Kindling Arts Unveils Full Programming Line-up for 8th Annual Festival

Kindling Arts will present 19 projects for its 2025 Festival, united by the "Fortunes & Fates" festival theme, with performances July 24-27 at venues across West Nashville. Highlights from the diverse line-up of performance work created by all-local Nashville artists include: a fantastical journey staged in the city's most popular gay bar, Play; bold original performances confronting urgent issues including queer identity, gun violence in schools, the carceral system, and Black liberation; 21st century art-pop re-envisioning of a classic play; a casino-themed night at the circus; and inclusive celebrations of the body and our world. These unclassifiable performance experiences will be held at OZ Arts Nashville, Darkhorse Theatre, The Barbershop Theater, Nashville School for the Aerial Arts, Play Dance Bar, Actors Bridge Studio at the Darkhorse, Welcome to 1979, and Global Education Center. Audiences are encouraged to celebrate and support local artists all weekend long by securing a Festival Pass for as little as $98.

Among the adventurous performance experiences headlining the 2025 Festival is the premiere of I Saw Goody Proctor With the Devil, an exploration of the Salem Witch Trials through an electro-pop, feminist, 21st-century lens from boundary-breaking comedy-theatre troupe Amm Skellars. This bombastic, irreverent new musical celebrates the bratiness of the puritanical Goodies and encourages audiences to dance along to arena hits such as "Because It Is My Name," "Good Girl," and "How You Like Me Now?" in addition to the titular track. Excerpts of this buzzworthy project made waves last Halloween at the East Room and this spring at Kindling's annual fundraiser The Disco Ball: Spellbound. The full production will have 3 performances at OZ Arts during Festival weekend, inviting audiences to make this a #SalemSummer.

OZ Arts will also be a home for innovative, short-form dance and performance art, including Seekers, a trio of new works including a performance art creation by theater legend Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva, an original solo by dancer/choreographer Phylicia Roybal, and a celebratory group dance by Eboné Amos. Life Force: Expressions of Power, another showcase of large group projects on the OZ Arts stage, includes the powerful work of Friends Life Community featuring beloved poet Ciona Rouse, a moving piece from choreographer Delaine Dobbs, and a collaboration between Shabaz Ujima / Shackled Feet Dance and Chattanooga-based Juba Dance Ensemble.

On Charlotte Ave, the Darkhorse Theatre will be home to a diverse array of theater, performance art, dance, and burlesque. One of the most anticipated projects in this year's Festival is Within Reach, a new theatre collaboration made by citizens who have been impacted by the carceral system, helmed by prominent director and activist Shawn Whitsell. The powerful performance features contributions from currently and formerly incarcerated Tennesseans and families whose lives have been shaped by mass incarceration. In addition to 2 performances in Kindling Arts Festival, the project will also be featured in the popular Shades of Black Theater Festival in September. Details for additional projects at the Darkhorse are included below.

Over on Church Street, Woven Theatre Company takes over the wildly popular Play Dance Bar for 3 performances of the newest play by River Timms, Magical Journey. The adventurous tale follows a couple of stoner millennials in the aftermath of a gnarly breakup who get transported to a fantastical realm with the help of a particular strain of cannabis. The celebratory theatrical experience promises queer romances, rock music, dragons, and sword-fighting along the quest to reclaim joy and, of course, defeat the maniacal Wizard King.

The ever-popular circus and aerial performances return this year at Nashville School for the Aerial Arts, for audiences seeking a high-flying thrill. Suspended Gravity dives into the underbelly of a flashy casino in their new spectacle, All In!, featuring sparkly showgirls, charming concierges, and enamored honeymooners galore. Meanwhile, independent aerial artists will showcase their talents at NSAA through seven short-form pieces in Flirtations with Fate: Aerial Showcase, including a mix of aerial silks, trapeze, lyra, and more.

The line-up rounds out with a series of performances at intimate venues, such as the timely performance piece A Dream. A Day. at The Barbershop Theater. The multimedia production combines the talents of Jaclyn Tidwell, Jessika Malone, Sarah Saturday, Anna Haas, and more to give voice to parents wrestling with the violent world their children are too often facing. Urgent issues such as gun violence are examined through a more hopeful lens, asking the question: "What are our hopes for the next generation?" Back on Charlotte Ave, choreographer and activist Amanda Cantrell Roche presents Rewilding, a structured improvisational dance work staged at Global Education Center. Blending movement with purpose, the piece invites audiences into the rewilding process and aims to inspire climate action through embodied participation and environmental education.

Kindling Arts will also present the continuation of work by music / performance-art / multimedia multi-hyphenate IMGRNT, following his high-octane performance at last year's Festival. War & Beat (B Flat / C Sharp) builds on the previous work, exploring immigration through the lens of an alien invasion. Complete with stunning costumes, thumping beats, and expanded movement, this late-night offering in the Actors Bridge Studio downstairs at the Darkhorse is not to be missed and the perfectly evocative ending to a day at the Festival.

Finally, on the Sunday of Festival weekend, Kindling takes over the Welcome to 1979 two-story music studio for a series of engaging events, including Rabbit Effect's Swap Meet, an engaging item-swapping event that explores alternative economies with a humorous performance edge.

Additional projects in the 2025 Festival include:

• Acclaimed choreographer and distinctive solo artist Becca Hoback's Mellow Drama, a cabaret-inspired section of her Sacral Series, reconciling ownership of the body with a religious upbringing

• Producer Alie Stewart and her team at Ragana Creative debut Bad Stripping, a celebration of all body types with performances from burlesque, drag, and dance artists, as well as newcomers to the craft (Ages 18+)

• Live in Technicolor!: Performance Art Showcase featuring delightful works by burlesque artist GrandmaFun, puppeteer DooWop Byrd-Bugarin, dancer Gracyn Preston, and improvisers Jasmine Clark, Carley Haggerty, McKay House, and Anne Veal

• 30 Fortunate Plays in 60 Fateful Minutes by Where House Ensemble Theatre (W.H.E.T.) in which a group of actors performs 30 two-minute plays in a random order dictated by the audience

• Maya Antoinette Riley's debut play, Touching, exploring physical pleasure and romantic entanglement through a queer, nonbinary lens

• Bess Has Never Had an org*sm, a new play from writer and comedian Emmalee Manes, a joyful excavation of the cultural expectations around sexual encounters

• Network Operations: Post-Internet Movements in Chance, an interactive performance art session imagined by Dylan Simon using analog Rolodex cards and randomization

• Chisme Fantasmagórico: Gossiping with Ghosts, a communal ritual with oral storytelling and an invocation of the ancestors led by Olivia Jimenez