PHonk!Philly

Elaine Smith Holton founded PHonk!Philly, a free music festival utilizing the power of music, art, activism, and cultural preservation to move us closer towards collective liberation during the summer uprisings in West Philadelphia May 2020.

Under her leadership PHonk!Philly has grown rapidly, expanding both its reach and impact to communities throughout the mid-Atlantic region. In 2022 PHonk!Philly was awarded a We Are Justice Outside, Liberated Paths grant in the Siconese/Lenape Wihittuk, River of the Lenape (Delaware River) Watershed region for its commitment to advancing racial justice in the outdoor and environmental movement, and creating meaningful change in the region’s communities.

Since 2008, Elaine has been practicing community-based dance when she served as a Passista and Dance Director of Austin Samba, a Brazilian Rio style, community education and performance bateria out of Austin, TX. Over the next four years, she’d go on to choreograph Carnaval Brasileiro shows as part of the largest indoor Brazilian Carnaval show in the US.

A graduate of the 2021 Headlong Performance Institute Fellows Program, Elaine moved to Philadelphia from Washington DC in 2018 to study community-based music and dance. She continues studying and performing Brazilian drumming and dance in Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Boston.

PHonk! is guided by a core set of Unifying Principles that promote solidarity and healing.

PHonk!Philly Unifying Principles:

*We believe that music in the streets helps to reclaim and redefine the use of public space.

*We believe that music brings elements of power, energy and healing to struggles for collective liberation.

*We stand in solidarity with struggles that challenge all forms of individual and institutional domination, inequality and oppression.

*We wish for PHonk! to be a community in which we uplift each other with the energy to continue fighting for collective liberation.

*We wish for PHonk! to be a community in which we uplift each other with the energy to continue fighting for collective liberation.