-foot, red, spindly thingy asking you how your day’s going. The Fusebox website has a detailed schedule with color grids by category, and descriptions of each event. Many performances are free, others are very reasonably priced and sold individually. Also available is a Fusebox All-Access Pass for just $132 that gets you into all ten days of any performance (plus a nifty t-shirt). A few of our favorites: GuruGuru at Salvage Vanguard Theater (2803 Manor Rd) “Five participants (each receiving different instructions via their earpieces) talk together with a televised character whose role flicks uncannily between spiritual and marketing guru. Reveling in the absurdities of marketing technique and group therapy, creators Ant Hampton, Joji Koyama, and Isambard Khroustaliov reverse the awkward history of consumer research by allowing their audience to create their own animated therapist - by means of a focus group!” Each show is 50 minutes long, and all are different. Performing at multiple times April 23-May 2. érection at Ballet Austin’s AustinVentures Studio Theater (501 W 3rd St)  French dancer and choreographer Pierre Regal was inspired by Darwinian theory and science fiction to create a solo performance that tracks mankind from primitive live to contemporary, two-legged homo erectus. Curious what this could entail? Rigal explains: “A man, lying on the floor, will tell the long story of (his) transition from lying position to the standing one.” And who says the avant garde isn’t straight-forward? April 24, 6pm. Free. Big Red at 3rd & Nueces  Performance artist Jimmy Kuehnle thinks big. And red. And, well, differently. And that’s part of the point. While the visual display of his giant, inflatable suit is whimsical and stunning, Kuehnle takes to the streets to speak with people during his transformation. The point: We’re still people, we should be able to communicate no matter how different we may seem on the surface. A second performance will debut a new suit, Walking Fish. April 25 (noon), April 26 (3pm). Free. Maxi Geil! & PlayColt vs. Neal Medlyn at Blue Theater (916 Springdale Rd)  A dueling musical performance between self-ascribed rivals that is part performance art along the way. Desiring to bring one another down to their knees (innuendo? Maybe), but having no real means to do so, the combatants must use song, words, and emotions to best their foe. Neal Medlyn’s music typically replicates the music and dance of pop stars like R. Kelly, Prince, Beyoncé, and Phil Collins. Maxi Geil! & PlayColt is fronted by Guy Richard Smit, who channels the aura of ‘80s East Village in all its romanticized madness and artistic perversion. April 26, 7pm. Free. |