Penn Live Arts Blog

Find wonder and fun with Flip Fabrique’s Blizzard

Posted March 12, 2021

Circus Family

Photo by Sébastien Durocher
Families, this is just for you—an hour of free-spirited fun and wonder in a performance for kids and their adults of all ages. Our contemporary circus friends Flip Fabrique are sharing their current production Blizzard for one night only, Saturday, March 20 at 7 PM. You can watch for free via YouTube here.

This piece is special in its own right, but its timing feels apropos. As we reflect on our last “normal” week one year ago, I realize that Blizzard was the last performance I attended in person, outside of the Annenberg Center. It was wonderful to see Blizzard at TOHU in Montréal in the winter snow of December 2019. There is nostalgia in this piece for the Annenberg Center too. We were planning to present Blizzard live on our stage in April 2021. It was set to be announced when the world and all performing arts shut down in March 2020. We were not able to share that announcement with you, nor able to share the show with you in person. But now, through the generosity of the company’s special virtual presentation, we may share this performance with all of you in some form!

Flip Fabrique shared this for thought…

What if winter has taken over?
Not just outside, in the streets and in the fields,
But also in the houses, in the bedrooms
Underneath our clothes, and even right into our hearts.
Everything, absolutely everything, buried under the snow,
Obliterated by a white-out.
The north wind freezes time as it flows over us.
Would it be a catastrophe?
Or a chance to start over,
To fix our mistakes?
A new blank page
In the shape of a blizzard.

As we emerge from this winter and mark one year since the pandemic shutdown began in the USA, here is our chance to celebrate the snowy fun we had with our children this winter, and to revel in the refresh and reset of spring ahead. At the Annenberg Center, we also look forward to inviting Flip Fabrique to return to our stage when it is possible. In the meantime, enjoy the show online with us on March 20!