Sat 9/17 @ 2-11PM
The FireFish Festival, a community arts festival in downtown Lorain, has shapeshifted through many forms, all of them rooted in activating neglected and/or under-utilized spaces. That’s similar to the original mission of Cleveland Ingenuity Festival, which is no surprise: both were founded/co-founded by arts advocate James Levin, who also founded Cleveland Public Theatre in a neighborhood (Gordon Square) that was then down on its heels.
This year it’s moving north, away from Broadway Avenue downtown where it’s formerly taken place, to the undeveloped former “pellet terminal” area north of Black River Lane, an area that takes advantage of both the Black River waterfront and the Lake Erie shore. And its theme this year is “Fire, Rebirth, and our Connection to the Natural World.”
The event kicks off at 2pm with vendors, food trucks, projections on the Bascule Bridge, pollinator sculptures near the Marie Bonaminio Pollinator Garden and the new “Lorain “welcome sign” (virtually a requirement for cities these days), and interactive art opportunities such as glassblowing demonstration, and performances on two stages by acts such as Anne E. DeChant, Apostle Jones and Victor Samalot. Headlining act is Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater, with its stilt walkers, masks and oversized puppets, performing its “Domestic Resurrection Circus” at 4pm.
The highlight of FireFish is always the James Levin Processional and Burning of the FireFusk, starting at dusk. All are welcome to join with musicians, puppeteers, drummers, fire performers and more in the procession, followed by the burning of the giant fish.
“This year’s monstrous FireFish will embody elements of grotesque sculpture, characterized by fanciful and fantastic human and animal forms intertwined with foliage,” they say. “Accompanied by flora and fauna in a ceremony of procession and performance on its phoenix-like journey of rebirth through fire, the FireFish becomes a decorative, fanciful, and fantastic caricature that represents the personal things that we would like to symbolically burn and release while looking toward new growth and the future of Lorain.” Music and dance will continue until 11pm.
The festival is free and open to all.