The Kindling Arts Festival Set to Ignite Nashville from July 18
The vibrant city of Nashville is all set for another artistic endeavour as the much-awaited annual Kindling Arts Festival gears up to kick-start from July 18. The popular event promises four days of electrifying performances, authentic art, theatre, music, and dance experiences across various venues throughout the city.
Enriching Local Arts Scene
The Kindling Arts Festival, into its sixth year, will showcase the creativity of local artists and empower them with exhibition opportunities. More than 20 diverse and unique projects will be featured in this year’s event, underlining the vibrant arts and culture scene in Nashville.
Local artist Eve Petty, who has participated in various capacities in past festivals, highlighted, “I’ve worked with Kindling for seven years now in a lot of different capacities, and it really is one of my favorite things about the Nashville theater community.” She underscores this year’s Kindling Festival as “the whole group’s passion poured into a common goal.”
Unique and Entertaining Performances
This year’s festival is equally thrilling, with experimental performances, unique collaborative art forms, and even interactive engaging shows. One of the highlights of the festival is Monsterball, a captivating blend of improvisational comedy and sports drama, featuring life-size Muppet-like monsters in a rollicking kickball match against Nashville residents. The free family-friendly performance promises lots of fun and laughter, with an underlying message of unity and camaraderie.
Evolution of Kindling Arts Festival
Since its establishment in 2018, the Kindling Arts Festival has consistently delivered some of Nashville’s innovative and daring works by a diverse roster of groundbreaking artists. This year’s festival is more ambitious than ever, with 22 imaginative works across genres like theatre, music and dance to multimedia experiences, and experimental performance art.
According to Daniel Jones, the producing artistic director, “Kindling has carved out a space that is absolutely vital and necessary for the arts community. We had more than 100 artist applications this year, and half our lineup is new to us — people we’ve never worked with before. It’s really a testament to what’s happening in the city — the growth, and the way artists are ready to step up if given a platform.”
Innovative Dance-Theater Experience
Contributing to the vibrancy of the festival, Asia Pyron, a prominent choreographer, and director of PYDANCE, has created an immersive dance-theatre experience titled Murder of Crows. Presented at the Welcome to 1979 recording studio, the piece transports audiences back in time to an intriguing party where plans go haywire.
Sharing her excitement, Pyron states, “ Murder of Crows was very much inspired by Clue: The Movie. It’s a lot of fun, and we’re delighted to be at Welcome to 1979. It’s such a cool space — it just screams vintage Nashville.” She further added, “Kindling has done such a great job with that — engaging audiences, supporting artists, and exploring everything that the local arts scene can be.”
The Kindling Arts Festival is indeed a stellar platform for artists and a fantastic opportunity for the Nashville community to engage with art in its various forms. As the city prepares for this annual gala, it is without a doubt that the Kindling Arts Festival will ignite the local arts culture with its eclectic mix of performances.
