Fringe Festival Delft

Fringe Festival Delft began in 2011 and has become an annual event. This year, from May 27 to June 8, Delft turned into a vibrant stage for emerging talent. This festival offers audiences a unique opportunity to discover new makers in cabaret, dance, theater, music and cabaret at thirty different (special) locations in the city. Think of special locations as a houseboat, courtyard garden, studios, chapel, canal house. Fringe Festival Delft has an app. Here you can find the complete program.

The performances are short, maximum 30 minutes and are affordable. Youth 3 to 29 pay 7.50 and 29 8.50 per ticket. Children under 3 are free. This makes the festival approachable and accessible to a wide audience. Blogger Elize visited this festival with her children. You can read below how she experienced it.

Fringe 4 kids

The Fringe Festival also features special children’s performances. In addition, all performances last a maximum of 30 minutes anyway, which keeps it fun for children in terms of tension curve. This year there are two performances at the festival: ‘I’ll wait here’ and ‘Round 1′.

Ik wacht hier wel even even’ is by theater group Neuswijs and is intended for children ages 4 and up. The theme of the performance is ‘boredom’. What happens when you let your thoughts run wild? Without words, but with lots of music, a bright green set, a sad garbage bag and a box with arms and legs, you are taken into a story full of special encounters. A performance without words but with lots of boredom!

Round 1 is by youth theater group OPSTOOT. They have a performance for children ages 8 and up on the theme of lying.Two mothers face each other in a flashy boxing battle. But they don’t fight. As soon as the bell sounds, they engage in a discussion. Their child has lied and, of course, that’s not allowed. But is lying always so bad? Through situations and dilemmas, they find out that it is not at all so simple to label something as “right” or “wrong.

Our experience

In the market square there is a big Pink Rabbit of the Fringe Festival that you can’t ignore. After a delicious lunch, we chose to go to the performance “Round 1,” as my children are 6 and 8 years old. We had reserved tickets in advance and we were lucky because it was sold out!

Upon entering Round 1, we were given a piece of paper on which to write down what our most recent lie had been. Some of these answers were read out later in the performance. Somewhat to my surprise, quite a few adults without children came to this performance.

Round 1 was in a fun, playful way about a discussion between two mothers about lying. Lying is not allowed, but is it really that unambiguous? With examples and questions, it was shown in a funny and fun way that there can be nuances. After all, if you can ensure someone’s safety by lying, is it wrong? Or if you don’t hurt someone by doing so? Or is honesty still the most important thing? Because if you say that the food is delicious when you stay for dinner at a friend’s house, but actually really don’t like it so as not to hurt a friend’s parent, you might get it again next time because you thought it was so delicious…. And do you then also say that something or someone is ugly or could you also indicate that in another way? etc.

OPSTOOT tries to awaken the philosopher in the child in addition they want to develop ‘RONDE 1’ into an educational school performance in elementary school.

My children enjoyed the experience, thought there were funny bits in it and it generated fun and interesting conversations afterwards about lying.

Credits photos: OpstapmetLisa