North Bay's On The Edge Fringe Festival will receive $66,000 in total over a four-year period from the Government of Canada to help with its operations from 2021-2024.
In 2011, a group of like-minded artists began a journey of development for the purpose of revitalizing the northern art scene, especially in North Bay.
"This has led to the development of several arts initiatives but most importantly it has established the need for a local fringe festival," it says on Facebook."The shared vision is to create a platform where artists and audiences can come together for an outspokenly exceptional experience. This is how ON THE EDGE fringe began and in August 2014."
Any artist at any stage of their development can participate. A jury does not select the Fringe performers, therefore an artist’s success is based on the strength of their talent and their ability to communicate their art.
"We aim to afford all artists the opportunity to produce their art regardless of experience, content, form, or style- and for the event to be affordable and accessible to the community. The result is a vibrant and exciting artistic environment in which artists thrive," it explains.
"A certain sense of risk and adventure is a common energy to feel as one lines up to see a fringe show. With only the description in the program, you don’t have any idea what you might be in for. Patrons vote for their favourite show to determine the highly coveted 'Audience Choice Award'. A team of unbiased jury members attends the festival and award Best of Fringe, Best Original Work, and Jury’s Choice at our awards ceremony that takes place on the final night of fringe."
“I am happy to see this organization getting the assistance they need so that they can put together this wonderful festival that allows aspiring and professional artists from Nipissing-Timiskaming and around Canada to have a platform to perform their talents," says MP Anthony Rota, "It is important to celebrate our arts and culture, this becomes especially evident during a pandemic.”
“It is going to help us keep going this year.”says festival administrator Tara Windatt. "It will help offset staff cost and it will help offset artist fees. Even just our organizational day-to-day expenses will be helped with this funding and so this is really great news.”
Windatt and Artistic Director Kelsey Ruhl are part-time staff that runs the festival, while a grant from Canada Summer Jobs will help in hiring for other positions, with the festival taking place August 10th – 14th.
“The Festival generally runs out of the Capitol Centre and so we are waiting on some announcements to make sure we can follow their safety standards act," Ruhl says. "However, last year we pivoted online, and we found that some people who might not normally be able to come to the festival were tuning in. That allowed us to reach a new audience and so that’s why that no matter what happens, we do plan on keeping some parts of the festival digital.”
See the announcement below.
