Kindling Arts Festival 2024 – a selected works review
In its seventh year of being the main showcasing platform for performing arts in Nashville, once again, Kindling Arts Festival’s focus was on a broad theme of immense social value and sense of urgency: “Imperfections.” In a competitive society that constantly pressures us for progress and success, it is extremely important to propose an artistic confrontation of the opposite: how can we reshape the way that we view our imperfections, be blunt about them and embrace them instead of constantly and ineffectually trying to change ourselves to fit the norms and perpetuate an exclusive living environment?
As the soundscape during Amy Bell, Patriq James and Brandon Johnson’s dance trio (showcased within the Unclassified Performance Art program) suggests: “Art is both a mirror to the society and a hammer to shape it with.”
As a performance maker sitting in the audience, I took great pleasure from observing the audience’s reactions to what was being presented to them on stage, and I must say, I heard some contagious laughter and saw some down pouring of tears in the various performances I attended during this year’s edition. This creation of room for performing arts to become catalysts of dialogue and social change, alone, is a great success for a festival with a fixed theme and wide presence that puts the audience entertainment at the center of their work.
I purposefully chose to attend performances that were predominantly of a smaller scale and gave visibility to up and coming voices of experimental approaches to theater and performance, such as Bend & Break: Performance Art Studio Sharings, but I also attended works by already established and returning names such as Asia Pyron’s PYDANCE and Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva’s solo performance within the Unclassified showcase.
Below I will look into some of the performances that I was able to attend, feeling a sense of missing out on all the others that were physically not possible to be at due to overlapping schedules. On top of preparing my debut in the U.S. with the stage reading of my play What Sprouts First When the Earth Burns? (At Global Education Centre), I couldn’t wrap my math around to capture twenty-two performances in seven spaces in four days!
Murder of Crows by PYDANCE, choreographed by Asia Pyron who also serves as its director, set the labyrinthian stage for an immersive experience at the Welcome to 1979 vintage geared recording studio. The audience was invited to roam around the two-floor oak wood smelling space, to follow the actors around different rooms, to observe their textual unveilings and dance moves from various angles. There was no seating assigned so it was likely to be in proximity with the performers, sometimes realizing we were occupying the space of what was choreographed to be their next performance move. For those that have experienced Sleep No More’s Macbeth themed immersive promenade at McKittrick Hotel in NYC, this evoked a similar experience, although within the tight choreography of Murder of Crows, there seemed to be very little room left for live improvisation and interaction with the performers. In an almost satirical tone, Murder of Crows is about trust and secrets, about prestige and an effort to climb high up the ladder of success, while being confronted with anxieties and fears of not being good enough, not being enough. Asia Pyron and PYDANCE, names one should look out for whenever the opportunity is given, surely put dance pieces within a social context, oftentimes served in a very blunt and intensive way such as in their God’s Country which was showcased at OZ Arts during Brave New Works Lab.
30 imperfect plays in 60 perfect minutes, by Where House Ensemble Theater, also a participatory performance, brought 30 rough drafts of approximately two-minute sketches, the order of the interpretation of which was chosen by those who were able to shout the loudest in the audience. Ultimately, all sketches were performed with mighty skill and coordination. The scope of social issues that the sketches unveiled varied from romantic to family to interpersonal relationships, oftentimes provoking laughter due to the familiarity with what was being portrayed. However, moments of deep silence and long tears were also present among audience members, none of whom I believe was spared from being emotionally untouched.
Again, this year, Kindling Arts Festival had made room for visual arts and multimedia as well as workshops which were free to attend. The parties haven’t been missing from the agenda either! I managed to attend Look What the Tide Brought In, a celebration of Asian American Pacific Island (AAPI) films, an invigorating film program curated by Josh Inocalla. The film/video selection which included works by Josh Inocalla, Erik Sharpnack, Randa Newman, Amanda Adams, AJ Johnson, and James Kyso, aimed to emphasize the stories of the API artists in the U.S. through the lens of the richness that their diverse experiences bring to communities where they live and the country at large.
A similar goal was set for Unclassified, a selection of works by Sara Beth Go, Grandma Fun, Chris Strauss and Jennifer Whitcomb-Olivia staged at Darkhorse Theater. Sara Beth Go utilized stop-motion to parallel her vulnerable yet humorous songs and storytelling, Grandma Fun invited us to rejoice in her The Jungle Jalopy Presents: Hot Dog Lady Spectacular Freakshow hotdog dance recital, producing an amusing sentiment through red nailed hotdogs dangling from her intimate areas and fingers, while dancing to various rock and roll love songs. Chris Strauss’s bantering Nutcracker parody queerified their talents as a dancer and piano player while Jennifer Whitcomb-Olivia’s heart-wrenching solo that examined the various spectrums of being in and with the world as a neurodivergent individual brought both sighs of empathy and crackles of laughter.
At Darkhorse Theater, I also attended the neo-burlesque, all black, mystical garden of Fleur Noire featuring Eden L and established DJ Afrosheen. While the show started by stating the fact that the black woman is the most marginalized, underserved member of the U.S. society, unfortunately, due to a lack of critical approach towards the objectification of women’s bodies, it reduced the brave performers into what it aimed to criticize, and it reinforced their obstructive positions.
Bend&Break Performance Art Studio Sharings showcased at Global Education Center included the above-mentioned contemporary dance trio consisting of Amy Bell, Patriq James and Brandon Johnson, Delaine Bobbs & Sandy Perez’s push and pull dance of placating and antagonizing forces and Clover Tipton’s witty performative reflection on the artificiality of assemblage. In an avant-garde usage of irony and naturalist stage presence, Clover utilized the assembling of high end rose bouquets to delve deeply into their correspondence with personal reassembling as a means to embrace self in opposition to what comes to us as a given (by our family and surroundings); to further question multiple facets of this friction, including the mention of the underpaid workers in Brazil who have cultivated the mesmerizing yet scentless red roses.
The festival concluded with performances at Begonia Labs. Through a ritualistic mystique reflecting on the fleeting nature of spiritualism, Sylas & Bunny Nunn’s: Let loose a terrible cry– brought an otherworldly ritualistic atmosphere, accompanied by rapturous video installations by Bunny Nunn. The looped cello sounds added a mellifluous layer to Sylas Nunn’s rippled reading under a lush red color.
Following the above, IMGRNT’s: War & Beat (in A natural minor) – brought to stage a god-like creature’s power and might covered in fabrics that reminisce nature and blood. With a spike mask and high tempo techno music, IMGRNT views through ”the lens of alien invasion, unapologetically celebrating the immigrant experience”. Taking pride in the status of an immigrant, otherwise, othered under the legislatively defined term ‘alien’, brings a fresh and empowering perspective.
I believe that aside from advancing in their careers, artists have a tough role to challenge and forward the art forms in the mediums that they practice. Despite all the hard work put into realizing these thought provoking and accelerating performing artworks, due to the ephemeral nature of performing arts, they have a limited longevity. To ensure the acknowledgement of the labor and engagement of these artists and at the same time to offer a more disruptive performative art scene to a wider and not necessarily artistic (coming from the art world) audience, if not all, at least some of these performances should become part of the repertoire in various permanent stages in the city. Kindling Arts has initiated an attempt to do so by bringing back the revised East Nashville Facebook Page- The Musical by Emma Supica and Cherry Bomb from last year’s edition (August 10th at Riverside Revival), and I truly hope that this support of the local artists expands as the festival grows!
(Note: Photography from the event is still being processed, check back for updated photos!)
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Fjolla Hoxha is a writer, theater & drama critic, and performance maker from Prizren/Kosova, newly based in Nashville. Her artistic practice is rooted on assiduous research that grounds on critical theory, cultural studies, oral histories and narratives, institutional and personal archives. Aside from being a writer, Fjolla works as a cross-media performance artist, focused on site-specificity and audience participation. She has collaborated with various artists, collectives and institutions based in Europe and the U.S. and her work has been staged and stage-read in Kosova, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, UK while her plays and reviews have also been published in Greece and New York.
