Dogwood Arts Festival organizers pull the plug on rock 'n' roll
by Joe Tarr
For once, it seemed like the Dogwood Arts Festival was going to be fun, with a new slate of younger performers in a variety of arts. And then it got canceled.
Organizers of Knoxville's festival enlisted the help of Mahasti Vafaie—owner of the Tomato Head and Lula restaurants, and one of the few people who have been able to bring entertainment to Market Square—to inject new life into the annual event. Vafaie in turn handed the reins over to employee Brian Sherry, who books music for the Tomato Head.
Sherry took the idea and ran with it, lining up eight local bands to play over two nights. The tentative lineup included Superdrag, Pegasi 51, Dent and the Ghosts for Friday night, April 14, and the Come Ons, Fabula Rasa, New Brutalism, and Lift Off for Saturday, April 15. DJs Wise, Slink, and Satoshi would spin hip hop and house records in between acts.
The Knoxville Juggling Club, the Actors Coop, and an Elvis imitator, among others, were enlisted to wander around the crowd giving impromptu performances. University of Tennessee student films would be shown on the walls of unoccupied buildings.
Dogwood organizers said the evening's entertainment was an attempt to reach out to more people, and bring more of them downtown, as reported in Metro Pulse last December. (Some of those volunteer organizers resigned after dates for the festival were shuffled in order to accommodate the Blue Angels Air Show.)
Just last month, the organizers seemed pleased with the new features. "They seemed impressed that we were doing it," Sherry says. "I told them exactly what was going on."
But then problems began to arise. Sherry and Vafaie wanted to sell beer in the square, requiring a special permit, which would be in the Tomato Head's name. But the Dogwood committee didn't want to accept proceeds from beer sales. "I don't know if they thought it was tainted money," Sherry says. So Sherry and Vafaie found their own charity—the Sexual Assault Crisis Center—to accept beer sale profits.
Then a few weeks ago, Sherry says one of the festival's organizers—he couldn't remember who it was—called with concerns about the type of entertainment that was planned.
"The lady called on the phone and they were wondering about the rock 'n' roll element. It felt like Footloose," Sherry says, referring to the Kevin Bacon movie in which high school kids try to organize a prom in a conservative Midwestern town.
The woman told Sherry that in the past, people had been offended by language that a band had used during a performance. "I told her I wouldn't want to censor any ideas," Sherry told her. At that point, the show was canceled.
The Dogwood organizers have not explained their decision.
Monica Rodgers, the festival's PR official, would not give out the phone numbers of the people in charge of the Market Square portion of the festival. She said she'd ask them to call Metro Pulse, but no one has contacted the office.
Cole Piper, board president of the overall festival, says he doesn't know specifically what happened. "I don't know that anything went wrong," he says. Piper referred Metro Pulse to Judge Dale Workman, who is involved with the festival's Market Square portion. But Workman did not return a call.
A bluegrass festival, at least, will still happen this weekend (sans beer, however, since the festival would have used the same beer permit).
"The ironic thing is bluegrass music is notorious for singing about alcohol and slayings by the river and that's still going on," Sherry says.
Sherry and Vafaie hope to hold their own festival in Market Square.
State funding cuts present problems for local greenways expansion
by Matt Edens
In the wake of the Sundquist administration's announced plan to close House Mountain State Park in Northeast Knox County, there may be a new threat to local recreation looming—one that strikes even closer to home.
At stake are state-controlled federal dollars to support the city of Knoxville's rapidly expanding and widely praised greenway system. The funds, both ISTEA (Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act) and its follow-on T-21, are federal gas-tax dollars earmarked for transportation alternatives such as greenways and transit. The funds are distributed by the state; local governments submit grant proposals to the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), which makes recommendations, but final decisions rest with Gov. Sundquist.
"That money has been crucial to us," says Knox Greenways Coalition President Charles Thomas. The state, according to Thomas, has "been generous to us in the last few years. The governor was an enthusiastic supporter of Knoxville Greenways."
All that changed last fiscal year. The city submitted two grant proposals—one of $600,000 for the greenway at Northwest Middle School and the other for an ambitious set of walking trails connecting Fort Dickerson and a nearby abandoned quarry—a $2.5 million project. Both were rejected. Local greenway advocates are at a loss as to why. "I wish I knew," says Thomas. "We're baffled. We don't know why we didn't get our share."
Will Skelton, chair of the Knoxville Greenways Commission, echoes Thomas: "It was entirely out of step with what they've done in the past. If we had a crummy program that would be understandable, but we have one of the best."
Particularly troubling to both Skelton and Thomas was that the state's federal funding had dramatically increased—by more than 40 percent. "That's what made it doubly hurtful," says Skelton. "There was a much larger pie and we didn't get a slice."
This year the city has resubmitted the Fort Dickerson and Northwest Middle projects along with two additional projects—the James White Greenway connecting Volunteer Landing with the Old City and a project in West Knoxville along Gallaher, Walker Springs and Mars Hill roads. So far the city has received no indication that any of these projects will be funded.
Despite the funding setback, long-time greenways supporter Mayor Victor Ashe remains as bullish as ever on their future, stating that in his next "three years and 10 months I'm going to do everything in my power to have as many miles of greenways done or in the works as possible."
And the city seems to be backing up the mayor's promise. "In two or three cases," says Skelton, "the city, to their credit, has decided to fund greenways in conjunction with planned road projects." The projects, for portions of Walker Springs, Weisgarber, and Middlebrook, are being built with city highway dollars—leaving local greenway funds free for other projects. The move—a first for the city—has local advocates excited.
"It's an encouraging sign and shows a deeper commitment to build a premier greenway system," says Thomas, who singles out the city's Engineering Department for praise. "The engineers are showing a lot of interest in the system and are going out of their way to be more pedestrian-friendly."
April 6, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 14
© 2000 Metro Pulse
| 
