Artstillery
Artstillery

COMMON QUESTIONS

What is immersive performance art? How is your work different than traditional theatre?

We have a desire for audiences to be more than just spectators. We have traded the fourth wall for a performance style which emphasizes the importance of space and design. We strive to create a tangible environment which focuses on the personal and individual audience experience. Sound plays a grounding role in our productions. It places our audience within the world we have created and becomes a timing or pacing mechanism in our pieces.

Artstillery only creates original works based on themes relative to our immediate environment. We respond to social injustice unapologetically, and as the culture around us changes, so does our work. Our pieces change each night of our run, as we adjust to what we learn from audience movement and reaction, the world around us changing, and new insights we find each night as we run the work. Our performers are a part of the process of creation for months, and the characters they have embodied will feel the need for change in the middle of a performance. We create a safe space for moments such as these to happen.

What area do you work in? Where do you create your pieces?

Artstillery in located in West Dallas. We have writing labs, rehearsals, workshops, and work with youth in this area, and we have grown very attached to the community here.
Our original pieces take time to create. Once we feel the work is ready to share, we run it for the general public. After that,  our scripts are revisited, and we make adjustments and prepare them for potential touring engagements.

Do I have to walk the entire performance?

We place no rules on your desire to sit, stand or walk the space.

What is your focus as you create the work?

The truth in narratives from marginalized communities.

How long does it take to create a piece?

Our piece Dirty Turk started over 7 years ago. The Artstillery team then reworked it for a year as we interviewed community members.

Typically, we work organically and test different methods to create pieces of performance. Through our Embodied Movement Director, we have now implemented a different approach of creating pieces from an entirely different direction. We are using movement to find narrative and it has been an insightful process.

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