The glow of nostalgia will meet the pulse of creativity at One Up, a Dallas music video festival honoring a form that shaped a generation and inspires the next.
Hosted by the creative collective SZNs CHNGE (Seasons Change), the third annual One Up event takes over the Texas Theatre with screenings of 21 music videos, a live panel of industry creatives and interactive experiences designed to channel the energy of early 2000s shows like TRL and 106 & Park.
“We're taking the aspects that made the show popular that kind of created some of those solid core memories for artists and for viewers and trying to bring those in, trying to basically turn Texas Theater into like a one night only time capsule,” founder Eriq “EQ” Hardiman-Rhone said.
The event originally began as a collaboration with the Oak Cliff Film Festival but has since grown into an independent event dedicated to music videos and the communities that make them.
Hardiman-Rhone said the idea came from an online debate questioning whether music videos still mattered.
“All these different programs that were playing music videos and were probably a background character to a lot of our lives,” he said. “We learned what style was, what it looked like to be cool [and] some of our earliest moments of understanding what real cinematography looked like outside of a film.”
This year’s line up spans hip-hop, R&B, indie and experimental sounds – including work from across North Texas. Some featured artists include rapper Coach Tev, Vohnny Kage and singer Brionne. The festival will also welcome artists working nationally and internationally, including Brazilian artist Nathi, Boris the Lucid from Virginia and Jelani Imani from Atlanta.
Sasha Bowman, CEO and executive producer of SZNs CHNGE, said the diversity of this year's submissions stood out.
“Many people don't know that the songs from their favorite artists in the city have music videos,” Bowman said. “Now they're seeing these music videos and they're like, ‘Oh my God, y'all really are investing in this.’”
One Up aims to create the feeling of a live show from the golden era of MTV and BET, networks that empowered music culture. The lobby will transform into a bodega-inspired space filled with local vendors, interactive installations and a photo booth.
Southern Methodist University film students will volunteer at the event as part of a hands-on learning partnership. Hardeman-Roam guest-lectured in one of the university’s film courses about the labor behind music video production.
“They also can have experience working alongside Seasons and being a part of the overall mission,” Hardiman-Rhone said. “Which for us is just breaking down a lot of the ideologies and the thoughts that were already prevalent within Dallas or Texas culture as a whole [such as] ‘The city doesn't want you to do this. This person and that person are gatekeepers.’ somebody else can be like, ‘Well, Seasons is actually dispelling all those things that you're feeling. So maybe you should go talk to them. Maybe they can serve as a resource.’ ”
While One Up highlights artists, it also recognizes directors, stylists, editors and camera crews who shape the vision to life. A live panel will bring the creatives together to share advice, techniques and lessons learned in the industry.
“Those are the things that we try to put in there so that's not just the artists being rewarded and being acknowledged,” Bowman said. “It's also the team and the crew that they've been working so hard with as well.”
After the festival, the collective doesn’t want the energy to fade. SZNs CHNGE plans to release a curated One Up playlist and feature participating artists and crew across social media – a step toward building a year-round hub for visual and sound artists in Dallas.
Details:
Nov. 8 at 7 p.m., Texas Theatre, 231 W. Jefferson Blvd, Dallas. Tickets start at $20 online, $25 at the door.
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