Festival promotes social change
“When music, books, film and comedy accompany movements, change happens.”
That’s the motto of Changeville, a festival celebrating music, film and virtual reality to inspire positive social change.
The festival takes place Feb. 25 and 26 at multiple venues across downtown Gainesville, including The Wooly, the High Dive Beer Garden, Market Street Pub, Hippodrome State Theatre, and Volta Coffee, Tea and Chocolate.
“We want people to hear artists and witness films that will move them,” said Briana Mendez, a UF public relations senior and music festival programmer for Changeville.
Tickets for the event can be purchased online at changeville.us. Advanced admission tickets are currently being sold for $31.59. Regular admission tickets will soon be offered for $37.92.
The festival is part of this year’s frank conference, an event sponsored by the UF’s College of Journalism and Communications to showcase public interest communicators who use strategic communications to drive change.
“With Changeville, we wanted to create a destination that embraces music, film and art media to drive change,” Mendez, 22, said.
The musicians, artists and local comedians who will showcase their talents at Changeville were selected based on their focus on current social issues, Mendez said.
“These talented people talk about a wide range of critical issues, but they do it all differently,” Mendez said.
Glory Days Presents is the music production director for both the Frank Street Fair and Changeville.
Musical performers at Changeville will include Hurray for the Riff Raff, John Darnielle (of the Mountain Goats), Wax Wings, Flat Land, Il Gato and Tomboi.
Pat Lavery, the owner of Glory Days Presents and an exclusive promoter for High Dive, said he and the Changeville team were excited to book The Mountain Goats and Hurray for the Riff Raff because it is often difficult for new festivals to get big, national acts to perform.
Lavery said the plan is for Changeville to build over the next couple of years into a much bigger event with even more venues, with the purpose of bringing people together who are interested in positive social change.
Domestic violence, gender discrimination, racial disparities, mental illness and poverty are all topics that will be touched on at Changeville, Mendez said.
Mendez is proud of what she and a roughly 10-person team have been able to create in such a short period of time.
“We’ve built this from the ground up,” Mendez said. “We know next year and every year after that, Changeville is just going to continue to grow.”
The Changeville team has focused a lot of its efforts into social media campaigning for the event, Mendez said.
Jeremiah Corley, a journalism senior at UF and social media strategist for Changeville, spent hours doing research and planning out his posts on the event’s Instagram page.
“We wanted to make sure people knew what Changeville was solely through pictures,” Corley said. “We focused more on the images themselves than the captions.”
A strict theme of encouraging positive change was set with the social media so that it was consistent across all platforms, Corley, 21, said.
“Everyone knows that things need to change and things need to be happening,” Corley said. “Changeville is that catalyst for a giant social movement amongst this generation.”
- Chase Granger
Charles Bradley will perform
Soul singer Charles Bradley will perform for the first time in Gainesville as part of the Bo Diddley Community Plaza’s grand reopening.
The free concert will kick off the first-ever Changeville festival, as well as the frank2016 Community Street Fair. It will be the first event at the newly renovated Bo Diddley Plaza, located at 111 E. University Ave. The show’s opening ceremony will be Feb. 25 at 6 p.m.
According to the Gainesville Community Redevelopment Agency, the concert will be a pre-reopening event at Bo Diddley Plaza. The official ribbon-cutting ceremony to reopen the plaza will be held in early March.
Local bands Little Jake & the Soul Searchers and the Savants of Soul will open the concert. Briana Mendez, a 22-year-old UF public relations senior and the music festival programmer for Changeville, said Bradley’s music will be relevant to the theme of the event: social change.
“I did a lot of research looking for artists that are involved with social change, and Charles Bradley was one of my favorite choices,” Mendez said. “We were so excited when we reached out to him and they were interested in working with us.”
According to the frank conference’s website, Bradley has recently performed at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, South by Southwest, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the Newport Folk Festival. His name has also been mentioned on the year-end “best of” lists from GQ, Rolling Stone and Mojo, according to the website.
Mendez said Bradley’s own story will deliver a powerful message to the audience.
“He has such a rags-to-riches story, and his songs really address issues such as poverty and race,” she said.
Changeville and the street fair will both be presented by the frank2016 conference, a four-day event beginning Tuesday.
Ellen Nodine, the special projects coordinator for the UF College of Journalism and Communications, said the frank conference is an invitation-only annual event that will bring together 300 public-interest communicators who are passionate about social change. Speakers and attendees will travel from across the globe to attend the event. The community will use strategic communications to drive positive social, institutional and behavioral change, she said.
The street fair is also a way for the frank conference to give back to the community and be part of it.
“We don’t want to just drop in on the community, and that’s why we have it downtown,” Nodine said. “We use local vendors, we have local caterers, and we have it in and out of all of the restaurants. We really want to be tied to the Gainesville community.”
The street fair will take place throughout downtown Gainesville, and admission will be free to the public. This is the second year the frank conference has coordinated this event, Nodine said.
According to the frank website, food trucks and music will begin on the plaza at 5:30 p.m., frank opening ceremonies will begin at 6:15 p.m. and the concert will begin with opening bands at 6:30 p.m.
Kristina Manus, a member of the Alpha PRoductions team and a 21-year-old UF public relations junior, said the street fair will be an opportunity for people to see why the week is being dubbed “Super Week 2016.”
“There are a lot of really influential events going on during the week for social change,” Manus said. “The week will be a chance for public-interest communicators to come together in Gainesville and talk about important issues.”
According to its website, Changeville will be a music, virtual reality, storytelling and comedy festival where artists can connect.
Mendez said she is excited for the public to connect with Bradley, a soul singer with a beautiful, yet sometimes powerfully sad, message.
“Part of frank and part of Changeville is using different ways of storytelling for social change,” Mendez said, “And music, art, comedy and film are such a big part of that.”
- Lauren Fernandez
High Dive to screen documentary
In preparation for Charles Bradley’s performance at the reopening of Bo Diddley Community Plaza, tonight High Dive will screen “Charles Bradley: Soul of America,” an award-winning documentary on Bradley’s life.
Doors will open at 6 p.m., and the show will begin at 8 p.m. The event is free, but High Dive is accepting donations to help restore Gainesville’s Cotton Club, an old venue where black jazz and blues musicians used to play in the ‘50s and ‘60s, when the city was segregated.
It is suggested that attendees come early, as the Cilantro Tacos food truck will be arriving at 6 p.m. There will also be open poetry and story readings by attendees and musicians from the Changeville festival lineup.
The readings will be about a time a person realized he or she could make a difference in society or in life, and they will allow people to interact while supporting a local venue.
“We want to get his story out there. Charles is in his 60s, was born in Gainesville and was homeless for many years in NYC before releasing his first album on Daptone Records just a few years ago,” Pat Lavery, the executive promoter at High Dive, said. “It’s an American dream success story.”
The featured film, was first shown at the South by Southwest film festival in 2012. The documentary illustrates Bradley’s life as he struggled to become a renowned artist. He became successful after homelessness, tragedy and misfortune.
Bradley is a rhythm and blues and funk singer who propelled into fame at the age of 62.
Fans adore his soulful music and the tenacity he displayed in his pursuit to become a successful musician.
The singer has been placed on top magazine lists such as GQ, Rolling Stone, SPIN and Mojo.
Bradley, now 67, has recently performed at popular music festivals such as the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Newport Folk Festival and South by Southwest.
High Dive’s event is being held to celebrate Charles Bradley performing at the reopening of Bo Diddley Plaza and the accompanying street fair.
The plaza, located in downtown Gainesville, has been closed since March 2015 for renovations.
The street fair will be held Feb. 25 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and will be presented by frank, an annual conference that seeks to promote social change and inspire ideas in the community.
Art by 352Creates and local band performances will be featured at the fair.
It will also have an assortment of food trucks and microbrew beer.
Bradley has released two albums, and his next album, titled “Changes,” will be released April 1. His music has been sampled by big name hip-hop artists such as Jay Z and Asher Roth.
- Morgan Miller
