Fresno Famous

The Rogue Festival is a great chance for new connections.

Connections are made between artists and venues, artists and the press, artists and local radio, and maybe most obviously, connections between performers and an audience.

Everything from new friendships to new bands and new theater companies are formed during this week-and-a-half creative blow-out. (One couple took this idea to it’s ultimate conclusion and were actually married during the wrap party of Rogue 2004)

Maybe the most interesting hook-ups can happen between one performer and another. Lots of lines are
happily crossed. Artists who have worked separately in their own genres and disciplines suddenly start mixing. Painters, photographers, poets and actors start working together and come up with the most interesting results---sometimes to show off their work in the next year’s festival.
I’ve made several such happy connections through my involvement with the Rogue Festival.
I had met Leland Vander Poel before. He had married a girl I knew from high school. But after I saw his performance “Songs From My Living Room” in Rogue Festival #2....way back in 2003...I asked him to help me with my own Rogue show the following year. He then went on to be a core musician in our
band The Trike Shop.
Last year, while doing some on-air promotional spots on KFCF for the upcoming Rogue, I ran into members of the dance group “Baba For Now”. I said that I’d always wished to try and write music for a group like theirs. A couple of phone calls and backyard meetings ensued, and we had the plan for a new show. It’s called, simply enough, The Blake and Baba Show and we are debuting it in this year’s line-up of performances.
I put the question about connections to my new partners in Baba. Founding member Andrea Dezubiria mentioned the connection made between our live musicians and their dance group. Newest
Baba member Richard Ruth talked about the kismet of moving back to Fresno from New York,
re-connecting with a childhood friend who introduced
him to the fun of seeing Rogue shows and then meeting Andrea who got him back into dance and into their group.
What have been some of the connections you’ve made through the Rogue Festival? (new creative
partners / new people to help bolster your work in the Arts/ etc. ) Any good stories?