When it comes to Nashville, I hear a specific lament A LOT: “Nashville’s only claim to fame is country music, and they’ve even sold that out to tourists.” A valid criticism of the downtown tourism machine, but also one that erases a huge part of what this city actually is. Let me explain.

Move away from Broadway and you’ll discover that Nashville is an art city through and through – galleries, small music venues, and community art events abound, and nothing is more emblematic of this creative undercurrent than the Kindling Arts Festival. Full disclosure: I’ve participated in Kindling since its inception five years ago, so this piece isn’t exactly impartial. I love this festival and I want you to love it too. Read on.

Photos by Tiffany Bessire / Courtesy of Kindling Arts Festival

Kindling describes itself as a “radically unique independent arts incubator” focused on supporting largely local artists in their creative endeavors. Anyone in the arts community knows that one of the hardest parts of creating a cool thing is getting folks to believe it in and help you bring it to life – the arts take financial support, staging assistance, marketing and more. Thanks to the tireless work of its founders Daniel Jones and Jessika Malone, Kindling IS that fairy godmother.

The festival creates a platform for small artists to convert their dreams into big realities, and its work adds another stone to the foundation of an inclusive, diverse arts community in Nashville. Throughout the year it stages one-off performances – sometimes theater pieces, sometimes films, sometimes poetry – and its season culminates in its late-summer festival, four days of artistic extravagance that remind audience members just how cool humans are. Don’t believe me? Check out this list of 2022’s festival highlights:

ALCHEMY: My show! Suspended Gravity Circus’ exploration of the importance of shared spaces and experiences. We had death-defying aerial acts, we had ground acrobatics, we had puppets – it was a blast.

NAUGHTY TREE: A queer retelling of the story of the Garden of Eden that focused on JOY and POSSIBILITY. I saw this production twice and fell in love with every word.

BARFIGHT!: An underground, queer karaoke fight club “where songs are slayed and rivalries are laid to rest.”

CURRENTS: A collection of dance pieces exploring the impact of historic events including segregation in Nashville, the experiences of Jewish immigrant women in the 1900s, the collective grief in the wake of COVID-19, and more.

And that’s only four of the 19 shows that happened over the entire weekend.

Is my timing a bit off by publishing this post a month after the festival has concluded for the year? Probably. But I’ve got so many warm fuzzies about it, I just wanted to write something. Plus, Kindling does stuff year-round, so you should start following them (and all their associated artists) now. As an artist who has been a part of Kindling for so many years now, I can say that our work has grown in volume and quality exponentially thanks to their guidance and support.

So yea, Nashville is more than fake country. It’s got a hell of a lot of heart and its local art community is rad –don’t write us off just yet :)