18th Aspen Fringe Festival’s creates silver linings with local talent

The 18th Aspen Fringe Festival is returning — bringing together award-winning dance, independent film and theater — for two nights beginning at 7:30 p.m. on June 12 and 13 at the Wheeler Opera House.

For 2026, the program integrates homegrown Roaring Fork Valley and Colorado artists with international and national talents.

“This season is celebrating what’s needed, which is to maintain cultural awareness of the arts during this time,” Aspen Fringe Festival Director of Dance and Artistic Director of Soulskin Dance Adrianna Thompson said. “This is the first year I’m really mixing the program with our local artist community, and I think that’s important. As a programmer, it’s what makes this season special — it’s community-based, nationally-based and internationally-based.”

Thompson credited the festival’s longevity to its uniqueness and its fundamental mission to provide a platform for dancers, actors, playwrights and filmmakers to be seen and heard.

The festival opens on June 12 with “Dance and Film: Silver Linings: Only in Darkness can you see the Stars,” a celebration of the human spirit through live dance and film, followed by a focus on theater on June 13.

“The theme of this year’s festival is the search for silver linings, which is not easy in the world we live in,” Aspen Fringe Festival Artistic Director and Founder David Ledingham said. “It’s important to find those positive messages — those silver linings.”

Opening night 

New York-based SOULSKIN Dance will present “Unpredictable Encounters,” performed by Leslie Plummer, Lauren Bonita, Sophia Rumasuglia and Barbara Koch to a commissioned score by composer Reubin Butchart. 

Thompson and Koch have known each other for more than 20 years, united by their passion to keep the arts alive. 

“I’m bringing out a women’s quartet — SOULSKIN Dance performed at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for a full season,” Thompson said. 

Plus, two Roaring Fork Valley choreographers — Alya Howe and Lilly Bright — will present ‘Disappeared’ and “Gas // Lightening.”

Howe’s vision for “Disappeared” explores how an aging woman fades from society’s attention and from watching the valley she loves change around her.

“Having lived in the valley since 1996, I have noticed many things that I value disappearing, and I wanted to make a social and environmental work that speaks from my heart and my observations,” Howe said.

For her first time at the Aspen Fringe Festival, Howe built a piece around a simple set, a thread of humor and the central metaphor of water — with “sensuousness, deliciousness and purifying aspects,” she said. 

Howe had only one set designer in mind for the project: Sean Jeffries, who, despite an incredibly busy schedule, made it work.

“Sean magically stretched himself so thin to build my set,” Howe said. “His designs are stunning and simple — illustrating through pouring water just how possible it is for water to run out.”

Howe invited Basalt-based Bright for their duet; it will be Bright’s first time at the Aspen Fringe Festival.

“Creating this piece with Bright has been a slow marination to maturation. We began exploring last summer, diving into many pools around the theme of water,” Howe said. “It has been magical to collaborate with Lilly and to find the courage to put myself into new work again.”

Bright’s solo, “Gas // Lightening,” is about how freedom is not for the faint of heart. 

“It was created as an exploration of love and loss, and the strength to change,” Bright said.

Aspen Fringe Festival FilmFest will screen two of its latest award-winning dance films: “Dreamadre,” which premiered in Rome and stars Italian dancer and choreographer Elisabetta Carnevale and “The Key,” marking filmmaker Jaco Strydom’s third appearance at the Aspen Fringe Festival. The film explores how memory shapes us — even across distance and time — drawing on a decades-long friendship between its dancers — German-based Fred Gehrig and Koch. Roxy Roller wrote the score. 

“They have known each other for decades and memory influences you even if you are not in the same space at the same time,” Strydom said.

The finale — ‘Still’

The Aspen Fringe Festival’s second night features the Colorado premiere of “Still” — the 2025 off-Broadway play starring Roaring Fork Valley locals Ledingham and Libby Rife, directed by Colorado-based Maurice LaMee. 

A New York Outer Critics Circle Award nominee for Best New American Play, “Still” is a funny, thought-provoking tale about lost love and second chances, written by New York playwright Lia Romeo. Set nearly three decades after a breakup, the story follows a couple as they reconnect over drinks and rediscover a familiar spark until old decisions and fresh secrets begin to unravel everything they believe about the future.

“The play is very specific to our time. I don’t think there’s anybody who is not going to relate to what’s happening in this play. It’s about our personal relationships and how the current political environment affects those relationships,” LaMee said.

LaMee brings deep Aspen roots to the project, having previously worked with Aspen Words and directed plays at Theatre Aspen. He’s the head of the Theatre Arts Department at Colorado Mesa University and served as artistic director of Creede Repertory Theatre — one of Colorado’s esteemed regional theaters — for 12 years.

His connection to Ledingham goes back years, though LaMee cast Rife for the project. This play will mark the first time Ledingham and Rife perform together on stage.

“It talks about where we are today as a society,” Ledingham said, adding that the play is centered on how disagreements and differing perspectives impact relationships in a cancel-culture society. “It’s a really great, interesting comedy with some twists and turns done in an eloquent way.”

LaMee agreed, adding, “It is funny and there’s a couple of interesting surprises that make it somewhat shocking and very enjoyable to watch.”

The Wheeler Opera House is located at 320 E. Hyman Ave. For more information and tickets, visit the Wheeler Opera House at aspenshowtix.com.