Photos: MadSoul Festival was a day of music, art, activism and protest in Orlando

MadSoul Music and Arts Festival was held Saturday at Orlando’s Loch Haven Park. The stacked lineup of national and local artists, activists and progressive elected officials was a labor of love organized by Orlando’s congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost.

Frost, the country’s youngest member of Congress, as we previously reported, began organizing the event with friends Niyah Lowell and Chris Murie back in 2015. More than 3,000 tickets were sold this year, available on a sliding scale and with a percentage of proceeds going to organizations like the Florida Access Network, Zebra Coalition, Equal Ground and Orlando’s Stand With Abortion Now.

The spirit of the full-day event was one of dogged determination for a world where every human can live with dignity and safety. In connecting with festival attendees, we heard countless stories of people traveling from across the state and state lines to be there, drawn not just by big names like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Lin-Manuel Miranda and headliners Muna (stylized MUNA), but by a deep desire for a sense of community and solidarity in a world that can be perpetually soul-crushing.

A group of friends who made the four-hour drive from Tallahassee shared these sentiments with Orlando Weekly: “Things have been pretty dark here in Florida … it’s a beautiful thing to see people from all over the state travel so far to come together.” Another added, “We’re just happy to be in such a safe space with people that I love and from all over the state.”

From the stage, local activists centered their communities’ causes and reminded us of the intersections of our movements. Orlando leader Jasmine Burney-Clark, representing racial justice organization Equal Ground, spoke of their relentless efforts challenging the white supremacist agenda of Governor Ron DeSantis. Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA called on working people to build unions and embrace our power to shape an economy that works for us.

Parkland parent Manuel Oliver spoke of his and his wife’s efforts to demand action on gun violence following the loss of their son Joaquin Oliver, one of the 17 victims of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Brandon Wolf, survivor of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, called on attendees to take action in honor of the lives lost on June 12, 2016.

Seven Charleston of March for Our Lives Pine Hills connected his local work globally: “Free Palestine, free the Congo, free Haiti, free Sudan. A ceasefire, an end to military occupation and a recognition of harms done to our communities is a first step towards justice.” He continued, “We must commit to completing the action, which means the restoration of land, stolen goods, opportunities, and political sovereignty. We want that from Pine Hills to Palestine.”

Elected officials also shared remarks. Congressman Maxwell Frost announced his re-election campaign alongside Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Greg Casar of Texas. State House representatives Anna V. Eskamani of Florida, Zooey Zephyr of Montana, and Justin Jones of Tennessee shared the stage and shared their vision for people-centered politics.

All three representatives made history when elected: Eskamani as Florida’s first Iranian-American elected to public office, Zephyr as Montana’s first transgender legislator, and Jones as the youngest Black legislator serving in Tennessee. Both Zephyr and Jones faced censorship and expulsion from office for essentially doing the job they were elected to do, using their positions to take on giants and defend the rights of the communities they serve.

When Orlando Weekly spoke with Rep. Jones, he laid out why he made the trip to Florida and how we cannot discount the South. “Tennessee to Florida, we have to show Southern solidarity. We’re facing a rising tide of authoritarianism, of anti-democratic behavior. And it’s attacking Black and brown communities, women, the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants, students, and so we have to stand together. And critically, as young electeds, we have to show that we are representing a new South, and that’s why I’m here.”

The three House representatives began their remarks restating their support for a ceasefire in Gaza and the importance of supporting justice abroad and at home by taking on the gun lobby, protecting the right to abortion, and defending the rights of transgender people. In Rep. Zephyr’s words, “We stand up for people’s rights in my state of Montana and here in Florida because it’s the right thing to do. We stand up against gun violence because it’s the right thing to do. We call for a ceasefire because it’s the right thing to do. And that needs to be what leads us. Not questions of what is the fallout, what is the political polling. We lead from a moral heart.”

On the lawn just outside the festival was a rally calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, hosted by the End to Genocide Coalition. More than 100 Orlandoans showed up to the rally as part of a global day of action, and many of those activists continued the protest inside the festival. When Winnie Swan of Orlando group Stand With Abortion Now joined others festival beneficiaries onstage, she read a statement from Central Florida Queers for Palestine calling for an end to United States aid to Israel.

Deviating from the celebratory nature of the event, Swan said, “The very same elected officials that put on this event have all come to party and be distracted by performative activism are the same politicians who are remaining complicit in genocide.”

The protests continued throughout headliner Muna’s set. This led to a temporary pause of the show, as the band worked to address the protesters’ demands and confirm attendees’ safety. Muna signed on to the Queer Artists for Palestine letter calling for a permanent ceasefire back in December, and affirmed the protesters’ calls for action and their right to protest. Emotionally moved, the band briefly left the stage to process the moment and decide if they should continue playing.

When they returned to the stage to finish their set, they offered these words: “I can only imagine the amount of trauma and grief that people are going through in Gaza. And I also can only hope that it moves us into action all around the world. We want a different world, and we might not agree with the different paths that people are taking to get to it. Muna as a band, I think we are farther left than a lot of electoral politicians, but we also believe that kind of similar with religion … you don’t necessarily know the right way to get to spirit or God, but I believe there’s something good in trying to get there whatever way you think is best.”

During Muna’s final songs, indie-rock musician Phoebe Bridgers made a surprise appearance. In addition to Palestinian solidarity, Muna dedicated much of their set to the LGBTQ+ community, especially as governor and failed presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature push forward policies targeting the freedoms of transgender Floridians. The band brought back to the stage Brandon Wolf, who dedicated a song to his two best friends, Drew Leinonen and Juan Guerrero, who lost their lives in the Pulse nightclub shooting.

Though unintentionally, the festival captured the contradictions that exist within a rising collective consciousness. As we type these words, American tax dollars are funding the mass murder of innocent people across the world. Military profiteers get richer while members of our community live on the streets just blocks away from where we write. A moment of joy can feel like a betrayal to those suffering as a result of our country’s actions abroad and at home.

And yet, we also know that joy is a tactic of survival. In these times, joy is defiant, dogged and necessary. A movement without joy is doomed. And vital to our movement is art. Centuries of history tell us that art is a form of resistance and essential to liberation.

So how do we navigate these contradictions deep within our souls? It’s a question we constantly ask ourselves, but not one easily answered. Throughout the day at MadSoul Festival, it was clear that more and more people in our city are asking this question and searching for answers in whatever medium serves their spirits — through organizing, music, performance, protest, mutual aid, voter registration, volunteerism, running for office, civil disobedience and direct action — with dogged determination, rage, vulnerability, love, solidarity … and hope for a better world.