ARTIST- DRIVEN HAUNTED HOUSES WELCOME GUESTS
Real- world fears can’t help but intrude on this year’s Halloween revelry. But for some out- ofwork or idled Denver artists, confronting fear is their best chance at finding paid gigs, developing their art and commenting on the overlapping crises around them.
“We’ve been planning this for a while, and we knew October 2020 would be right before the presidential election. That was part of our brainstorming for the theme,” said Kate Speer, who along with Serena Chopra and Frankie Toan created the artistdriven Halloween experience”
No Place to Go,” debuting Thursday, Oct. 22, in Lakewood.
Billed as a haunted house, “No Place to Go” is actually a driving route of site- specific installations that tell a non- linear story of “the horror of the binary — where neither choice is desirable.”
That’s because two of its founders ( Chopra and Toan) and many of its artists identify as queer. Their idea of scary is trying to fit into a world that sees only two choices — not just in gender, but in politics and other areas of life.
For Rainbow Militia’s ” Death’s Unraveling,” a performancedriven haunted house that opened last week in the Berkeley neighborhood, “quaranteams” can explore “the grim reaper’s employment in a time of the unemployed” by moving through labyrinthine rooms in a surreal, customized bungalow.
“We did the show ‘ Gnome Away from Home’ in July there, and that was a truly odd experiment in figuring out how to safely do this,” said Amber Blais, producing artistic director for Rainbow Militia. “But then this house has its own challenges, because it’s slated for demolition and has no electricity, heat or running water.”
As major institutions such as Denver Center for the Performing Arts sit idle, small, nonprofit
collaborations have offered a respite from corporate entertainment and mainstream ideas of scary ( think gore, zombies and jump- scares).
“Even in the most difficult of times, there’s so much value in making art and empowering artists financially,” said “No Place to Go” co- creator Chopra, a Denver- based writer, dancer and filmmaker. “We’re giving them a stage to contemplate real sociopolitical issues.”
“It is amazing how many people keep asking me if this is going to be a yearly thing,” said Toan, a nonbinary artist who uses they/ them pronouns. “I’m like, ‘ It took us two years to make this one!’ ”
The built- in collaboration of “No Place to Go” helped save it, organizers said. Chopra, Speer and Toan are all former RedLine Contemporary Art Center residents, and their network extends far beyond that institution. Gathering dancers, painters, sculptors, video artists and coders helped them fundraise and refine ideas for their complicated vision.
Inspiration was everywhere, Toan said, including in Killjoy’s Kastle, which bills itself as a lesbianfeminist haunted house — and which they visited in Philadelphia last October for research. ( Monsters there include “demented women’s studies professors” and “polyamorous vampiric sex- positive grannies.”) Trying to model “No Place to Go” after it presented challenges once the pandemic arrived.
“Our project dream budget was $ 100,000, and we did not meet that,” Speer said. “But a lot of these artists were already selected ( before the pandemic) and were promised this money. We only added extra levels if the funds were there.”
“No Place to Go” spans five secret sites across 2 miles of the 40 West Arts District and Wheat Ridge. People who buy tickets ($ 60 per car) will meet at Mint & Serif, a coffee shop and bar at 7310 W. Colfax Ave. There they’ll unlock a smartphone app ( to be downloaded in advance) that guides their staggered, overlapping journeys through the otherworldly installations.
Thanks to early planning — namely, not relying on advance sales to pay artists — and successful crowdfunding, the organizers also were able to create a virtual- reality experience ($ 25) that works with both standard VR goggles and the juryrigged home version ( i. e. cardboard blinders around a mobile screen).
Depending on the strength of first- weekend sales, they may eventually spend as much as $ 60,000 on “No Place to Go,” Speer said, with all profits going to the artists. With only 24 slots per night ( or four cars every half- hour), there’s already an online waiting list for the premiere.
“This is the largest project I’ve ever worked on,” said Toan, a rising DIY/ craft artist whose intricate soft sculpture has been commissioned and exhibited nationally. “But it’s a testament to Kate’s admin and ( fundraising) skills that we even have forty- thousand- plus dollars and are working without any institutional oversight.”
While the project was independently created, financing and marketing support has been crucial. RedLine and 40 West are presenting “No Place to Go,” with sponsorship from Beston Homes.
Rainbow Militia’s “Death’s Unraveling” also will lean heavily on collaboration — and movement, given that it’s a circus- arts company. That drove the design inside its soon- tobedemolished bungalow on Tennyson Street ( donated by Denver group Reactiv), which has been undergoing a transformation since August.
“Your group will be in the house with other
groups, but you never see them,” Blais said of the show, which is “Rated
PG- 13” and costs $ 120 to $ 180 per ticket for groups of four to six. “We’ve put holes in walls, and built secret passages and things you can climb through, so your path never intersects with anyone else’s.”
Notably, each room also has its own ventilation. But since Blais hasn’t been able to rehearse the show with her collaborators, she’s never seen the whole thing. Amid the jugglers, fire dancers and acrobats, however, visitors will get to hear stories from members of The Black Actors Guild and original music in a score from David Rynhart of Chimney Choir, as well as four new songs performed in an outdoor garden by Larea Edwards, Chrissy Grant and Laura Goldhamer.
Whether or not these concepts return next year (“It’s not a drive- thru, it’s a drive- to,” said “No Place to Go’s” Speer), the ideas batted around in these projects have led to many more, organizers said.
“Luckily, queerness as a mode of world- building lends itself to surrealist connections we never thought possible,” said Chopra of “No Place to Go.” “Will it be serious? Yes! Will we have camp and humor? Yes! It’s not all traumatizing commentary on the real world. This may be our last binge of fantasy before reality is too big to handle.”