Interactive Truss House in RiNo Art Park to offer immersive experience

As the River North Art District continues to fill in with new development, Charity Von Guinness is trying to make sure there will still be space for the artists who first brought the area to life.

At the heart of the neighborhood is RiNo Art Park, a collection of brick-laden buildings nestled against the new Arkins Promenade park and the South Platte River. Almost a year into her tenure as the executive director with the district, Von Guinness is celebrating a landmark opening there – an affordable, multi-use performance space dubbed the Truss House.

Named for the giant trusses supporting the building, it’s an enclosed, 4,000-square-foot adaptable performance space with access to the sprawling lawns and river outside. Von Guinness said she walked through the space with several local performance groups for help with the layout. The goal is to step away from a traditional show experience and invite the widest possible variety of audiences and artists for an immersive performance, every time.

“We really want to make things mobile, so any kind of proper stage or anything we have in that space is going to be folded up and can be put away,” Von Guinness said. “We really want to see audiences interacting with the creatives and feeling a part of that creative process.”

As Von Guinness was constructing the space, she received input from local groups like experimental performance crew Odd Knock Productions, whom she also recruited to perform at the building’s opening. Odd Knock artistic director Brendan Duggan landed on “Good Bones” for the three-night opening performances, an immersive dance-theater production that tells the story of an old woman at a housewarming party uncovering different elements of her psyche.

Throughout the show, cast members performed behind chiffon curtains as audiences of around 60 people roamed through the space, discovering the story alongside the main character. Duggan says “Good Bones” was an example of what is be possible in the Truss House, exposing audiences to a side of performance they can’t get on a traditional stage or screen.

“Interactive performance (is so important because) … it just sticks with you in a more resonant way,” Duggan said.

“My hope is (to) get people in, get them to talk to each other and experience something weird together, and walk away with this shared experience,” he added. “There’s a lot of opportunity there if there’s a discipline and a commitment to that kind of experiential endeavor.”

Von Guinness says they don’t have a full calendar yet, but that they hope to have music, dance and theater performances lined up by mid-August. The district, which owns Truss House, also helps performance groups with their costs and offers them discounted rates, thanks in part to funding from citywide enrichment programs like the voter-approved Elevate Denver bonds.

As rent costs continue to rise in an area marketed for its creative expression, Von Guinness says this space will be crucial for the soul of the community.

“This was a huge challenge, not just to the city as a whole, but (to) artists in particular because they just have no affordable spaces to be performing or making or showing art,” Von Guinness said. “To be able to provide these very discounted highly subsidized spaces … I know we’re able to provide the community something that’s meaningful to them because the city has become really unaffordable in many ways.”