Artist Statement – Heidi Van
I am an actor, creator and producer of experimental live theatre. My work is movement-based, sparse in
text, and set to original, live music. I’ve staged most of my recent shows in the storefront window of an
alternative performance venue I opened to the public in the Crossroads Arts District. Here, my actors
and musicians perform for a very live audience.
My studio is the Fishtank, now in its third year. In a way, the Fishtank is my “meta-production,” itself a
piece of theater that I’ve “staged” as a unique venue for experimental work. Inside, it’s a 50-seat black-
box theatre, but the storefront window provides a stage with unlimited viewing capacity.
I created the Fishtank to provide creators of new work a space where we can collaborate. Material
performed at the Fishtank is untried, its content progressive, its writers and performers committed to
aesthetic risk-taking. As producer, I’ve had many different relationships with artists staging new work
there. Presenting fresh material keeps the space activated, and we’re building local audiences for
challenging artwork.
In my own pieces, I’m interested in how performance transcends words, using movement, visual
elements, music and humor to convey deep content. I work with dancers, actors, musicians and
designers to create magical, revelatory effects where physical theater replaces verbal content: audience
response provides depth and complexity. Moving into the storefront window enforces this “no talking”
rule, but I also break the fourth (glass) wall, by putting the musicians out there with the audience, and
actors also use the sidewalk as a performance area. When they (or “we” — I perform myself, too) are
inside the window, the “fishtank” effect really works: a tableau removed from the audience, yet
exposed in a very public way.
This plays a big part in my artwork and in the pieces I produce. I’m challenging the inside/outside
contradiction in performance, toying with what brings people in, how theater goes out to meet its
public, and creating a new awareness about how we perform and view performance. What critics have
written shows these goals are being met.
Our storefront theatre is unique in Kansas City, but similar to others in New York, Chicago and Seattle,
where curators are considering my shows for performance. I’ve already mounted “
L’Histoire D'Amour
: A
Clown Love Story” in a New Orleans storefront.
