Melbourne Fringe Festival Encore: Ballarat
What is the Melbourne Fringe Festival?
Melbourne Fringe is where the weird, wonderful and wildly creative come out to play. Part arts festival, part choose-your-own-adventure, Fringe transforms the city into a giant playground of theatre, comedy, cabaret, circus, music and everything in between.
Think of Melbourne Fringe as the arts scene after its third espresso: colourful, chaotic, delightfully unpredictable and bursting with artists pushing boundaries, breaking rules and having a whole lot of fun doing it. Whether you're drawn to bold new ideas, unexpected experiences or dazzling spectacle, Fringe is all about embracing adventure and discovering something you never knew you'd love. If you enjoy trying new things, you'll feel right at home at Melbourne Fringe.
Every great show deserves an encore
If Melbourne Fringe is the party, Fringe Encore: Ballarat is the afterparty that everyone wants an invite to. Bringing a curated collection of Fringe favourites to Ballarat, from laugh-out-loud comedy to thought-provoking theatre and dazzling spectacle, it's a chance to experience more of Fringe, with headline acts, independent artists and unexpected discoveries unfolding across the city.
The program includes a mix of regional exclusives, returning favourites and hand-picked Melbourne Fringe highlights. The world premiere of One Fell Swoop Circus' Degustation invites audiences into an ambitious collision of circus and cuisine, where food and acrobatics inspire one another. Fountain Lakes: Y2K rewinds the clock to the eve of the millennium for a fabulous drag comedy parody guaranteed to be noineteen-noinety-noine levels of camp.
Joining them is Na Djinang Circus' Ocker, fresh from its Deadly Fringe premiere in Melbourne, alongside a curated selection of Open Program works presented at the historic Mining Exchange, giving audiences the chance to catch some of the Festival's standout independent artists for an encore season.
For one weekend, Ballarat becomes a place to do Fringe properly: stack your schedule, follow a recommendation, take a chance on something new and see where the weekend leads you.
DEGUSTATION is a new work from One Fell Swoop Circus that brings contemporary circus and cuisine into one shared sensory experience. Created with Chef Shu Liu of SHU Restaurant, the show unfolds like a tasting menu: a degustation of circus, where each course invites its own unique moment of delight.
'This is a work of art – if I could give it six stars, I would' — THE ADVERTISER ★★★★★
DISCOVER DEGUSTATION
The foxy ladies behind last year's smash hit Fountain Lakes In Lockdown are back with a fabulous, brand new show!
Grab your butterfly clips and low-rise bumpsters, hornbags, because we're doing the prequel that nobody asked for but everybody is going to go sick for.
Will Kath find her dream spunk rat? Will Kim go through with her upcoming connubials? Will Sharon score a midnight pash before the millennium bug gets her? All will be answered in this hilarious camp comedy parody.
DISCOVER FOUNTAIN LAKES: 72K
A show in motion, Ocker is a roving circus show tearing through the streets on a portable railway track built in real time. This modern-day hunting party weaves through crowds, laying track wherever the chase leads. Down laneways, through parks, and over tram lines, the troupe is chasing something just out of reach.
Charging forward with single-minded determination, they drag the audience along for the ride. The city of Ballarat becomes a playground for strange encounters, risky acrobatics, and absurd acts of endurance as circus erupts in the most unexpected places. Improvised scenes constantly derail the hunt as the troupe negotiates crowds, obstacles, and their own terrible ideas.
Swept up in the chaos of the chase, Ocker waits for nobody. Keeping up is entirely your responsibility.
DISCOVER OCKER
