Join the Circus at the 2nd Busk and Bard Festival – Sat. Aug. 31, Roxbury

Sarah - Bacchanal Aerialist

One Saturday afternoon only you and the entire family can come to downtown Roxbury and join the circus at the second annual Busk and Bard Festival – a magnificent free street pageant of bewildering beauty.  This one vast undivided show featuring magicians, musicians galore, clowns, poets, acrobats, mimes, tarot card readers, face painters and celebrated chefs will stretch up the expanse of Bridge Street from the Delaware River to Vega Mountain and will guarantee to delight all the senses with exotic and unimagined diversions.

Marvel at the gravity defying aerialist performances and circus magic of Bacchanal Promotions coming all the way from Detroit city to amaze you with their pyrotechnic wonders and astounding trickery.  Wonder at the amazing feats of Galumpha and their stunning acrobatics, striking visual effects, physical comedy and inventive choreography.  Stand in awe at the shape-shifting escapades of Chee Chee the Clown and try if you might to follow the slight of hand of Charlie MacIntosh.

Delight your ears with the musical innovations of a host of street performers - Jim Kopp’s countrified sounds of various stripes; Eleemosynary featuring Peter Blue, Carol Mandigo and Danny Birnbaum with their smooth jigs, elegant reels, and other contradance favorites; the old-time Appalachian fiddle and banjo tunes of The God Forsaken String Band; and introducing Noel Fletcher – the eight year old guitar wunderkind from Mount Tremper playing The Who and other standards.

Exult in the culinary machinations of the Roxbury dining establishments and food vendors.  Cassie’s Café and The East Branch will be serving up their usual hearty fare.  Head to the Queen’s Mountain Café for a delightful lunch and delicious ice cream concoctions.  The Public will feature clams and brews on their front porch. A variety of other vendors from near and afar will be selling their succulent treats on Bridge Street, and Roxbury’s own Ate O Ate food truck will be purveying their other-worldly morsels from all corners of the globe.

Step right up and join the revelry on Saturday, August 31st in Roxbury.  This family friendly extravaganza is free to all but donations to the festival itself and to individual performers busking on the street that capture one’s fancy are highly encouraged.  The organizers of the Busk & Bard festival are so certain that their spectacle will excite public curiosity that we will refund three times the price of admission to anyone who can prove that there is any place in the universe more enthralling than the Roxbury Busk & Bard Festival.

For more information see buskandbard.org or contact Maggie Cullen of The Roxbury Arts Group at (607) 326-7908 or [email protected]

This program is sponsored through a collaboration of the Roxbury Arts Group, the Town of Roxbury, and the MARK Project, and funded in part by the A. Lindsay and Olive B. O’Connor Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and members of the local business community including Margaretville Telephone Company, Lamont Engineering and The Roxbury Motel.