Infringe the Infringement

Spoken word poet Ekaete Bailey is part of the Buffalo group Entertaining Angels, an faith-based part of this year's Infringement Festival.

The Buffalo Infringement Festival, that yearly compendium of bizarre rarities and off-the-beaten-path endeavors from the artistically inclined, is a bastion for nearly every kind of expression imaginable. Its participants range from noise rock bands to quirky puppeteers, punk faux-politicians to installation artists. But one thing that might seem out of place amid the artsy eclecticism of the festival is a Christian-based performance troupe.

Ekaete Bailey (above) is part of the newly formed collaborative Entertaining Angels, a four-member organization that performs theater, dance, poetry and music all based firmly in their Christian roots. Their show, "Mother, Sister, Woman: A Celebration of Life and Love" will repeat four times during the festival at Bon Vivant (1862 Hertel Ave.) and include a smattering of the group's varied talents.

Bailey said she'd never heard of the somewhat chaotic Infringement Festival model until her husband, an experimental filmmaker, brought it up.

"I looked it up, and I thought, 'Well, this is different. This is very different.' But we consider ourselves alternative as well," Bailey said.

In a festival focused on pushing boundaries and transgressing the status quo, how (as I asked a bunch of other festival participants) are Entertaining Angels really being "infringey?"

"I would say that we are 'infringey' because we are pushing the envelope, in terms of how not everybody looks at their religion as a way to express their art, or looks at art as a way to express religion. We’re not necessarily expressing religion, we’re expressing our relationship with Christ, how we’ve grown into a relationship with Christ," Bailey said. "We decided, because we all kind of grew in our faith, to come together and to do this specifically for that reason."

And that, in a festival peppered with leftists and Marxists and atheists (oh my!), the Angels might be the most infringey act of all.

Check out a preview of their performance here.

--Colin Dabkowski

Comments

[Colin]

Dear "Shakespeare,"

Thanks for your comments. I welcome you to come out from hiding so that we might have an intelligent, informed conversation about your concerns.

Sincerely,

Colin Dabkowski

[I Hate Shakespeare]

Mr. Dabkowski highlights this Infringement Festival and details the highlights of "one Arts writer's list" - maybe seven theater companies provide the "amazing breadth" he alludes to.

My God, something GOOD is written about SOMETHING in this region and SOMEONE has to bitch about it. It never ceases to amaze me.

[Shakespeare]

Although The Infringement Festival may give the opinion that a higher percentage of productions may lean left, Mr. Dabkowski has to be aware that his insisting this festival is "peppered" with a one-sided political view may sway the public's opinion to not attend this year's event and thus missing a large percentage of works that do not represent any political views but are done for the sake of artistic freedom.

Mr. Dabkowski's view that this one particular act is a refreshing change to a bohemian leftist onslaught is journalistically irresponsible for his closing tone gives readers the impression there's not much to chose from apart from leftist productions and this act is for those who really aren't Leftists, Marxists or Atheists (which constitutes a majority of the Infringement productions--according to Dabkowski).

This Blog blurb is as sloppy as his recent Sunday News article "The Artistic Side of Things" in which Mr Dabkowski mentions "the amazing breadth" of Buffalo's theatre community but limits his "highlights" of a season to seven out of 20 theatre companies (mentioning some more than twice). Dabkowski negates his point of a thriving theatre community by limiting the amount of highlighted productions in the past year not based on diversity, integrity or a theatre's attempt to produce something outside-the-box, but by his opinion formed by limited attendance. Dabkowski's did not attend all 20 theatre companies productions so how can his opinion be valued?

Once again it is irresponsible journalism that influences the community to believe the standards set by one person's voice.

This what the Infringement Festival stands against. The idea that one can place a label on arts. The works that are presented are free from outside biases. The Infringement Festival allows the viewer to make their own judgement to whether the work is leftist, right-wing, up or down.

Journalism once aspired to do the same.