EOT 438 Raleigh Fringe Festival + PrideFest

Vick Hernandez visits the Raleigh Fringe Festival with a deep dive into the history of fringe, organization of the festival, and special interviews with some of the artists and entertainers.

Before that, Autumn Smith sits down with Kai Nicanor and Reese Croom of the NC State Pride Center to discuss the upcoming PrideFest events.

Eye on the Triangle is a podcast produced by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2, student-run radio from NC State University. Like what you hear? Consider supporting it with a gift to the WKNC Enhancement Fund. Visit our podcast page to hear more and follow us on all social media platforms @WKNC881. Thanks for listening.

Creators and Guests

Host

Autumn Smith

Public Affairs Director (2026-2027)

Producer

Vick Hernandez

Content Creator

What is Eye on the Triangle?

"Eye on the Triangle" is your source for local news, reviews and interviews. Roughly an hour of programming, this block is essentially the NPR of WKNC. Tune in to hear about news and events around Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and the surrounding communities. To find out more about our program or learn how NC State students can join the team, email us at [e-mail].

00:04
Autumn Smith
You are now listening to Eye on the Triangle, WKNC's weekly public affairs program from the campus of North Carolina State University. Any views and opinions expressed during Eye on the Triangle do not represent NC State or student media. This is WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1 Raleigh. Hello and thank you for tuning in to Eye on the Triangle. This is Autumn Smith with WKNC. This episode features an interview with NC State's Pride center for the upcoming Pride Fest as well as a full length segment from WKNC's Vick Hernandez, who visited the Raleigh Fringe Festival to showcase the organization's history and speak with artists involved with the event. Pride Fest is returning for another year on NC State campus. On October 6th, the LGBTQ Pride center is hosting a free lawn party on Stafford Commons to celebrate sexual orientation and gender diversity.

00:55
Autumn Smith
The annual event is part of the Pride Center's commitment to cultural affirmation and fostering belonging among the communities on campus and across Raleigh. Pride Fest is open to the public and will feature food, games, events and community resources. Joining Eye on the Triangle is Kai Nicanor and Reese Croom, student programming assistants with the LGBTQ Pride center to share details about the event and encourage students to especially incoming freshmen to attend. For our listeners, what is PrideFest?

01:26
Reese Croom
PrideFest is one of our biggest events that we have in October to celebrate LGBTQ History Month. A lot of stuff going on. We'll have a Pride Parade, we'll have a lot of food, drugs, and we have different organizations like queer organizations, both affiliated with NC State and some community ones. So it's just a big celebration for students and faculty to come out and have a good time and celebrate LGBTQ history.

01:52
Autumn Smith
And people, what is it like for all these students and faculty to come together and celebrate themselves and celebrate each other?

01:58
Kai Nicanor
I think it's very empowering because since it's on Stafford Commons, you have the entire university there basically and I think that it's the best way to reach all students like we want to and to just get to celebrate ourselves and share a good time with one another and get good food and have nice perks and things like that and learn about each other more in a positive way.

02:25
Autumn Smith
Going into this year's Pride Fest, what have you guys prepared?

02:28
Reese Croom
I would say overall it's pretty much the same. I think some of our trucks or vendors may have changed. We don't have the dogs with the free moms that we did last year because, well, that's a campus wide thing where the dogs are not allowed. But everything else I think is for the most part, the same. We have some different food trucks. I think this year Mr. Cheesesteak is new.

02:51
Kai Nicanor
Yes, it is.

02:53
Reese Croom
The rest of them are the same as last year. We have Loco Pop, we have a taco truck, and we have a soul food vegan truck as well. But yeah, a lot of the activities are the same t-shirt dying. There's a barber truck, massage truck, photo booth, stuff like that.

03:08
Autumn Smith
Tell me more about the t-shirt dying. What's that like?

03:10
Reese Croom
I actually did it last year. It was a lot of fun. You get like a plain white Pride Fest t-shirt and you can tie dye however you want, and then you'll get it back. Wash it at the end of the day and you have a tie dye t-shirt that you made yourself.

03:22
Kai Nicanor
Even the base shirts. I have a shirt that I didn't tie dye because, well, I had one that I tie dyed and then I had one that I didn't even. The shirt by itself is just really cute, in my opinion.

03:33
Reese Croom
I did the same thing. Yeah, I like both of them. It's got the PrideFest logo on it.

03:39
Autumn Smith
Looking broader just over the years, outside of just the immediate feeling that it provides for students, faculty, et cetera, what has been the importance of Pride center events on campus?

03:49
Reese Croom
I think visibility is a big, important thing, especially younger students that might be coming to campus. I know that was the situation for me, at least where I came from, a town that was not like, as accepting. And so you get to college and there's all these people. We try to have a very open community. Everyone is welcome.

04:07
Kai Nicanor
My favorite thing about the Pride center is that, like we've said before, it's open to all. And so my favorite part about that is being able to collaborate with other student centers and other campus organizations, have a better campus reach, because sometimes it can be hard. We're on the fifth floor in the corner of Talley, and some people don't even know we exist. Or they're like intimidated to come in because they don't know anyone who's been in the Pride Center. So.

04:34
Kai Nicanor
So what I love most about the Pride center is that we do so many events with other organizations and student centers and even like Campus Health and things like that so that we are able to access more students and have students know about us and add more to our community and add all these different perspectives and things into our community and into our center in order to benefit all.

04:59
Autumn Smith
What are some other organizations you guys have worked with recently? Student organizations?

05:03
Reese Croom
Well, first I'll say as far as Student centers go. We do a lot of work with like the Women's Center. We do stuff with aacc, the African American Cultural Center. We do a lot of work with other student centers. And PLC is the Pride Leadership Council. And so that is the collection of all the like queer related clubs at NC State. And like Kai mentioned, I'm part of that. I'm the treasurer for TFILES, which is the club primarily geared towards trans and non binary individuals at NC State. There's a space for everyone there. I think there's a lot of different clubs, Aces and Arrow, qt, bipunk, ts, bipan and some others that it's really good to have everyone come together. And yeah, we put on some fun events. I know we have the Halloween Ball coming up in October right now.

05:55
Reese Croom
That's a collaboration between TFILES and bipan, which is just exactly what it sounds like. It's a ball around Halloween just for people to come and have a good time.

06:05
Autumn Smith
My last direct question I want to ask you too. Let's say you are faced in front of a new student, especially one that's like you said, coming from an area where they've never really seen representation and you want to empower them and get them to come to this year's Pride Fest. What would you say to them?

06:21
Reese Croom
Free food? No, that gets most students. Yeah, we have a ton of different activities. It's a great time. You can get a lot of like merch and swag or whatever. The food is great and free and it's a good place to meet other people that are like you, I think in a more low stakes environment.

06:41
Kai Nicanor
Absolutely. And I feel like what I like so much, especially with the lawn party, which is where all the vendors and the massage truck and the haircut truck and all those things are. There's always going to be someone who is going to talk to you. My biggest thing is I get very nervous to attend events when I don't know anyone or if I'm by myself or nobody can make it with me. But the thing is, when it comes to something like Pride Fest, there's always someone who wants to talk with you and there's always someone who wants to do something with you because the whole point is community. And so I would say I understand if it could be intimidating and things like that. But just know that you will truly never be alone when you go to Pride Fest.

07:28
Autumn Smith
Thank you to Kai and Reese for speaking with Eye on the Triangle. Students can get involved with the LGBTQ Pride center before Pride Fest. On September 24th at the upcoming Queer Quorum, a monthly event at the Pride center in Talley Student Union. The Pride Fest lawn party will take place from 2:30 to 5:30 on October 6th. Raleigh Fringe Festival wrapped up this year on September 12th featuring a wide variety of alternative arts and performers at theater Raleigh Arts Center. This is Raleigh's third year hosting the festival and its hundreds of attendees. Covering the event and conducting interviews with organizers and performers is WKNC public affairs content creator, Vick Hernandez.

08:05
Vick Hernandez
Good morning everybody. You're listening to Eye on the Triangle. My name is Vick Hernandez and today I'll be giving you all a fresh overview of the Raleigh Fringe Festival. Raleigh Fringefest took place from September 10th to 12th and was hosted by Theatre Raleigh. There was a variety of performances including a jester act, shadow puppets and a burlesque show. I was fortunate enough to chat with the festival organizers and a few of the artists to bring you all a behind the scenes look at Raleigh Fringe. I'd like to start off by introducing the Fringefest organizers who brought you all this festival.

08:38
Mikki Marvel
Yes, hello, I am Mikki Marvel, one of the organizers of Raleigh Fringe.

08:42
Emily Freer
And I'm Emily Freer. I'm the other organizer. Woo.

08:46
Vick Hernandez
Mikki and Emily graciously sat down with me to tell me about the history of Raleigh Fringe and what it was like to put this festival together.

08:53
Mikki Marvel
We're now in our third year of the Raleigh Fringe. So as far as just how setup goes in general, the big thing is that we start with an open call for artists in our different categories, both in our busking street performer category and in our primary lineup. And then, you know, then we have to go through those applications, we gotta look at their tech needs, we gotta start scheduling them, we gotta look at their tech and make sure their tech's gonna work. Then how's the audience gonna work? Then we get it going in here and then it's done. And then in three days we've done like six months of work and then it's over. Yes. So I really love fringe festivals a lot. And there were events that came before us in this area, but never an actual Raleigh fringe.

09:41
Mikki Marvel
And three years ago I just started kind of talking to people about it. And then very graciously, Lauren Kennedy Brady said, hey, you keep talking about this Raleigh Fringe, so what about a call next Monday? And I pitched it and that was what opened up the opportunity for venue sponsorship from Theater Raleigh Arts center as our presenting sponsor. And they've been our sponsor for three years straight. So yeah, so that was a big and then I had to produce a festival after that.

10:12
Vick Hernandez
For those who don't know, what is a fringe festival?

10:15
Mikki Marvel
Oh, dang. What a question. Yeah, so fringe festivals all started in Edinburgh originally, where a whole bunch of artists were told, hey, you cannot be part of this theater festival because your art is too weird. And so they said, that's fine, we'll go do our own. And fun fact, the one that they were submitting to that festival doesn't exist anymore. But the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is now the biggest performing arts festival in the world.

10:43
Emily Freer
Yeah. So our catchphrase, our little logo mantra is weird and wonderful Alternative performing arts festival for the weird and wonderful. So in this year, we had ballet, we had contemporary dance, we had different variations of Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe, reciters and puppets. So many puppets. We love puppets. Our first year we had a puppet opera. This year we had shadow puppets. And so it's giving that place for the weird and wonderful right here in Raleigh. Like I said earlier, we do a lot of spreadsheets. So when people come up to me at this festival and they say, how are you doing all this? I say spreadsheets. So it is that open call to artists. And some folks who submit for primary actually get moved to busking and giving them other opportunities to work on their shows.

11:34
Emily Freer
We get to give a platform to so many new shows or shows that don't get produced often enough. And so to be able to provide that to artists around here and also from other states is really incredible. We typically offer 12 primary lineup spots. And in that process, we think about having a variety of shows for a variety of people. I always like to say, there's always something for someone at these festivals. And so having that balance of. All right, this is a burlesque show. Let's not put four burlesque shows back to back. Let's make sure we separate it. Oh, wait, we don't have a one person show yet. Let's see what one person show submissions we have, and let's see what we can work where we can tweak.

12:17
Emily Freer
Sometimes we have submissions that isn't right for the space necessarily, but we talk to that artist and say, hey, you got anything else? Or an initial project falls through and we say, hey, got anything else? Know anybody else?

12:31
Mikki Marvel
Yeah. And I also really want to elevate something that I love about our process, which Emily hinted at earlier, which is that a lot of times we're trying to move things around so that we can figure out how to include these People, we really try as much as possible that if we can include them and if they haven't kind of disqualified themselves in some way, that we're really trying to get them in here. Because that was the whole point of the original festival, is just letting artists do their own work. I think we get so bogged down about perfectionism and what makes a good show. But, and I was reflecting on this today, the first festival I ever ran was in 2011, and it was horrible. And this is much better than that.

13:25
Mikki Marvel
And if I had never run that awful event in 2011, I would never have been able to learn so that this could be a good event.

13:34
Emily Freer
One thing that I have loved seeing this year especially is the artists supporting one another in their works. Getting to see, for example, Dark Heart performed Edgar Allan Poe, Animals as Animals. So the Raven as the Raven and Nickel Shakespeare stopped their busking so that they could watch and support that busker or patrons who were seeing. Don't let the sun beat you home. Oh, there is a performance of ice melts 10 minutes beforehand. It'll take eight minutes. Then you can just boot scoop boogie over there. So being able to support one another and then ice melts. Got to see Alex's show. So having that community and building that community is crucial in my opinion and is what I hope for out of this festival.

14:18
Vick Hernandez
In their spare time, Mikki can be found directing the Triangle Unified auditions, which are coming up. And Emily is producing a musical theater cabaret called the Standbys. They also enjoy performing sketch comedy at Triangle Sketch together. Next, I'd like to introduce you to Colab Raleigh Collab. Raleigh was one of the buskers for the Raleigh Fringe Festival, and they set up a canvas and paint for everyone to add to a community painting.

14:44
Ken
Hi, I'm Ken. I'm with Raleigh Colab and we're out here at Fringe Fest today. We were invited here to bring art to the people. It really started as a grassroots type of thing with us just kind of working together and realizing that art's really hard to do by yourself. It's a lot easier with friends and people around you and a community. And so we're like, let's just do this together. So we just started painting in the park together and it just has evolved into this over time. We love kind of like showing people that they can also do art. Like, you don't have to buy into it. You don't have to be good at benefits your life. Even if you just come out and push some paint around or mess around with it's still. It's a positive thing to do.

15:32
Ken
And hopefully the more people we can reach, just the art will do what it does.

15:38
Vick Hernandez
Collabor also has a Glenwood studio, which where they encourage communal collaborative artwork. Next, I have a pretty unique busker to introduce you all to.

15:49
Lara Coutinho
My lords and ladies, there's a magic word that we use to begin the magic and joy of commedia. And ready, everybody, say it with me. Buongiorno. Hello, I'm Laura Coutinho, and I'm the director and founder and cat herder of this adorable theater troupe called I Firenzi. And we do commedia dell' arte in the style of 16th century Italian Renaissance. And it is improvised comedy theater that was done about the same time Shakespeare was working. He was working up in England. And this was a very popular comedy method of entertaining each other that was spreading around the Italian peninsula in the 1500s. And basically we have, we've studied it. I've been doing this for about 26 years, and there's plenty to learn about historical commedia. There's a huge academic environment where people study it a lot.

16:59
Lara Coutinho
But then actually putting it on stage and doing it and making it appealing to modern audiences, that's what we do.

17:07
Vick Hernandez
A talentless lover boy, a greedy, evil mastermind. A lottery to win a wealthy maiden's hand, and a mischievous band of witches with an experimental luck potion. These are all elements of the hilarious improvisational play Everyone wants to Get Lucky that I Firenzi performed at the Raleigh Fringe Festival. This play was formulated in just four hours, and I was lucky enough to talk to Laura before the play about what brought them out to Raleigh Fringe Festival and why art like this is so important.

17:40
Lara Coutinho
Oh, wow. Fringe is perfect for commedia dell'. Arte. Cause commedia dell' arte is niche. It is very niche, niche. Everybody who's taken a theater history class knows something about commedia. Cause there was a paragraph or maybe even a whole chapter on it in their theater history class. And so it rings a bell for most theater nerds. Anybody that's been around a theater history class. And so when they say, ooh, yeah, commedia, I'm kind of interested. Like, what is that? You actually do it in real life. Ooh. So it fits perfectly with the idea of fringe festival being niche, unusual, fun, crazy, and audience participatory theater. So, yeah, we get the audience involved. We have all sorts of ways to involve the audience. And the fourth wall doesn't really exist in our shows.

18:35
Lara Coutinho
The generating of laughter helps us to cope with our stress in the world and it helps the audience. When we get in here and we're doing our silly fun thing and we're sharing it with the audience, we all feel better. You might call it comedy therapy. You might call it fighting depression. You might call it fighting the horrible things that happen in our world. Because we're going to take time to be silly about it on purpose and that makes us keep coming back and spending time in this zone.

19:11
Vick Hernandez
This troupe is incredibly passionate about their craft. Laura teaches a variety of improv and commedia classes and accepts new members into the troupe with open arms. And after having a big laugh with I Firenzi, I paid a visit to Nickel Shakespeare.

19:26
Members of Nickel Shakespeare
Oh, for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention. A kingdom for a state, princes to act and monarchs to behold the swelling scene. Then should the warlike Harry like himself, assume the port of Mars. And at his heels leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire crouch for employment.

19:49
Rebecca Blum
Hey. I am Rebecca Blum. I am the managing director of Bare Theater and we have a Shakespeare troupe component called the Nickel Shakespeare Group and we are performing busking at the Raleigh Fringe Festival tonight. So what we do is a 30 second piece from any one of Shakespeare's plays. So the nickel in the name. We have a basket full of nickels and you pull out a nickel and there's a play on the nickel.

20:31
Rebecca Blum
We do a 30 second piece from that. It's a high energy. I think for me the most fun is discovering what the play is on the nickel that's been drawn out. It's really exciting. You don't know how it's going to go. You don't know who's going to do it. And it's just fun.

20:49
Rebecca Blum
We have a show that we're doing as part of the primary lineup and we thought it would be fun to get out and busk in the lanes as it were, just to dust off the troop and have some fun.

21:10
Nickel Shakespeare Member
The show that Rebecca's talking about is. One that she is starring in and it's maybe not going to bring up on her own. It's a one woman show called Tica, Not Tica.

21:24
Nickel Shakespeare Member
It had its premiere last night, the 10th, and will be having its second show tomorrow, the 12th. And it is also written by Carmen Maria Manley. That is true. All of that is true. It's. It's a one woman show. It's written by Carmen and it's 45 minutes show about women's experience, experiences in the world. Every woman trying to Find herself sometimes can be difficult. And I think ultimately the show is about resilience.

22:06
Vick Hernandez
Now, I haven't read Shakespeare since high school, but Nickel Shakespeare's infectious energy when delivering those lines almost made me consider picking up Macbeth that very night.

22:17
Rebecca Blum
Well, you know, people feel very strongly about Shakespeare. You know, find a lot of people who are just kind of lukewarm about it, and when they see the Shakespeare in our name, sometimes people just kind of shy away from us. And it's very exciting to see people who are maybe not all that knowledgeable or not that comfortable with Shakespeare come to us, spend a minute with us and walk away smiling because we really try to make it exciting, accessible and fun.

22:52
Vick Hernandez
A little later, I wandered into a beautiful one woman show called Don't Let The Sun Beat You Home.

22:58
Alex the Great
I'm Alex the Great. I am a poet, I am an artist, I am a theater maker, a curator based out of Dallas, Texas. I actually came to Asheville's Fringe Festival back in March of this year. And then I saw announcements about Raleigh Fringe coming up as well from there. And so I applied to submit my show for the Fringe and came through. I like North Carolina the last time I came out. So I think it's always important to get your work in front of new audiences. And so I'm always trying to find new spaces and new venues to perform for. So Don't Let The Sun Beat You Home is actually my second one woman show. The first one I did was in 2013 called Passport to Womanhood.

23:46
Alex the Great
And so it's a little bit of an extenuation of that in ways that it's like the full maturation of a woman. Passport to womanhood talked about a journey from puberty on. And so this show is about basically the gist of it is about black women and their experiences and how you kind of prevail over them and triumph through. So there's a scripture in the Bible that says weeping may endure for night, but joy comes in the morning. And so I kind of use that to kind of word play. Morning--M O R N I N G--slash mourning--M O U R N I N G--and so the show kind of deals with five. What I'm proposing are five major killers of black women.

24:34
Alex the Great
And so if you're able to get through the night, in a sense to get through your morning to the morning, on the morning, other side is your joy and triumph. And so those five major killers are police brutality, maternal mortality rates, stress, body dysmorphia, and suicide. But people really seem to connect with the show for whatever reason. And I'm saying that the show is about black women's experiences. But a lot of folks have been able to connect and relate no matter what background they're coming from. Men as well. Men, male identifying folks have connected with pieces of the show or they've seen people in their life that they feel like connects with the show for them, a mother figure or sister or what have you. And so it has really helped to kind of.

25:24
Alex the Great
It has helped for people to kind of give voice in a sense, to the things that they've experienced or people closest to them have experienced that they didn't necessarily know how to. So there is a quote by author Zora Neale Hurston that says if you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it. So I want audiences to say to take away that black women are dying and we are not being silent. And so we are not enjoying it either, you know, and at the end of the day, really to listen to our stories and our. Our voices in our lives.

26:11
Vick Hernandez
Alex is also working on a book titled Recipes for Life where she combines actual recipes to some dishes with poems about survival. After the show, I found myself stumbling out to the parking lot where a dark figure with a crow mask greeted me.

26:25
Darkheart
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary over some quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore. While I stood there gently napping. Suddenly there came a tapping as if someone gently rapping at my chamber door to some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door. Only this and nothing more. Hi, my name is Darkheart. I'm a performer. I'm here at the Raleigh Fringe doing a piece called Pose Animals. I'm reciting different Edgar Allan Poems and stories dressed as the animals in them. So I'm doing the Raven, the Black Cat and the Sphinx. I have performed before. I actually did another Fringe Fest earlier this year, Asheville Fringe Fest. And I really liked it. So I've kind of been on the lookout for others. So I'm here performing here now. And I've also got New Orleans for Fringe lined up for November.

27:24
Darkheart
So I'm just hitting a lot of festivals this year.

27:26
Vick Hernandez
I got the chance to ask Darkheart where they're from and how they started to get into performing.

27:31
Darkheart
I am based out of Asheville. I've done shows over here. I've worked with Pocket Nightmares Burlesque and Rachel Riot Rowlett School of Burlesque. But I'm mostly based out of Asheville. I Just was going to a lot of stage shows around town, like going out at night and trying to do something different. So I would see like different theatrical performances, dancers, stand up, comedians. And I just was watching it so much, I kind of got the itch to do it myself before I left.

28:03
Vick Hernandez
They wanted to emphasize just how important the art scene is.

28:06
Darkheart
Support your local art scene, support local bands, local shows, local theater. Get out there and support enough standing.

28:15
Vick Hernandez
And sitting around watching things. It was time for me to get up and on the move.

28:20
Angelina Schiano
Hi, I'm Angelina Schiano and I am the owner of Downbeat Dance Fitness, which is a dance fitness studio opening up in Cary in a couple days. So this is actually our second year with the Raleigh Fringe Festival. Despite the fact that our business is not open, we had some significant construction delays. We thought were going to be opening last fall and signed up for the Fringe Fest just to get the word out and had just a wonderful experience there. So we do flow arts as one of our dance styles. The concept behind the studio is we're giving dance styles that don't usually have dedicated style space, just a place to live, and also incorporating fitness into a lot of movement because it's so much easier to stay consistent with exercise when you're actually having fun.

28:58
Angelina Schiano
So since that was a long explanation, but one of our styles is flow art. So we have silk fans and we brought them out to the Fringe Fest last year and they just gave us a big open space and we called it a prop playground and we said have at it with the fans. So I did not grow up exercising or doing dance or any sort of movement really. I hated gym class. It was always a kid like failing the presidential fitness tests. And the only thing that I enjoyed was like old school workout videotapes. Every time the gym teacher would get sick of us and put on like a Billy Blanks Tae Bow workout. It was the greatest thing and I just really loved the energy those instructors had.

29:40
Angelina Schiano
When I went to college, I decided that I needed to start moving in some way. So I signed up for a ballroom dance club and then eventually took a belly dance class. I was a little self conscious about my stomach at the moment and I figured that if I could get through an eight week belly dance class, I could do anything. Like that was the worst thing I could think of and I had a coupon and I stuck with it. So I ended up. Fifteen years later, I'm still doing ballroom dance as a hobby. I belly danced semi professionally. But the thing I realized that I'm very good at and the best at is not dancing, but it's organizing all the dancers.

30:14
Angelina Schiano
So I've had the absolute pleasure to work with so many incredible dancers in our area and now bring them in to teach at the studio and give them a space to do awesome things that they're good at and give people the chance to incorporate movement into their life in a way that they may not have the opportunity to.

30:32
Vick Hernandez
One thing's for certain, Downbeat Dance Fitness definitely advocates for spaces to house the weird and the wonderful.

30:39
Angelina Schiano
Just give us space for more weird art. I think things like the Fringe Festival and other opportunities to dance, there's so many around here, but it can be hard to find them. They're spread out. Individual instructors have a lot on their plate and a lot of them have full time jobs and dance is not their primary source of income. So as of now it can be hard to try different dance styles and find one that really resonates with you. So I'm hoping that by bringing a bunch of styles under one roof, we just make it a little bit more obvious to people to try something that they might not have.

31:12
Vick Hernandez
Last but certainly not least, I went on a little intellectual deep dive and thought about science, art and poop with our final entertainer.

31:21
Nik Narain
My name is Nik Narain and I am an artist based in Durham who is performing at the Raleigh Fringe for the second time. So I do different types of performing artists and I'm also a science educator. So I am a comedian, musician, singer, songwriter, drag king and visual artist and I do a lot of science programs for my day job. So a lot of science, art, combining the two in fun ways. Yeah, it's pretty much what I do. Yeah, I did this festival last year and I, I think I just like as a multidisciplinary artist and as someone who just really loves seeing different types of art, I think Fringe festivals especially really give people opportunity to just experience a lot of different types of live art and visual art, performance art that we don't really get to see very often.

32:09
Nik Narain
And I as a comedian just really, I did a stand up show last year and I just really wanted to be a part of that and really? Yeah. And then I like got to meet some of the organizers and I really felt like really at home here last year and then I was like, I have to do this again.

32:24
Vick Hernandez
Nick and I discussed what they were performing at Raleigh Fringe and where they get their inspiration from.

32:29
Nik Narain
Yeah. So last year I did a stand up show. It's called Rusk it was an hour of stand up, kind of loosely around the time of, like, my, like, gender transition, but also just about like, coming of age, finishing college, starting a life, being a young adult, all that stuff, and starting standup. I was about two years into stand up at that time. I've since toured that show at five, six fringe festivals. Question mark around the country, slash world, which is really fun. And definitely my time at Raleigh was like a huge boon in helping me prepare and just like get comfortable with fringe and get comfortable performing for larger audiences. And then this year I did another solo show, totally different. It was called Copperlight, which was an hour of live music and live science.

33:16
Nik Narain
It was all original music, singer, songwriter type stuff. I was in a sort of drag character. Yeah, Copper light's the word for fossilized poop. So it's sort of a narrative, loosely about death and poop and trying to preserve things in our life that we think might think are not cool. Which I've definitely had that relationship with music for a really long time. And then some other stuff that I did this weekend. We had a community stand up showcase last night. Got to do that, which was super fun. And then today, for our sort of busking hours, I did some science demos that I did during my show, but got to do them a little bit more up close and do a little bit extra. So I'm one year out of school, a little over than that.

33:54
Nik Narain
I graduated in 2025 and I never, like, I didn't go to school with any intention of like, being an artist or anything like that. I originally went to do, like, STEM stuff, and then I think I just kind of fell in love with this stuff so much that it's like, it's impacted me so much to the point where I'm like, it is my job and, like, it is how I pay my rent and make my livelihood. And especially getting to do stuff like on the intersection of science and arts and getting to be like a science performer and educator person, but also, you know, yell at a bunch of drunk adults and the other stuff too. So, yeah, it's impacted me really deeply. It's something I really want to do for a really long time. Like, I'm 22 and still really new to this.

34:33
Nik Narain
And so it's something I would love to do for as long as I can. Part of the reason why I do a lot of work that's like, you know, making art that's inspired by scientific things or doing stuff that like, allows us to sort of create new relationships with science. I think science is really cool because it creates an environment that allows us to be curious and experiment and discover things. And I think that's something that people need at least I know I need a lot more encouragement to do. And I think just having the permission to explore stuff if I. If my art can have impact on making people feel comfortable with trying new things and discovering things, I think that's a win.

35:12
Nik Narain
I also feel like, just sort of on a general political level, like so many, like, political issues when it comes to like, climate change or like trans rights and disability rights and a lot of different things, like, they are political issues, but they're also like fundamental issues of scientific misinformation and ways that we make stories using science essentialism to discriminate against people and discriminate against our land. And so being a sort of sciency artist, like, allows me to reclaim those stories in my own way. And I think that's really cool. Raleigh Fringe is only once a year, obviously. I know they're starting a Durham Fringe in a couple months, which will be at the end of October, late November. I think if you've ever been to Fringe, definitely try it out, you'll have a lot of fun.

35:56
Nik Narain
We're all, we're all kind of kooky and kind of wild, but I think it's super great. Yeah. And definitely, like, if you can't go to Fringe, like, I think just as you can, like, just being able to experience different types of art, I think is just really important and supporting the art scene, especially in the Triangle, like we. I'm a firm believer. Like, as somebody who, like, I have lived in New York, I have lived in la, and I've gotten to perform in those cities too, which have been awesome. But I'm a firm believer that, like, you should not have to live in a deeply expensive place and live in some, like, really dense city just to experience good art. And so. But that also means that, like, we have to support artists here. So. Yeah.

36:37
Vick Hernandez
And thus my time at the Raleigh Fringe Fest concluded. No need for tears. Though it is annual festival, let's hear what the organizers have in store for the future.

36:47
Emily Freer
Last year at a debrief, Mikki looked at me and was like, so when are we getting bath houses? And I was like, Mikki, what do.

36:53
Nik Narain
You mean, when are we getting bath houses?

36:55
Mikki Marvel
When are we getting waivers for a bath's house?

36:58
Emily Freer
So I say that in jest, but we're always thinking about what works, how we can best support artists and how we schedule them, how we can provide food for them backstage, and elevating that each time. Oh, we really liked having puppets.

37:14
Kai Nicanor
Great.

37:14
Emily Freer
What other puppet groups in the triangle are there? Let's find them. Or last year we had a focus on next generation and focusing on shows that bring in younger audiences and so kind of tapping into different markets and different demographics and different groups of people that we can bring to this festival.

37:34
Mikki Marvel
Yeah. And I think for me, one of the big things we've been talking about is figuring out how to expand and better support the buskers and the street performers, which one hand is such an important and integral part of fringe. But it's also, it's hard for Raleigh. And it's also, I mean, it's hard to support buskers. It's hard to support them. They're usually just on a corner doing their best and so literally not a supported art form. So I really have them on my mind right now, as well as even weirder art. I'm just going to make this joke about a pitch I heard today where somebody came up to me and they were like, Mikki, what about a show that has a live horse? If I submit that, what would we do? And I'm thinking about it.

38:20
Emily Freer
I also heard that there was a pig in this pitch. So it was like, whaaaat? So just the bigger, the weirder, the wonderful.

38:30
Mikki Marvel
Yeah. Go Animal Farm.

38:33
Vick Hernandez
This has been my deep dive into the 2026 Raleigh Fringe Festival. If you enjoyed hearing about any of these entertainers and want to know more, their contact information can be found in the description of this episode. My name is Vick Hernandez and you are listening to WKNC 88.1 HD 1 Raleigh.

38:55
Autumn Smith
Thank you to Vick Hernandez with WKNC for the segment. This has been Eye on the triangle from WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1 Raleigh. Our theme song is City Lights by BerryDeep, licensed under Creative Commons. To re listen to this or any other episode, visit wknc.org podcast or subscribe to Eye on the Triangle on your favorite podcast site or app. Thank you for listening.