Arts This Week: The Soul of Cville Festival
By Ben Larsen
Ben Larsen:
The annual Soul of Cville Festival is happening all this week, running from August 10th to the 17th. For Arts This week, we spoke with Khalilah Jones.
Khalilah Jones:
Hi, I’m Khalilah Jones, and I am the co founder of the Soul of Cville, and I’m super excited, because this is our fifth year. There is so much going on anything that is for families and children. Those events will be free. So we have our end of summer swim. We’ll end the event with that. And then we have the Soul of Cville Saturday, which is like a big cookout with all of your cousins and whatnot. But then we have some kind of grown and fun events as well throughout the week. There is a fee with those, but we did try to keep them nominal. So we have blacks in tech mixer, actually, that’s free. That is a free event. We also have a line dancing that’s going to be Afrobeats and our Carnival Fusion line dancing event. And then we have trap karaoke with some curated wine by Tasha, from black women who wine, and some food from Chef G some southern bites. And super excited to hear about the cobbler medley that he’ll be offering with that. And then we have the Best in Black Cville, which is highly anticipated. I think that’s our, one of our premier events under the soul of Seaville umbrella this year, that’ll be at the Paramount Theater. And then, of course, we have Soul of Cville Saturday, which is huge. And we have after parties all the things.
Ben Larsen:
You mentioned, this being the fifth annual Soul of Cville Festival. Could you tell us more about the history of this event?
Khalilah Jones:
Absolutely so full transparency, I am not from Charlottesville, and I do not purport to know what the soul of Charlottesville is, but what I know is when you feel that, right, like when you feel like you belong, or you feel home, that’s the overall feeling that I wanted to have associated with Soul of Cville, and so I’m very intentional about working with organizations and people who are natives, you know, to help inform the decisions that we make for what we’re offering the community. Working with the radio station, 101 Jamz, he and I actually co founded the Soul of Cville. Jaquan Middleton, shout out to him. And then Sabrina Feggans of beyond fitness. With Sabrina, she is also from Charlottesville, and so working with them, they helped to kind of rein me in a lot on some things and guide me on what is, you know, relevant and what people are responding to. We don’t talk about this a lot, but I feel like joy as a form of resistance is probably the best way that you can live your life and have some representation, especially for the kiddos who might not see things for them, by them, and so that is basically the history of Soul Cville. It just started as a way to help elevate and give a platform for those who are historically and sometimes strategically undervalued and ignored.
Ben Larsen:
Is there any way for people who are potentially interested in the festival to get involved?
Khalilah Jones:
Oh, yeah, 100% so just for IX on Soul Cville, Saturday alone, we helped to support at minimum 50 businesses as vendors there and then for the Best in Black Cville last year, we awarded or recognized at least 50 businesses and people and so to get involved, you can always follow Soul of Cville on Facebook, or you can reach out at ixartpark.org and look up Soul of Cville. We have like, a vendor application there if you’re interested in being a vendor, or you can always just shoot us an email and say, Hey, how can I get involved? I’m very excited to see what this year entails. Excited for the community, so come out and see us. We are looking forward to seeing everyone.
Ben Larsen:
More information about the festival can be found on IX art park.org. Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance, music, theater and visual arts programming. Learn more at pvcc.edu
