Kidchella Kickoff Recap!!
Hey folks!
It's Tyra here.
So on Friday, June 15th, Smith Memorial Playground kicked off its fifth year of the Kidchella Music Festival! I played a role of documenting the evening on social media. The playground was met with fair weather, and I found myself running between Southwest Philly and East Fairmount Park to prepare for both Kidchella and the Paperback Poetry Festival, which was an outdoor poetry series ran by Glorious Piner, a Summer Fellow from 2017.
The playground was open to kids and families, of course. I don't know if you all know, but Smith has the largest wooden slide in the region, and 6 & a half acres of outdoor space for the playground.
For this Friday, the playground closed early (around 1 p.m.) and reopened around 4 with vendors such as Honest Tea and Powercrunch, a main stage for the headliners to perform, local food trucks, and several youth-centered arts organizations taking over the front lawn. Teens from Junior Music Executives were DJ-ing and emceeing as the opening acts from 4-5:30, while the children attending got a chance to work on arts and crafts with a ceramic workshop led by students at the Village of Arts and Humanities, and crafts led by members of the Philly Arts Center.
If you take a look behind the second performer pictured, you may peep Paul Robinson, another UArts student who is serving as a teaching artist at Junior Music Executive. I was so happy to have him be one of the first familiar faces I saw when I walked onto the park. Paul and I have been in Tiny Closet Collective, UArts' spoken word and slam poetry club together (which is headed by Glorious), and I know that any event he's at is bound to be enjoyable. What I enjoyed the most about the kids from Junior Music Executive was how their performances were both personal and professional. Their sound was both unique but also musically in the tradition of Philly's current hip hop scene. I'd book them for a main stage event anytime. Their talent and their drive reminded me of some youth-centered hip-hop organizations back at home in Pittsburgh, such as 1hood Media, Hip Hop on L.O.C.K., and K.R.U.N.K. Movement.
Around 5:30, the activities that formed the Youth Arts Zone on the front lawn began to pack up to prepare for main stage performances. Families had the options of bringing their own food to picnic on the playground, or indulging in one of the food trucks such as Philly Fry, Brotherly Grub, Curbside Creamery, or Foolish Waffles. Choosing which truck to dip into was a tough decision on such a hot day. Curbside Creamery's ice cream was always enticing, while Philly Fry would surely fill you up with gourmet french fry combinations, and Foolish Waffles had sweet and savory combinations unheard of. But what won me over was a two-patty burger from Brothery Grub. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a sucker for burgers, fries, and a milkshake, so of course the big burger was what I went with!
By 6:00, it was my task to do a Facebook live-stream of the two bands headlining the main stage: the Pop Ups, a Brooklyn-based duo that works puppeteering and imagination into their performances, and Alex & the Kaleidoscope, a local favorite with an ever transforming body of music. Both were focused on rock n roll with a message of diversity brought out in different ways. While the Pop-Ups focused on producing interactive characters with inclusive backgrounds, Alex & the Kaleidoscope had the audience singing along to ska and calypso inspired beats. Both bands brought the groove for the night, and wrapping up was a breeze. All in all, a great way to kick off Smith's Kidchella series!
All the photos I linked in were taken by Rosie Simmons, and if you keep an eye on Smith Memorial Playground's Facebook page, there's an album that'll continue to be updated as they're edited.
If you know anyone with kids, be sure to make it out July 20th or August 17th!
It's Tyra here.
So on Friday, June 15th, Smith Memorial Playground kicked off its fifth year of the Kidchella Music Festival! I played a role of documenting the evening on social media. The playground was met with fair weather, and I found myself running between Southwest Philly and East Fairmount Park to prepare for both Kidchella and the Paperback Poetry Festival, which was an outdoor poetry series ran by Glorious Piner, a Summer Fellow from 2017.
The playground was open to kids and families, of course. I don't know if you all know, but Smith has the largest wooden slide in the region, and 6 & a half acres of outdoor space for the playground.
For this Friday, the playground closed early (around 1 p.m.) and reopened around 4 with vendors such as Honest Tea and Powercrunch, a main stage for the headliners to perform, local food trucks, and several youth-centered arts organizations taking over the front lawn. Teens from Junior Music Executives were DJ-ing and emceeing as the opening acts from 4-5:30, while the children attending got a chance to work on arts and crafts with a ceramic workshop led by students at the Village of Arts and Humanities, and crafts led by members of the Philly Arts Center.
If you take a look behind the second performer pictured, you may peep Paul Robinson, another UArts student who is serving as a teaching artist at Junior Music Executive. I was so happy to have him be one of the first familiar faces I saw when I walked onto the park. Paul and I have been in Tiny Closet Collective, UArts' spoken word and slam poetry club together (which is headed by Glorious), and I know that any event he's at is bound to be enjoyable. What I enjoyed the most about the kids from Junior Music Executive was how their performances were both personal and professional. Their sound was both unique but also musically in the tradition of Philly's current hip hop scene. I'd book them for a main stage event anytime. Their talent and their drive reminded me of some youth-centered hip-hop organizations back at home in Pittsburgh, such as 1hood Media, Hip Hop on L.O.C.K., and K.R.U.N.K. Movement.
Around 5:30, the activities that formed the Youth Arts Zone on the front lawn began to pack up to prepare for main stage performances. Families had the options of bringing their own food to picnic on the playground, or indulging in one of the food trucks such as Philly Fry, Brotherly Grub, Curbside Creamery, or Foolish Waffles. Choosing which truck to dip into was a tough decision on such a hot day. Curbside Creamery's ice cream was always enticing, while Philly Fry would surely fill you up with gourmet french fry combinations, and Foolish Waffles had sweet and savory combinations unheard of. But what won me over was a two-patty burger from Brothery Grub. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a sucker for burgers, fries, and a milkshake, so of course the big burger was what I went with!
By 6:00, it was my task to do a Facebook live-stream of the two bands headlining the main stage: the Pop Ups, a Brooklyn-based duo that works puppeteering and imagination into their performances, and Alex & the Kaleidoscope, a local favorite with an ever transforming body of music. Both were focused on rock n roll with a message of diversity brought out in different ways. While the Pop-Ups focused on producing interactive characters with inclusive backgrounds, Alex & the Kaleidoscope had the audience singing along to ska and calypso inspired beats. Both bands brought the groove for the night, and wrapping up was a breeze. All in all, a great way to kick off Smith's Kidchella series!
All the photos I linked in were taken by Rosie Simmons, and if you keep an eye on Smith Memorial Playground's Facebook page, there's an album that'll continue to be updated as they're edited.
If you know anyone with kids, be sure to make it out July 20th or August 17th!
It sounds like you had a super busy day!! I imagine you really had to know everything going on at all times in order to track it all online. What social media do you run, and what are the most challenging parts of it? I feel like I might end up focused too much on photography and writing that I would forget to actually partake in the event, and really understand the emotions and vibes going on because of it. Definitely seems like a job requiring a lot of balance.
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