But Traces is merely the hottest of this year's hot all-ages festival tickets. Kids can get another high-flying fix in Germantown, at the School of Circus Arts' Green Fairy Cabaret. A success at spring's Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, the show returns for the Philly Fringe. Its title pays tribute to absinthe, a potent spirit particularly beloved by turn-of-the-20th-century Parisian bohemians, but daytime performances are family-friendly, with a no-less-intoxicating mix of homegrown aerialists, acrobats, comedians, and jugglers.
White Box Theatre and Philadelphia director Sebastienne Mundheim helm another PIFA return engagement, Paris Wheels and the Ready-Maids Present: Not the Henri Rousseau That Some of You Know. Whether your kids don't yet know Rousseau and his primitive paintings of curious jungle creatures or already are fans, this interdisciplinary adventure, bursting with performance and puppetry, views Paris through the artist's eyes. Since the show clocks in at just 35 minutes, there's plenty of time to whisk your offspring over to the Philadelphia Museum of Art before or after, to introduce them to the man himself, via his paintings.
Once artistic cross-pollination catches their fancy, younger audiences can visit Zon-Mai, a collaboration between Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, French filmmaker Gilles Delmas, and an international group of 21 dancers, all of whom have immigrated or otherwise experienced displacement, performing inside their homes. The videos, projected on huge screens in the shape of a house, are sure to inspire future living room (or kitchen, or bathroom) performance opportunities. Even better, the installation, located across from the new, strollable Race Street Pier, is free and offers parents a sneak peek at the Live Arts Festival's future permanent headquarters.
