With 11 days and over 300 events, the Buffalo Infringement Festival may seem difficult to navigate, but it’s not. Basically, there are two ways to do it—with a meticulous plan or haphazardly. Each method offers rewards.

In brief, the festival is an effort to present as many artists as want to participate within the 11 days. This year the organizers are claiming 40 venues, “in and around the Allentown neighborhood of Buffalo,” which I think they are interpreting with geographic generosity. Let’s say it is mostly in and around Allentown.

Aaron Piepszny

The backbone of the festival is the theater events, though the other visual, performance, dance, musical, and miscellaneous media presentations give the festival its distinctive character, and frankly, as various sound, music, and multimedia events become more and more abundant, they have begun to change the character and focus of the Infringement Festival radically.

The festival published its schedule in eight generous pages of Artvoice last week (click here to download a PDF version), but if you haven’t held onto your copy, the festival Web site is a valuable resource for those who want to plan. The Web site lists events by genre: theater, music theater, performance art, cabaret, dance, street, improve, poetry, audio, film, multimedia, visual arts, and family friendly—with lots of overlap and explanation of widely varying usefulness. Expect publicity to be sweetened with plenty of flyers during the festival itself. The Web site is also the best source of schedule updates, though you should be prepared for that to be imperfect too—with so much going on, plans can change at minutes to show time. You may think you are heading to a particular show, but at the last minute, you may end up at something else, or having a drink at the Hardware Café.

It is impossible to make recommendations, for the nature of the festival invites the pleasures of surprise discovery. Word of mouth is sure to play a large role in the way the festival unfolds, as audience members share their experiences in the various restaurants, bistros, and watering holes of Allentown.

On my immediate radar:

You can’t depend on word of mouth for events that will happen one time only. My eye is always on new, original work, and I note that Matthew LaChiusa is offering a staged reading of his original full-length play, Red Clay, to be performed on July 28 at the Allendale Theatre at 8:30pm. LaChiusa’s highly satisfying Axeman’s Jazz also got its start as a staged reading at the Infringement Festival, and for Red Clay, the playwright-director has assembled a talented cast of some of Buffalo’s most highly regarded actors, including Phil Knoerzer, Anne Roaldi, Chris Standart, Linda Stein, Jeffrey Coyle, and John Kaczorowski.

Non-performance art you don't see often: Kobie D. Barber's painted shoes at Gateway Gallery on August 2 and College Street Gallery on August 3.

Fernando Arrabal’s 1972 prison drama …and they put handcuffs on flowers is legendary for its brutality and uncompromisingly graphic nature. Based on the playwright’s experience as a political prisoner in Franco’s fascist Spain, he wrote a play depicting the humiliation and torture he had endured. Reports from the time say Arrabal’s depiction stopped at almost nothing, and included the staging of garroting and disembowelment. Audience members were obliged to find their seats in the dark and were required to stay confined to them for the duration. That production, directed by the author himself, proved to be quite popular…in 1972. It is interesting that Subversive Theatre has unearthed this script. The company often points an historical eye to subversion, as with their successful, highly acclaimed (and Artie Award winning) production of Clifford Odets’ 1935 play about the American labor union movement, Waiting for Lefty, last season. Their choices suggest that they see more subversion in the work of the past than in the present. For …and they put handcuffs on flowers, the company promises “a highly experimental rendition” of the piece, which they will be staging in the cavernous basement of the defunct Kitchen Distribution Warehouse at 20 Auburn Street (two doors west of the corner of Auburn Street and Niagara Street) on Buffalo’s West Side. The hour-long production might be interesting just to see the venue.

I first saw the lesbian performance troupe Brazen-Faced Varlets at the Infringement Festival. It’s a marvelous company, and they did a brilliant job with their own delightful comic reworking of Romeo and Juliet. I’m intrigued to see their take on Catholic School Girls by Casey Kurtti, a collection of sketches of Catholic school girls, first through eighth grade, in Yonkers set in the 1960s. It is described as “a gentle coming-of-age dramedy that follows four friends as they work their way through a Catholic education. Along the way they’re mentored by a flock of nuns who often teach the girls through tough love.” The Varlets will be performing at the Alt Theatre at 255 Great Arrow, which means if you want to see them, you will have to plan a little. That’s “around” not “in” Allentown. Admission is $5-$7.

SELF-infringement The project that turns the whole city into a work of art Far and away the most seditious act in the Infringement Festival, in my opinion, is Brian Milbrand and Ron Ehmke’s Self-Infringement. It’s a simple box in the window at Rust Belt Books, from which you choose an envelope. Inside are instructions for a secret performance of your own: Maybe there are some twist ties from which you’re to make sculptures of your family; maybe there’s a tiny notebook, which, after filling it with embarrassing secrets about yourself, you’re supposed to leave in a public place. The underhanded beauty of the project is twofold. First, it enlists people who are ordinarily relegated to the audience in the creation of art. Second, it causes even the most casual pedestrian in Allentown to consider every item in the streetscape as potentially a work of art: Is that napkin litter, or does it contain a drawing or a message left to be discovered? Is that guy mumbling to himself in the parking lot crazy all 365 days of the year, or did his envelope instruct him to recite the Declaration of Independence in a public place? Very tricky, fellas. —geoff kelly

The Alt Theatre is off the beaten path but a very nice performance space in the Great Arrow building at Elmwood and Great Arrow, particularly well-suited to dance. If you have never been there, the Infringement Festival provides you with a handy reason. Events here include Unsave: The Last Dance, a farewell performance by Infringement regular Aaron Piepszny, a “post-modern ballet abstract hip-hop representational mime dance and his genre-defying otherness for the last time in Buffalo.” Wading for Answers is an evening of poetry, music, and dance by veteran performance art duo David Butler and David Kane—a “dramatically staged evening of spoken word co-directed by Todd Warfield and Butler, and featuring an original soundtrack by recording artist David Kane, with choreography by dance artist Amy Taravella, incorporating elements of theater and dance in dramatically staged versions of Butler’s poetry.” Dances that Push Right Back, presented by the Alt Theater and Buffalo Contemporary Dance, features “an evening of gut wrenching solo dances by local and internationally famous choreographers dealing with anti-war and anti-establishment.” Floaters interests me because I have noted the high quality of the work by its director, Virginia Brannon. Written by Mike Fanelli, and featuring Robb Nesbitt, Patrick Fanelli, Joy Scime and Joe Laspro, it’s described as “A barber moonlighting as an exterminator sees and hears ants. Are they real or just floating through his mind?”

Also at the Alt, De Vices, presented by Hi Lyfe Dancers, is a dance and spoken word production using the music of James Brown “to engage the age old question: are women the cause of the downfall of man?” The dancers use “African diasporic dance and burlesque to transfix the audience and dare them to evaluate the mother/son relationship.” The Fleuron Rouge Fusion Belly Dance Troupe presents another opportunity to see dance at the Alt, as does Fluition, “movement experiments in fluidity and control with the background of pulsating and percussive inspirations, with solo and group performance in creative dance forms, presented by Janet Reed and Dancers.

Certainly the most mainstream offering that’s included in the festival line-up is the Rare Bird production of A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia, to be performed at the Pro Music Performance Center at 5445 Transit Road, between Maple and Klein, in Williamsville.

More in the spirit of things is Byrdbrain, presented by ScottFree Theatre, written by Canadian playwright Luciano Iacobelli, directed and performed by Scott Andrew Kurchak at Rustbelt Books, 202 Allen Street. Here, Mark Byrd is a burned-out high school teacher whose students have locked him in a small storage closet at the back of his classroom. We are invited to “spend the Victoria Day long weekend with Mark as he deals with how to survive this ordeal and how he confronts himself on how he has become every high school teacher he has ever hated.”

There seems to be more Canadian content in the Infringement Festival than there is on Canadian television, actually. The Allendale will host Canadian Comedy Invasion: Stand Up Battle at the Border!!! presented by Doin’ Time Comedy Showcase. Listed as “theater,” this appears to be “stand up comedy,” as we are promised, “the BEST DAMN COMEDY SHOW money can buy at only $6!” Part of the proceeds of this meeting of Canadian and Buffalonian comics will go to support Theatre of Youth.

Other centers of activity include El Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera, where you can see In Deciding, a one-act play “in which a heart and a brain weigh the positives and negatives of a decision they are faced with.” In One Man’s Meat by Will Scheffer, presented by Cosmopolitan Theatre Company, “Someone’s in the kitchen with Jeffrey. Jeffrey Dahmer, that is.” The play looks at the notorious cannibal serial killer with understanding. While I Was Cooking Chicken…, in which “Secret Service agents pay me an unusual ‘friendly’ visit while I was cooking an ordinary chicken dinner,” is presented by Robb Nesbitt.

Right on the beaten track and at the heart of it all, Rust Belt Books and the Allendale Theatre are hots beds of nonstop activity. The former is a very small venue, so arrive early; the latter is a good bet for those who want to pick something up spontaneously.

In addition to events already mentioned, the Allendale will host Durang Durang, presented by Cosmopolitan Theatre Company, a parody of the classic Hardy Boys novels. Rustbelt will feature The Sofa King’s Improv, presented by Dave Rzeszutek, in which “a bunch of seasoned improv performers have graduated from Buff State’s weekly FNL Improv comedy show and have now formed the Sofa Kings for fast-paced, contemporary, thought provoking, and often adult comedy, intended for mature audiences for a $5 admission.”

Always fun are Ron Ehmke’s variations on Shakespeare in the Parking Space: “the Bard hits the pavement in this late-night self-serve Shakespeare soirée. BYO scripts, props, and costumes,” or use theirs. Hosted by Ronawanda and Auntie Establishment, the event will take place in front of Lagniappes on August 2, 9-10pm.

This should help you scratch the surface, but there is a lot more, with many more venues and events aplenty. Pick something, and prepare to be spontaneous. The Infringement Festival is always a good time and is one of those life-affirming events that reminds us why we live in Buffalo.

Turn Up The Fringe: Music at the Infringement Festival Amungus Starting this Thursday and for the full week and a half that follows, the freaks will be out in full effect and Allen Street will be their ground zero. These are the good freaks, of course: the ones who not only refuse to play by the rules but are dead set on rewriting them. The freaks making art for arts sake. Buffalo celebrates the international Infringement Festival—which has cousins an ocean away in Bordeaux, France as well as in the Canadian cities of Regina, Saskatchewan and Montreal—with an aim at arts anarchy. With a goal to includeall different forms of the critical arts, it’s a veritable free-for-all celebrating creativity with an inherent anti-commercial and anti-commodified stance strongly at its core. While seemingly every kind of art ably finds inclusion as a part of the Infringement Festival, the largest contingent is unquestionably live music. Here’s a handful of musical Infringement picks not to be missed: Wading for Answers—Buffalo pianist/composer David Kane—one of the Queen City’s too oft overlooked musical geniuses—teams with actor/performance artist/visual artist/writer David Butler for a show that puts together music, poetry, spoken word, and dance. Performing July 26, 27, 29, August 1 and 2 at Alt Theater. Amungus—Goo Goo Doll Robby Takac casts off his rock superstar (carwash?) persona to join Brian Schulmeister in their ongoing and boundary-testing laptop experimentation that refuses to confine itself to rock, dance, alternative, funk, and techno. Performing July 24 at Nietzsche’s and July 29 at Stillwater. The Painkillers—It’s hard not to love the city’s longest-standing, real-deal punk rock band. The Painkillers are still at it and still worshipping at the altar of the Ramones and the Dead Boys with their short, sharp blasts packed primarily with three chords and a lot of attitude. Performing July 25 at The Golden Key and August 2 at Club Diablo. Besnyo—Though supporting the practically brand new 2008 release Worry—a haunting and majestic epic of noisy orchestral pop—the band called Besnyo is reportedly hard at work already writing songs for a followup. Performing July 25 at Nietzsche’s and August 1 at The Golden Key. The Staylows The Found—Buffalo’s maximum rock and ballsy blues sleazoids riff it up. Performing July 31 at Nietzsche’s. A Hotel Nourishing—Just when you think you’ve seen everything that guitar and drums can do, you see Sonny Barker and Cameron Rogers and you change your mind. A Hotel Nourishing manages to smoothly blend an incongruent mixture of post-punk, math rock, jazz, prog rock, and beyond to maximum effect. Think Fugazi meets Frank Zappa. Joy Divison meets John Coltrane. Performing July 25 at Guerrilla Gallery @ Madd Tat2, July 25 at Nietzsche’s, July 26 at Buffalo Barfly HQ, and July 28 at Stillwater. Elephant Art—Here’s a progressive/psych/experimental/metal band made up of audio production majors from Canandaigua, New York, who call Mastodon, Radiohead, the Beatles, and the Flaming Lips influences. For more info, go to myspace.com/elephantartband. Performing August 2 at Gateway Gallery. Holy Freakin’ Cellos—Last time the thought of cellos was this appealing was when one was firmly placed between the gorgeous Lori Singer’s legs on TV’s Fame. Here are four very different bands—folky duo Nate & Kate, Euro classicists Casperous Vine, indie rockers the Stay Lows, and sludge outfit Trystero—making radically different kinds of music but with that one bowed instrument in common. Will there be cello solos? There better be! Performing August 1 at Soundlab. —donny kutzbach