Schedule
12-12:30pm Community Yoga with Urban Sanctuary, bring your mat, all ages, family friendly
12:30-2pm Nico Martinez Trio
1-3pm Community Art Workshop with Charlo
2-4pm Community Lighthouse Writers Workshop
2-4pm Kaylee Bender - DJ Bugs Honey
4-6pm Brothers of Brass
Lighthouse Writers Workshop - Join Tawanna LaTrice Hill for a series of interactive writing activities open to all ages! Together we'll explore themes of home, community, memory, and storytelling. Anyone who participates in an activity will receive a free Lighthouse journal!
Vendors
Denver Food Rescue, Denver Public Library Mobile Library Truck, Denver Urban Gardens, Volo, Harvest Moon Botanics
Food
Big Raven Bread, Cohesion, South American Vendor Tent (arepas + empanadas), Little Bodega (paninis and convenience store in Five Points), Lottie’s Meats + Provisions
About the Artists
“MUSIC CAN CHANGE THE WORLD BECAUSE IT CAN CHANGE PEOPLE.” Originally from the city of Medellin, Colombian singer/songwriter, Nico Martinez, came to the United States at the age of 10. Drawing musical inspiration from his Colombian roots, Nico has developed a unique sound that fuses the rhythms of multiple genres and eras of music. Combining eclectic notes from Colombian folk, Jazz, Flamenco, Reggaeton, Spanish rock, Caribbean, Pop-rock, and American classics, Nico creates a diverse and inclusive atmosphere at every live performance.
Nico’s mission is to infuse the Denver community with love and creative sound, dissolve cultural barriers, forge magical moments, and be an inspiration to others. He seeks to reinvent Latin fusion by incorporating international sounds, composed of flavorful and energetic melodies, with his own unique style and voice.
Nico envisions himself as a multi-cultural leader that influences the Denver community to feel connected, inspired, and enriched by the diverse and dynamic atmosphere that music can create.
Charlo is a multimedia artist and designer. Using symbols, letters and lines, his monochromatic two-dimensional works are a space for exploration and discovery. Hidden themes and messages reside in the densely packed compositions, allowing viewers to impart their own sense of meaning from the works. The interwoven shapes, words and symbols foster a sense of community interaction, collaboration, and hopeful optimism.
Having emigrated from Monterrey, Mexico in 2013, the Denver-based artist describes himself as filled to the brim with gratitude. In his native language of Spanish, the equivalent for “experiencing joy” is “alegría” and it is this experience of joy he wishes to share with the world through his works. The deceptively simple yet dense paintings and drawings are reminiscent of influential artists such as MC Escher, Keith Haring and Remedios Varo. His communal collaborations between spectator and artist began in Denver with his Make Alleys Great Again project, in which the artist appropriated the slogan of a politically divisive U.S. politician to instead bring unity and joy to communities. Using the NextDoor app, the artist connected with fellow residents of the greater Denver community who invited him to paint murals onto their garage doors. All told, the artist brought local art to more than five dozen alleyways.
In 2021, he produced a live mural entitled The Joy of Being Together in partnership with Nextdoor and the New York Stock Exchange. The artist's joyful, optimistic, and community-oriented work continues to gain interest on a national level. Charlo made his debut as a keynote speaker at TEDxMileHigh in August of 2022 allowing him to tell his story to a much wider audience. Since then, the artist has continued to make his mark in the world through his community driven projects. The Gratitude Of The Flowers, Charlo’s first solo exhibition allowed him to showcase his ability to do more than just murals. Charlo's multifaceted work has made his work a staple not only in the community but within the homes of his collectors.
Twanna LaTrice Hill is a writer, actor, director, and teaching artist. She is an inner city born and raised, Princeton/Harvard/Regis educated, agnostic, Unitarian-Universalist, Buddhist (lite), tarot reading, disabled, single, straight, 59-year-old, Russian speaking, liberal female survivor who has seen too much & lived much more. Her short story, A Life of Little Consequence, was featured in the anthology Denver Noir which won the Colorado Book Award in 2023. She has had two plays produced and performed in the Denver metro Area - Love Multiplied in 2022 and Indescribable in 2023. She completed her first memoir, What’s Done in the Dark, in May of last year and is currently working on her second, They Hardly Ever Kiss You, and her first novel. She has a BA from Princeton University in Russian with minors in Creative Writing and Theater & Dance; an MA in Soviet Studies from Harvard University; and an MA in Nonprofit Management from Regis University. Twanna is a passionate woman dedicated to ending violence in all its forms, lives in the occupied territory of the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho— otherwise known as Denver—and shares her life with her service dog, Roxi.
Brothers of Brass has grown to be one of the premier street bands in the country, and has taken their music to the stage and studio. Having already played some of Denver’s finest stages, we hope to be sharing our sound on stages across the country soon, and recently released our second album Trapadelics vol. 1 in December with a third to follow in 2024.
With influences ranging from R&B to southern brass and psychedelic jam rock to trap hip hop, Brothers of Brass boasts a wide musical lexicon with a little something for everyone!