The Royal Frog Ballet Performance Collective

_Originally concocted as an open studio for performers, The Cabaret (now in its fourth manifestation of being) has evolved in to a sprawling and moving performance and installation monster; part countryside jaunt, part experimental performance art, it holds acts, sculptures, images, moments and movements in its warm and welcoming arms.

Starting at sunset in the golden flush of mid-October, the audience was lead through the rolling farm land as beasts wandered from the fields, stories seeped from the swamps, and songs fluttered down with the leaves.   As the darkness swelled, hundreds of carved pumpkins led the way towards a bonfire to celebrate the harvest season.  Punk rock at its sweetest, shamanism down-home style, hot cider, and a walk in the woods. What could be better?

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The Royal Frog Ballet, and C3 Northampton presented THE BUSKER’S BALL: A one-day street art event  in downtown Northampton.

A variety of local and touring artists of all kinds delighted passersby and to help shake off the Winter blues with antics, songs, games, dances, interactive projects, and wild costumes -- all in celebration of cold and snow being so “last season.”

Howling musicians, wiggling puppeteers, loud fortune tellers, ethereal movers, pick-pocketing performance artists, death defying jugglers, moving musicals, sticky finger painters, fancy clowns, living statues, screechy sing-a-longs, dime-a-minute tango lessons, and portable carnivals were just a FEW of the sidewalk stops for Saturday! 

The clouds parted, the performers raged for hours in their finery, late in to the evening at the Cabaret, and the volunteers sweated, hawked, and lugged gear like pros.  The bubbles blew, the paintings dripped, the tutu's flounced, the dollar bills flew, the citizens gawked and laughed. A good time was had by all.

This event was co-organized by The Royal Frog Ballet and C3 Northampton, and received funding from the Northampton Arts Council.

A patch of pumpkins set afire against the darkening asparagus evening, dancing grannies, warbling wailers hooting in the tree tops and rooting in the ditches, that glorious October sunset, moths, minotaurs, chicken footed surprises, adventures without going anywhere, ohAmour! amongst the trees, even Beezlebub himself was there. And oh that moon, that full full moon.  An autumn love poem, from us to you, sung by the falling leaves.

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HOORAY! Spring finally showed up and The Royal Frog Ballet celebrated with an evening of song and celebration performed by The Squash Blossom Plate Stacking Society!  It was a hootenany barn-singing whatnot to celebrate the first of May, which took place in the beautiful Blue Barn at Bramble Hill Farm in Amherst.  We sang out those winter blues once and for all, dressed in our springtime finest, shouting, wailing and hooting of longing, waiting, waltzing and soup.

The Ballet headed across the river to Northampton for the cold, miserable month of February, and descended on the A.P.E Gallery on Main Street! Over the course of two weeks, the sculptural/mural installation continuously transformed, grew, and morphed like a time-lapse film of plants growing, as REAL growing plants rounded out the actual installation.  Each transformation brought the sculpture and murals closer and closer to the moments when they blossomed in to evening performances.

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We're still working on how to listen to the MUSIC

The Royal Frog Ballet knew it was getting cold so we cooked up a warm and spooky, wacky and magical event in celebration of the season.  In collaboration with our dear old friends of Old Friends Farm, we took over the hillocks and ravines, the woods, the pond, the fire pit, and put our pumpkins, birds, beasts, skeletons, singers, weavers, washers, sailors, dragons and storytellers spread out like manure in the fields. A walking tour of fall, an odessey of the sea of the sky, a ghoulish endeavor to navigate the darker edges of fall. A gorgeous evening, a community gathering of epic proportions, of dream logic, of collective inspiration and moment sharing.  Even the geese and the sunset came out to collaborate...

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We clowns: We honked that Octopus of Doom. We ran. We danced.  We yelped and waved. We held up the parade (but who didn't!). We raised our silent instruments high and we dragged them on the ground when we were tired.  We twirled and leapt.  Now we have a full brass band that doesn't make any noise, closets full of stunning black and white attire, and a 22  person clown ensemble ready to parade the streets of anywhere.  We may silently parade through a town near you soon because we just can't get enough...

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A highly trained, incredibly skilled, world-renowned group of clowns is trying to fix the economy.   Sound familiar? CIRQUE ECONOMIQUE is thrifty, circular, sequined and just as confusing as the business section in the New York Times, but with high-kicks and top hats.  Rare exotic elephants,  ferocious big cats, a one-man orchestra and spangled performers strong enough to bend over backwards and lift us out of the recession, this circus has everything but a budget.  Cheap, quick and easy,  CIRQUE ECONOMIQUE will dazzle and delight you, cure your worries, and pay your bills!

Designed to be performed out of doors, preferably on town greens, farms, and other common spaces.

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Magic and a surprising quilt, big hats, dirty laundry, and fake eyelashes are the eye of the hurricane of this show.  Created to be part of the installation "Thawing Tender," organized by Lily Gold in NYC, this show is a fast, furious and manic ode to spring cleaning.  Audience registration for a skill swap/barter event was done by two ladies with bees in their bonnets on the streets of Brooklyn before the opening. 

The 1st Annual Surrealist Cabaret and installation at the Blue Barn Space.  Inspired by the local chicken eviseration and the names of the seasonal full moons, this cabaret included sculpturally presented and spoken poetry, butoh-inspired character work with stones and water, a 20 foot musician holding chair; the man in the moon aloft and singing, a dancing lunar cycle with projected prints, wailing from the balconies, tangoing with skeletons, flying bicycles, nests, spoons, shoes, and a showstopping, egg-busting number about sweaters by the Grannies.

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Sexy ladies, willfully using their mini-skirts for the sake of agriculture, our culture, and the local economy!  A show case of our early love of sequins aqd mudboots as a fashion statement.