Madison’s Cycropia Aerial Dance troupe, Minneapolis hip hop artist Nur-D and The Sadies, the incomparable Toronto rock band, will headline a more compact 2023 Orton Park Festival, Aug. 25-27. The annual late-summer near east-side neighborhood bash, a fundraiser for the Marquette Neighborhood Association, has scaled down from four nights to three for 2023.
“MNA decided it was time to reduce the event to three days in order to go easier on the park, the neighbors, and the organizers,” reads an MNA statement.
Isthmus is a sponsor of the event for the second straight year.
For the first time in its decades-long run of festival appearances, Cycropia will not stage its aerial dance performances in the limbs of the giant bur oak tree in the park’s southwest corner. Beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, Cycropia’s dancers will instead make use of a large, portable rig.
Prior to the dance performance, Friday night will also feature a picnic with multiple food carts and a parade from Forward! Marching Band.
Saturday gets underway with appearances by Madison’s Bent Antenna at 11:45 a.m. and Chicago’s Able Baker at 1:15 p.m. Milwaukee’s Dead Horses take the stage at 2:45 p.m.
After a break from the music at 4 p.m. for the “world famous” Orton Park Festival Auction, Eau Claire’s Them Coulee Boys bring their blend of folk and Americana to the stage at 5 p.m.
Saturday’s music wraps up starting at 7 p.m. with Nur-D, whose hip hop is, to quote the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “loaded with stuff straight out of his, yep, nerdy lifestyle. His fantastical references to comic books and video games — and emotional lines about body positivity and family drama — actually seem way more real-life than the usual male rapper machismo that still dominates mainstream hip-hop.”
Nur-D video performance
Main stage music on Sunday starts at noon with The Also-Rans, a new-ish Madison band playing “crisp Americana.” The Tony Castaneda Latin Jazz Super Band goes on at 1:30 p.m.
The Mini Mekons bring a slightly downsized version of the seminal British punk band formed in the ‘70s to the stage at 3 p.m., followed by Madison’s Gold Dust Women, an all-female Fleetwood Mac tribute act.
The Sadies, appearing for the first time in Madison after the tragic death of lead man Dallas Good, will close the festival with their inimitable mix of everything from ’60s garage and psychedelic rock to surf instrumentals and punk rock.
