What or who was the seed of inspiration to start Moving Truck, and how long was it from idea to exhibition?
In Omaha, Nebraska everyone seems to have their own personal green space. Some lawns are sprawling, some are postage stamps, but most residences have at least a patch of grass. After living in concrete-covered San Francisco and Boston for the past ten years, this feature of everyday life in Omaha caught my eye. Personal green space became the seed of an idea to start Moving Truck, a dance delivery performance designed for people’s front yards. At a preset time, three dancers arrive by pick up truck, set up a cordless sound system, assemble a make-shift stage and curtain in the flatbed, and the 25 minute performance unfolds from there. The performance begins at the sidewalk or street edge of the front lawn, makes its way throughout the property, and ends back in the truck. There’s a series of improvised scores we always do in the same order, allowing us to experiment with the natural features of the space - a fence, a lamppost, trees, a hedge, a mailbox. The dancers don’t converse much with the hosts; we just show up, do our thing, and move on to the next Moving Truck appointment.
How many performances did you do in the fall?
In the fall we did thirteen performances at people’s residences, a day-long film shoot of Moving Truck on my front lawn, one performance outside at the Bemis Center for the Arts in Omaha and two at the Lied Center for the Performing Arts in Lincoln. We performed between 2-3 times per evening around sunset, i.e. 5pm, 6pm, and 7pm appointments at three different addresses. When we left my house we carried all materials, speaker, costume pieces, water, masks, etc. with us in the truck. The cab was our greenroom. If we had extra time between performances, we’d pull over and hang out in the back of the truck. “Backstage downtime” was beautiful against the backdrop of a midwestern summer sunset (without buildings or topographic elevation to block the sun, they can last for hours).
The film we created was for the Kennedy Center’s Arts Across America program (https://www.kennedy-center.org/digitalstage/arts-across-america/), a live streaming event featuring one to two artists from each state across the country performing in their homes. Given the challenges of a high speed internet connection outdoors and the unpredictability of weather, we chose to film the performance instead of perform live for the livestream. Filmmaker and Director Nik Fackler and Cinematographer Jon Hustead did a beautiful job of capturing the full event in this filmic version of Moving Truck (https://www.kennedy-center.org/digitalstage/arts-across-america/lauren-simpson/).
Moving Truck lived on social media, primarily Instagram, in unexpected ways as well. Unlike traditional theater performances, nearly everyone filmed or photographed portions of the performance and posted their experience. While the internet presence of this dance (prior to Arts Across America) was intentionally kept to a minimum, our audiences seemed to find some joy in sharing this rare opportunity to see live dance when theaters across the country had gone dark. News of our project traveled by word of mouth and social media, so we never advertised.
How many are planned for the winter/spring 2021?
Moving Truck ran its course in the Summer and Fall of 2020. I will always remember it as an unexpected bright spot in a difficult year. As we slowly creep out of this pandemic, I don’t feel this project would have the same impact this spring as it had last year. Right now I am working on a live performance at the Generator Space gallery in Omaha for April 2021. The facade has large picture windows, so the performances will be viewed from the sidewalk/street, looking in.
Choreographic questions and curiosities on your mind right now:
I’ve always espoused the value of constraints in a choreographic process. For me, part of good choreography is designing those constraints and honestly following the rules I made for myself. In Moving Truck, most of the constraints were made for me - we must dance outside, we must be a self-contained unit so we don’t interact with members of the household, the work must be viewable from someone standing on their front porch, the work must be adaptable to different lawn sizes, features, parking limitations, etc. Typically I create my own constraints which yield a particular movement and aesthetic. However, when the constraints are dictated for me, as they were for Moving Truck, much of the resulting aesthetic was out of my hands. The constraints on this project resulted in three outcomes I never would have chosen for myself - the work was mostly improvised, the work was performed outside, and, in an effort to reduce the number of people on the project, I performed in the work myself. (Had I been designing my own constraints, it would have been tightly choreographed, indoors, with a cast that didn’t include me.) I had to dig deeper in my choreographic toolbox and revisit techniques and styles I once knew. I was grateful for this change and this challenge.
This project forced me to look closer at the capitalist structures surrounding production. It freed me from almost all box office operations work as well as concerns about whether I was “filling the house” and selling an acceptable quantity of tickets. Pursuing this project began with the assumption and acceptance that Moving Truck would not reach a big audience. It was designed as a performance for individual households and the few folks living inside that bubble. After I confirmed a host willing to have Moving Truck at their home, they were responsible for inviting guests or not. One time we performed for two people and their dog. Another time, a host invited their entire book club who watched from chairs spread out across a big lawn. They also invited their neighbors to the south and across the street to do the same. Maybe fifty people saw that show. Each performance was a flat fee and priced along a sliding scale - from $20 - $350. We offered a wide range to keep the show accessible. People ended up paying at all price points. Anyone paying on the upper end was helping to subsidize the shows we did at the low end of the scale. The irony of not concerning myself with audience numbers and ticket sales resulted in my recouping more costs from this performance than any other in my career.
What has been the greatest joy doing Moving Truck in the age of quarantine and shelter in place?
At a time when the world went on Zoom, I wondered if live performance was over. When it seemed everyone was reformatting digitally, I dug my heals in. After loosening the aesthetic grip on my “style,” I found a way to safely do live performances in this spacious and green new city in which I now live. I recommitted to my career-long interest in building intimacy and attention through the corporeal lived experience that we only get through live performance. As it turned out, dancing on someone's front lawn, with their kids yelling, and dogs barking, was incredibly intimate. People were giddy to “attend” an event, even if it was at their own house. It was something with a start time. It was something serendipitous and unexpected. It was something they could invite their friends to. It was something that didn’t involve the internet. It restored my love and hope for the resiliency of live performance. I believe it’s just hibernating and shifting, but it’s not dead and it’s not disappearing.
Collaborators:
Kat Fackler (producer, dancer) https://www.tbddancecollective.org/
Gayle Rocz (dancer)
Dereck Higgins (musician) dereckhiggins.bandcamp.com
Greg Elsasser (costumer)
Nik Fackler (film director, film edit) https://www.nik-fackler.com/
Jon Hustead (cinematographer) https://jonhustead.com/
Moving Truck was made possible by the Drew Billings Performing Artist Support Grant from the Omaha-based arts nonprofit Amplify Arts.
Find out more about Lauren Simpson here.
Related posts:
Artist Profile: Lauren Simpson
Dance as Event: An Interview with Lauren Simpson about DANCE EXHIBIT
Reconnecting with Choreographers Jenny Stulberg and Lauren Simpson of Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations
Establishing Simpson/Stulberg Collaborations: My Biggest Challenge So Far - By Lauren Simpson
Musings on "Unison" - with Lauren Simpson, Cynthia Oliver, Amy Chavasse, and Jo Kreiter
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