Jason Webley, The Bobs, and Baby Gramps

What would the Moisture Festival be without music?! The festival would be a sad, sad circus tent indeed without the sounds and energy of the amazing musicians who come to play with us. To start off the list this year (and there will be so many more!), are these three returning favorites:


The Grammy-nominated Bobs are serious show business and four funny humans who take their music seriously. They're the world's only new wave a cappella singers, and with a 25 year history, boast over a dozen albums, and a DVD documentary: Sign My Snarling Dog. Moisture Festival is always pleased to have these insanely talented artists take the stage. Check out this video for a sneak peek at phenomenon that is The Bobs and browse their website for more audio and video clips.



Jason Webley is an enigmatic combination of folk, gypsy, punk, and everything in between. Jason has now released five full length albums including one that the Seattle Times called "One of the best Seattle CDs of the year". A prolific collaborative artist Jason has recorded and toured extensively with fellow songwriters most recently in Seattle with his Monsters of Accordion tour. You can currently find him traveling the country with his unique brand of sometimes bizarre, sometimes playful and always soulful poetry. We can't wait for his train to make a stop at the festival. Take a listen to this clip and more on his website.


According to an article in the special issue City of Music in Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, Baby Gramps is acknowledged as one of the top 50 most influential musicians in the last 100 years. He is credited with making audiences aware of old blues and novelty songs that the rest of the world has mostly forgotten. Playing an acoustic antique National Steel guitar, he sings his own unique arrangements of rags, jazz, & blues songs from the 20's & 30's and many originals with wordplay, humor, and throat singing. Gramps is a high energy humorously entertaining performer with an endless repertoire. Check out this clip on his website and join us at the festival for more!

Burlesque Hosts 2011: Madame X, Kevin Joyce, and Blanche DeBris

Moisture Festival is pleased to welcome back our ever impressive and always engaging Burlesque hosts Madame X (& her lawyer), Kevin Joyce, and Blanche DeBris. Moisture's Libertease Burlesque will be presented this year in ACT - A Contemporary Theatre's gorgeous in-the-round Allen Theater for an all-angles showcase of jaw dropping burlesque artistry.

Mme X is just back from traveling around the world in a very, very, very slick black stretch limo. It really is a jungle out there. It was so hot… so wild… so many small people. Now that she is back in sultry Seattle she is pleased to be seeing you at the Moisture Festival Burlesque show again. All of you.

Elevating the stature of Moisture Burlesque Madame X will again grace us with her enchanting and commanding presence for another year, presiding over a host of alluring artists from near and far.







Over the past 20 years, Kevin Joyce has established himself as one of the most versatile and prolific creative artists in the Pacific Northwest. Kevin is a performer, event designer, producer, composer, leadership trainer and creative consultant. He is a Co-Founder of UMO Ensemble and a principal performer, and was a Director of Teatro Zinzanni. With his wife Martha Enson he runs EnJoy Productions. A regular at Moisture, we greatly look forward to Kevin's antics at this year's festival.


If America had a sweetheart, Blanche DeBris would be her well-meaning but less attractive best friend. Miss DeBris has been entertaining herself and occasionally others for more years than she is able to reliably count. She is pleased as champagne punch to be invited back to the Moisture Festival. In a recent interview, Ms. DeBris is quoted as saying, "I always love appearing at high-class functions, and The Moisture Festival is among my favorites!" Blanche DeBris...putting the "ass" in "High-Class." Website

Trixie Little & The Evil Hate Monkey & Daredevil Chicken Club Join the Party

Never would i have imagined writing that combination of words together, but these two acts bridge Variete and Burlesque, bringing together all kinds of smart, sexy absurdity to delight and wow you.


Brand new to Moisture, Daredevil Chicken Club have entertained audiences with their innovative performances in over 34 countries. Combining comedy with absurd characters and circus skills they are modern comic Vaudevillians whose goal is to challenge and push the medium of live performance and search for the line between reality and absurdity, comedy and taboo. For more information visit their website.


"One part interactive street theatre, one part gymnastics demo, and a gazillion parts funny...Her crowd work...is some of the finest I have ever seen..."-Chris Harcum, Nytheatre.com








Superduo Trixie Little & The Evil Hate Monkey return to Moisture Festival with their highly skilled sexy-smart antics and a charming love-hate dynamic. Trixie and Monkey showcase trapeze, striptease, acrobatics and physical comedy in jaw-dropping burlesque, cabaret, variety and theater shows. This award-winning acrobatic burlesque team has been flipping and stripping for audiences since 2002. Mixing years of high level circus training, brilliant comedy and electric onstage chemistry their act defies description, chemistry, and expectation. Website.

Al Simmons & NANDA Return!

Two festival favorites will return to share their unique brands of entertainment with us this year.

Al Simmons is a man dedicated to the all but lost art of combining comedy with song, dance, magic, sight gags and, of course, bad puns. His costume-and-prop routines have often been the most popular and talked about act in theatres, concert halls, and at folk, children's and other festivals across North America. The Globe & Mail praises "His act, at once frenetic and engagingly simple, is a tour-de-force of ingenious, charming silliness."
We can't wait to see what he has in store for us this year! For more info on Al visit his website.
UPDATE 1/18: Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts, Al can't make this year's festival but will be blocking out some time in 2012.


NANDA's "Acrobaticalism" is a calculated chaos of dancing, juggling, music, acrobatics, and high energy kung-faux fighting. The show is all at once exuberantly innovative and widely appealing to audiences of all ages. NANDA defies convention and categorization by working within a limitless scope of imagination.
These artists’ unique blend of skill acts and hilarious antics will reward again and again with their innovative approach to pure entertainment. Check out their website for more!

Nate Cooper joins the 2011 Festival

Moisture Festival is pleased to welcome Nate Cooper back into our crazy clown car. Nate will be performing at this year's Festival, straight from Cirque du Soleil's "Love" in Las Vegas.

www.coopervaudeville.com
"Cooper is a natural physical comedian and eccentric dance aficionado. An endlessly talented clogger, tap and swing dancer, juggler, roller skater and clown. Dedicated to the art of play, Cooper explores physical limitation through clown logic."

Wang Hong returns for Moisture 2011

Wang Hong, a world class antipodist (foot balancer) who amazed Moisture Festival audiences last year with her grace and strength, will return for the 2011 Moisture Festival. She will perform the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th weeks of the festival. Exact show dates and times are still in the planning process, but we'll ensure there are plenty of opportunities to see her.

Wang Hong’s name translates into English as “rainbow” and the spectrum of talents that she employs in her performance are as beautiful and delicate as that ephemeral play of light. She was raised in the cold, far northeast province of Jain on China’s border with the Soviet Union. At 10 years of age she started training as a gymnast but began her performance career as a dancer. She worked in North America with the famed Tandy Beal Dance Theater company and the New Pickle Circus under Tandy's direction and with the Cirque du Soleil company. Wang Hong has toured as an acrobat, a juggler and an antipodist: her presentation of an act employing those skills in the delicate manipulation of parasols has won for her the Gold Medal at the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain, the most prestigious award in the world of circus.

Hers is a performance unlike any you've ever seen and not to be missed.

All I Want For Christmas...

...Is a brand spankin' new calendar for our website.

For those of you familiar with the festival, you are well aware that it's always a bit of a treasure hunt to find the show you want to attend in our website. As much fun as hunting through our long list of shows for that perfect date, time, or performer was, I think you'll appreciate what our magic-making web designers at The Medium have put together for us.

With over 50 shows at four venues planned (so far!) 2011 is going to be quite the wild run. To make choosing which shows you want to see easier we've just launched a new Calendar & Show Schedules page on our website.

We hope this will help you pick the perfect show to round up your friends for a night out, to discover a new performer, or to bring the kids to (or the perfect show to hire the babysitter for!). As we move into January look for each of our upcoming shows posted with additional information added as we confirm our 2011 artists.

We can't wait to see you at the 2011 festival!