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 leases the Truss House long-term from the City of Denver, 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.”
The Truss House is the last addition to the RiNo Art Park. It joins the Alto Gallery, whose studios are owned, managed and subsidized by the BirdSeed Collective and RedLine Contemporary Arts Center, as well as the Denver Public Library’s Bob Ragland branch.
Earlier this summer, Comal Heritage Food Incubator, named in the New York Times 2021 Best Restaurant list, also joined the Art Park’s roster. Comal upgraded into the 2,600 square foot space across from the Truss House to hold a bigger commissary kitchen and fulfill its mission of helping immigrant and refugee women learn the world of food service, all while keeping their unique culinary heritages intact.
This variety of organizations is meant to serve and reflect the community, but as they’re uniquely positioned in the same park, Von Guinness says they also serve each other. There are plenty of opportunities for collaboration between them all – one of which was the RiNo Summer Art Market, which on July 15 hosted more than 30 vendors and saw more than 3,000 people pass through the art park.
“Comal sold out of Topo Chicos within an hour, and all the RedLine artists were out making paper maché,” Von Guinness said. “Everyone was walking around, enjoying the spaces, enjoying the tenants, seeing the new Truss House space, and supporting the artists that were vendors there. It was one of those very heartwarming moments. That is really what the park is about.”
UPDATE 4:15 p.m. Aug. 2: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this story stated that the Truss House and other RiNo Art Park buildings were owned by RiNo Art District. The buildings are owned by the City of Denver. RiNo leases them long-term and was responsible for the fundraising, build-out and management of the facilities, including the Truss House and Comal Heritage Food Incubator. It has since been corrected.
