First Annual FireFish Festival to Debut in Lorain in September

Local events organizer James Levin, the guy behind Cleveland World Festival, Cleveland’s Ingenuity Festival, the Wooster Jam Arts and Music Festival, Cleveland Public Theatre and the Gordon Square Arts District, is the mastermind behind FireFish, a new arts and music festival set to take place from 4 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, in Lorain. Local and world musicians will perform and there will be fire, arts performances and installations as the free festival will present music, dance, theatre and art in “unexpected places” such as hidden alleys, empty storefronts, an abandoned parking deck on Broadway Avenue and the backs of several firetrucks.

“FireFish is an exciting next step in our mission to enhance the revitalization/economic development in downtown Lorain, and ultimately impacting Lorain County,” says Joan Perch, founder of FireFish Arts and Gallery Coordinator at Lorain County Community College’s Stocker Arts Center, in a press release. “The festival will ignite downtown Lorain with high quality local, regional and international-caliber fire and arts performances and installations.”

Lorain was the home of Levin’s grandparents and extended family, and he spent a considerable amount of time there as a child.

“The FireFish Festival will provide a glimpse of what is possible in the reimagining of downtown Lorain,” says Levin in a press release. “Similar to what Public Theatre brought to Gordon Square and what the Ingenuity Festival brought to East 4th Street, this Festival will be the impetus for the reinvention of Lorain as a dynamic, artistic mecca. By bringing together local and regional visual, performing, and installation artists, some experimenting with the forms of fire in their art, presented in places that you may not expect, we hope to create an unforgettable one-of-a-kind arts festival that will attract thousands of new visitors to this Northeastern Ohio hidden gem on the water.”