“Blue Silk at Denver Fringe

The words I share here won’t come close to capturing the full weight of Blue Silk.

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to photograph a number of beautiful performances at the Denver Fringe Festival—but this one stayed with me. Blue Silk slipped under my skin and settled somewhere familiar. As someone who has spent years working in mental health and substance misuse, this show didn’t feel like a story—it was something I have seen. Something I’ve understood.

Told through dreamlike puppetry and quiet devastation, Blue Silk follows a puppet grappling with an addiction to silk. But what unfolds is far more than a metaphor. It’s a portrait of longing, of dependency, of consumption—one that doesn’t preach, but holds up a mirror with startling tenderness.

There are moments in this production I keep returning to. The puppet is struggling, unraveling in front of us—and the puppeteers surround it. You can see their faces. The concern. The love. The helplessness. The heartbreak.

And I’ve seen these scenes before.

I’ve witnessed them in hospital rooms. In kitchens. In quiet bedrooms after everything has fallen apart. The people who love, trying so hard to help, and not knowing how. These moments in the show are the most emotionally honest pieces of performance I’ve ever witnessed—with or without puppets.

Cinco, the writer, director, and puppet designer, has created a haunting, fragile world that echoes truths we’re often too afraid to say out loud. Blue Silk explores the toll of addiction—on the body, on the earth, on each other—and does so with poetic precision. It’s a warning, yes, but it’s also a reaching hand.

As anyone who has ever been witness to a story like this will know, there is deep sorrow within the layers of this piece.
Still, Cinco manages to share something so vitally important–
hope.