Durham Fringe Festival Oct. 30 to Nov. 8

Find Your Glimmer
Every day of festival
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
113 Orange Street, Durham, North Carolina
Free

Artist: Candy Carver. Multi-media, black light activated art installation. It utilizes multiple surfaces and mediums to convey light filled messages and emotions with many moments of joy. It envelops the viewer in a warm hug of affirmations and is a reminder that art can be fun and meaningful at the same time.

The Durham Hotel Rooftop: Lennon C
Friday, October 30, 2026
7 p.m.
The Durham Hotel
315 E Chapel Hill Street, Durham, NC
Free

Lennon KC is a DIY alternative rock artist from Durham, North Carolina, currently playing as a duo with a drummer. His sound flows between grunge-inspired intensity and gentler introspective moments, drawing comparisons to artists like Dominic Fike, The White Stripes, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Lennon KC is a captivating presence on stage, bringing a fully embodied sense of play to the room.

Cameron Wade, Communion: A Liturgy for Samhain
Friday, October 30, 2026
9 p.m.
Arcana Durham
331 W Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

Dance/Theater. This performance aims to offer a ritual of healing, remembrance and communion, a Samhain Service for remembering the blood, bodies and bones that we are made of, those that were broken by us, and those that we are called to restore to their wholeness.

Barriskill Dance Theatre School, Youth Thriller Flash Mob
Saturday, October 31, 2062
11 a.m.
Cecy’s Gallery & Studios
417 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

Barriskill Dance Theatre School presents a thrilling adaptation of an iconic dance, reimagined in the cultural hub of downtown Durham. Blending hip hop, jazz and contemporary dance, Flash Mob immerses the public in a hauntingly site-responsive performance. Inspired by the playful unease of Halloween and the experimental nature of Durham’s first Fringe Festival, dancers emerge unexpectedly to transform a public space into a world of ghostly encounters and surreal precision.

Thrillah Block Party
Sataurday, October 31, 2026
7 p.m.
CCB Plaza
201 Corcoran Street, Durham, NC
Free

This Halloween, CCB Plaza transforms into the TSB THRILLAH Block Party — a free, outdoor costume party takeover hosted by The Southern Brothas (TSB) set to be Bull City’s livest event of the year! Showout the Extraordinaire presides over the plaza packed with ghouls, goblins, families, and night crawlers as Major the Bull keeps an eye on all. Local artists and DJs are will light up the stage, filling the air with musical tunes. Costumed dancers move and groove under an open October night sky. The CCB comes alive for The TSB THRILLAH. Headlining the haunt: DJ NABS — GRAMMY Museum honoree, Durham Homegrown Hero, and the only DJ to tour with the Michael Jackson. NABS witnessed the King of Pop perform the iconic Thriller live on stage and is bringing that energy to the party. All ages. Costumes encouraged. Downtown Durham is about to get spooky.

Live music: Bug Puncher
Sunday, November 1, 2026
2 p.m.
Letters Community Bookshop
116 W Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

Bug Puncher is a fully improvisational music experience featuring Matt Laird (bass), Daniel Combs (keyboards), and Kurt Stracener (drums). Drawing from their experience with a wide range of musical traditions, the trio strives to create something completely new with every performance. Their goal is to push the boundaries of their own musicianship in the pursuit of a deeper realm of sound that is only possible through risk taking, trust, and creative intention.

Live music: SunSp.t
Sunday, November 1, 2026
2 p.m.
Golden Belt Green Space
807 E Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

SunSp.t (Joe MacPhail) will be performing a uniquely Durham take on Arab-American Fusion music. Joe was born in Durham, and has spent the last decade making eclectic keyboard-based music that incorporates global Folk and Blues melodies, Jazz and Classical harmony, and Funk and Hip Hop rhythms. This Fringe Festival performance will feature Songs and Compositions that are influenced by Arabic music, referencing Joe’s Levantine ancestry and other musical genres of the wider MENA world. The musical pieces will be placed in dialogue with a brief history of Arab-Americans, from 19th Century Arab-Christian immigration to 21st Century otherization and influence on American Pop, R&B and Hip Hop.

Jackie Bennett, So This is Shedding (Dance)
Sunday, November 1, 2026
4 p.m.
Cecy’s Gallery & Studios
417 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

“So this is Shedding” is a dance work with spoken word that explores the process of unexpected change and ways that it causes unexpected shedding. It is a work that is partially birthed from a previous work “uprooted”. “So this is Shedding” explores the shedding of things we may have never expected or even never wanted to lose. We explore the coping, reassessments, and authentic connection to self and others that can also come from unexpected and at times unwanted changes and shedding.

Live music: David Oskardmay, No Time Toulouse
Sunday, November 1, 2026
6 p.m.
The Durham Hotel Rooftop
315 E Chapel Hill Street, Durham, NC
Free

An acoustic-guitar duo, accompanied by vocals and electronic effects, that presents a selection of repertoire from Guitar Craft and several original songs.

Wendy Hower, Procession of cardinals (Art activation)
Monday, November 2, 2026
5 p.m.
Durham Central Park
501 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

Procession of Cardinals is a 30-minute twilight procession featuring hand-held red cardinal puppets. As dusk settles over Durham Central Park, 100 participants become a flock of glowing red cardinals, moving together through the park and along downtown sidewalks to The Durham Hotel. The glowing puppets, crafted from laser-cut wood, gently flap their wings as participants follow intersecting paths in an organic choreography accompanied by a soundscape. The red cardinal, North Carolina’s state bird, symbolizes resilience, beauty and our connection to the natural world. Starting from one of Durham’s most beloved urban greenspaces, the procession invites us to reflect on the ways wildlife and people share the same landscape.

Matt Sandbank’s Shadow Factory, Still Life and Other Stories
Monday, November 2, 2026
6:30 p.m.
The Durham Hotel Rooftop
315 E Chapel Hill Street, Durham, NC
Free

Dazzlingly articulated puppets. Absurd surprises at every turn. An artsy performance with an ever-so-slightly fartsy ethos. “Still Life and Other Stories,” a collection of comic shadow theatre vignettes, poses the question: what do we do when the world refuses to behave? This work has delighted audiences since 2016, receiving honors along the way such as a “Best of Fest” designation at the 2020 Frontera Fest in Austin, TX and special funding to perform at the 2026 Sólovky Festival in Prague, Czech Republic.

Matt Sandbank’s Shadow Factory, Still Life and Other Stories
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
6:30 p.m.
The Durham Hotel Rooftop
315 E Chapel Hill Street, Durham, NC
Free

Dazzlingly articulated puppets. Absurd surprises at every turn. An artsy performance with an ever-so-slightly fartsy ethos. “Still Life and Other Stories,” a collection of comic shadow theatre vignettes, poses the question: what do we do when the world refuses to behave? This work has delighted audiences since 2016, receiving honors along the way such as a “Best of Fest” designation at the 2020 Frontera Fest in Austin, TX and special funding to perform at the 2026 Sólovky Festival in Prague, Czech Republic.

Londs Reuter, Good Effort (Dance)
Wednesday, November 4, 2026
12:30 p.m.
Durham Central Park
501 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

GOOD EFFORT is a dance performance by Londs Reuter that explores how we constantly calibrate our effort to meet each moment. Working from shared movement material, each dancer decides in real time how much effort to give, making every performance unique.

Stand-up Comedy: Nik Narain, Rusk
Thursday, November 4, 2026
10 p.m.
Mettlesome Theater
800 Taylor Street, Durham, NC
Free

Nik Narain’s “Rusk” is a one-hour sharp-witted, clean, and science-infused stand-up comedy show that discusses LGBTQ+ South Asian youth experiences through a culmination of personal stories, science facts, and dad jokes. With sold-out shows at the Edinburgh, Raleigh, New York, Asheville, and Central Virginia Festivals, “Rusk” is a hilarious hour guaranteed to educate, entertained, and inspire. Celebrating the 24th performance of “Rusk,” Nik is excited to be culminating over a year of touring this show back where it all started.

Londs Reuter, Good Effort (Dance)
Thursday, November 5, 2026
12:30 p.m.
Durham Central Park
501 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

GOOD EFFORT is a dance performance by Londs Reuter that explores how we constantly calibrate our effort to meet each moment. Working from shared movement material, each dancer decides in real time how much effort to give, making every performance unique.

Company, Rehearsal (Dance)
Thursday, November 5, 2026
11:45 a.m.
E.O.’s Athletic Club
341 W Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

REHEARSAL is an experimental, durational, and site-responsive art event that blurs creative process and performance.

Chris Vitiello, The Language is Asleep (Poetry/Spoken Word)
Thursday, November 5, 2026
5 p.m.
Five Points Plaza
334 W Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

“The Language Is Asleep” is a durational, interactive performance installation by Chris Vitiello (Durham Poet Laureate/Poetry Fox) that creates a dream space for language to rest, recover, and rejuvenate after hostile, divisive politics has exhausted it. Visitors can participate as they like—reading one-line poems, asking for a custom one, or writing their own and adding them to the piece. The public performance site is covered with torn-out dictionary pages with handwritten one-line poems, which visitors can take or add to at a writing station.

Serving as an avatar for the sleeping language, Vitiello will drowsily inhabit the installation in an easy chair, writing poems continuously in a dictionary, tearing out the pages, and giving them to visitors. Visitors give him a word or story and Vitiello handwrites them a one-line poem on a dictionary page, tears it out, and gives it to them to keep. Previously written poems on dictionary pages will be on the walls and ground of the site, so people can stay to read a lot of them. They can also sit at a school desk with a dictionary and a marker to write their own one-line poems and add them to the installation or keep them.

Anthony Otto Nelson Jr.: IKIGAI (Japanese Shodo Painting, with live dance and musical score)
Thursday, November 5, 2026
7 p.m.
Kingfisher
321 E Chapel Hill Street, Durham, NC
Free

IKIGAI (生きがい) [ee-kee-guy]: The embodiment of self-realization, self-actualization, sense of fulfillment, and motivation to live and be alive. “A sense of being alive now, an individual’s consciousness as a motive to live.” – Akihiro Hasegawa. “IKIGAI” is a live mixed-media performance featuring traditional elements of Japanese Shodo Calligraphy, accompanied by live dance and an original sound score. Choreographed and composed by Anthony Otto Nelson, Jr., this work blends modalities of expression, using movement, ink, and sound to transmute emotion into an embodied experience.

Shodo is a traditional art form using soft animal-hair brushes, special Japanese tatami paper, and sumi ink. Each paint stroke honors the 2,000-year-old practice of traditional Shodo calligraphy. This creates a canvas for expressing and emoting one’s lived experience, and a container for recentering and creating harmony within oneself.

Will Shea, Won’t Shea? (Theater)
Thursday, November 5, 2026
7:30 p.m.
Arcana Durham
331 W Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

Inspired by the will-they/won’t-they relationships of our time (think Harry and Sally, Ross and Rachel), “Will Shea, Won’t Shea?” follows Shea as she tries to orchestrate the romantic comedy of her dreams. Playing every single character, Shea invites audiences to help her on her journey to answer the age-old questions. One woman show.

KT Collective (Dance)
Friday, November 6, 2026
4:30 p.m.
The Museum of Durham History
500 W Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

KT COLLECTIVE Dance Company will present Contemporary Jazz work performed in the outdoor foyer of the Museum of Durham History, a unique location just a walk up from the Carolina Theater and nearby Durham Arts Council. Families in the Triangle have a special history tied to this location as this historic bus stop was a gateway to experiencing the bustling culture of Downtown Durham.

Bones & Memory Dance, Honky Tonk Tales
Friday, November 6, 2026
6 p.m.
E.O.’s Athletic Club
341 W Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

“Honky Tonk Tales” is dance theater hootenanny created by Bones and Memory Dance. Join us for a site-specific work that weaves dance and live music together to present tales of Arelene Darlene and her Lonely Hearts Club Ladies. Audience members will enjoy an immersive dance experience accompanied by live original music from Bones and Memory Dance Music Director, William vonReichbauer and collaborators. This work is the perfect night out for dance and music lovers. Come laugh, love, and have a drink with Bones and Memory Dance! Under the direction of Heather vonReichbauer, Bones and Memory Dance is committed to captivating audiences through unique and authentic storytelling with work that is thoughtful and enjoyable for dance devotees and those new to dance alike.

Saleem Reshamwala, Bird Drum Lounge (Interactive Sound Installation)
Friday, November 6, 2026
6 to 9 p.m.
BOOM Club
600 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

Bird Drum Lounge is a drop-in interactive sound installation where visitors remix the birds of Durham using a live drum machine. The installation features video and audio field recordings of birds captured at the Ellerbee Creek trail area, the Eno River and surrounding habitats, all mapped to a Roland TR-8S drum machine, with synced bird footage projected in the space.. The premise is simple: Remixing nature helps you pay attention to it in new ways, and forces you to truly listen. Visitors are invited to sit down, trigger rhythms, remix Durham’s natural soundscape and hear it all differently.

Durham filmmaker Saleem Reshamwala (KidEthnic), musician Phil Cook and other occasional guest musicians will often play alongside visitors. Impromptu jams may arise. Bird samples will rotate daily, come through, decompress, and connect with nature in an odd new way.

Stacy Wolfson – The Bipeds, Learn to Make Your Own Ghost (Dance/Theater)
Friday, November 6, 2026
7 p.m.
Arcana Durham
331 W Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

For over a decade, Artistic Director Stacy Wolfson and Musical Director Curtis Eller have created music and choreography simultaneously through a unique collaborative process. From this collaboration emerges Learn to Make Your Own Ghost, an immersive evening-length work that confronts mortality with equal measures of wonder, wit, and irreverence. First conceived in 2020, the project was abandoned as the pandemic transformed its subject into a lived global reality. Years later, The Bipeds return to this work with renewed perspective, embracing the inevitability of death and the unknown that follows. The work unfolds through haunting, modular vignettes inspired by cultural rituals surrounding death, including the eerie pageantry of Victorian mourning traditions. Eller’s original songs create the spine of the work, while Wolfson’s choreography is generated through dancer-driven collaboration. Especially crafted for the Durham Fringe, audiences can expect to travel through the performance space, becoming witnesses in a living ritual where humor, mystery, and mortality collide.

Anthony Otto Nelson Jr.: IKIGAI (Japanese Shodo Painting, with live dance and musical score)
Friday, November 6, 2026
8 p.m.
Kingfisher
321 E Chapel Hill Street, Durham, NC
Free

IKIGAI (生きがい) [ee-kee-guy]: The embodiment of self-realization, self-actualization, sense of fulfillment, and motivation to live and be alive. “A sense of being alive now, an individual’s consciousness as a motive to live.” – Akihiro Hasegawa. “IKIGAI” is a live mixed-media performance featuring traditional elements of Japanese Shodo Calligraphy, accompanied by live dance and an original sound score. Choreographed and composed by Anthony Otto Nelson, Jr., this work blends modalities of expression, using movement, ink, and sound to transmute emotion into an embodied experience.

Shodo is a traditional art form using soft animal-hair brushes, special Japanese tatami paper, and sumi ink. Each paint stroke honors the 2,000-year-old practice of traditional Shodo calligraphy. This creates a canvas for expressing and emoting one’s lived experience, and a container for recentering and creating harmony within oneself.

Saleem Reshamwala, Bird Drum Lounge (Interactive Sound Installation)
Saturday, November 7, 2026
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
BOOM Club
600 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

Bird Drum Lounge is a drop-in interactive sound installation where visitors remix the birds of Durham using a live drum machine. The installation features video and audio field recordings of birds captured at the Ellerbee Creek trail area, the Eno River and surrounding habitats, all mapped to a Roland TR-8S drum machine, with synced bird footage projected in the space.. The premise is simple: Remixing nature helps you pay attention to it in new ways, and forces you to truly listen. Visitors are invited to sit down, trigger rhythms, remix Durham’s natural soundscape and hear it all differently.

Durham filmmaker Saleem Reshamwala (KidEthnic), musician Phil Cook and other occasional guest musicians will often play alongside visitors. Impromptu jams may arise. Bird samples will rotate daily, come through, decompress, and connect with nature in an odd new way.

Anna Schroeder, Smashable Poems (poetry, interactive art installation)
Saturday, November 7, 2026
11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.
Cecy’s Gallery & Studios
417 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

Smashable Poems is an interactive installation and performance featuring dozens of handmade ceramic objects, each containing a short poem by a local poet. During the performance, audience members will be invited to choose an object, smash it open, and discover the poem inside. The poems range from profound to silly, exploring ideas of fragility, release, and what we choose to hold onto. By turning destruction into an act of discovery, Smashable Poems invites us to consider what it means to let go, and to have a little fun in the process.

KT Collective (Dance)
Saturday, November 7, 2026
4:30 p.m.
The Museum of Durham History
500 W Main Street, Durham, NC
Free

KT COLLECTIVE Dance Company will present Contemporary Jazz work performed in the outdoor foyer of the Museum of Durham History, a unique location just a walk up from the Carolina Theater and nearby Durham Arts Council. Families in the Triangle have a special history tied to this location as this historic bus stop was a gateway to experiencing the bustling culture of Downtown Durham.

Takiri Academy, Takiri Folclor Latino (Latin Dance and Fashion)
Saturday, November 7, 2026
5 p.m.
Cecy’s Gallery & Studios
417 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

Takiri Folclor Latino celebrates the vibrant traditions and artistic diversity of Latin America through movement, music, and design. This multidisciplinary performance brings together traditional folkloric dance and a fantasy folkloric fashion runway in a unique cultural experience. Audiences will enjoy dynamic choreographies representing diverse regions of Latin America alongside a “pasarela” featuring original fantasy folkloric designs by Colombian designers. Rather than showcasing traditional costumes in their original form, these imaginative creations draw inspiration from Latin American cultural dress, reinterpreting its colors, symbolism, and craftsmanship into dramatic, couture-style works of wearable art. The result is a striking fusion of heritage and creativity that honors tradition while embracing artistic innovation. Together, dance and fashion create a colorful and immersive showcase that highlights the richness, diversity, and enduring spirit of Latin American culture.

Saleem Reshamwala, Bird Drum Lounge (Interactive Sound Installation)
Sunday, November 8, 2026
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
BOOM Club
600 Foster Street, Durham, NC
Free

Bird Drum Lounge is a drop-in interactive sound installation where visitors remix the birds of Durham using a live drum machine. The installation features video and audio field recordings of birds captured at the Ellerbee Creek trail area, the Eno River and surrounding habitats, all mapped to a Roland TR-8S drum machine, with synced bird footage projected in the space.. The premise is simple: Remixing nature helps you pay attention to it in new ways, and forces you to truly listen. Visitors are invited to sit down, trigger rhythms, remix Durham’s natural soundscape and hear it all differently.

Durham filmmaker Saleem Reshamwala (KidEthnic), musician Phil Cook and other occasional guest musicians will often play alongside visitors. Impromptu jams may arise. Bird samples will rotate daily, come through, decompress, and connect with nature in an odd new way.