"People sometimes call me looking for fish!" says Heidi Van, Curator and Resident Artist of the Fishtank Performance Studio.
But these fish-seekers quickly learn that Van's fishtank is not an actual aquarium. Hers is a vivarium, a place for life, where performances run the creative gamut in the most intimate theatrical setting in the city. Though petite (at a capacity of 50), the Fishtank Performance Studio in the Crossroads Arts District has become a metaphorical big fish in a small, well, fish tank.
"When I took leadership of the Fishtank in 2009, I talked to numerous artists that I admire and respect to gain perspectives on the needs of the community as producing artists as well as for programming ideas. I am cultivating a performance venue not just for myself, but for the city - either as audience members or performers."
The space itself is as malleable as it is quaint. Performances have been staged in every possible manner in the space with a recent capital campaign yielding a technical loft as well as usage of the storefront windows where actors have played to audiences seated in the street.
"Maintaining the outside space is important for me because it gives me a place to create and perform new works, but also it has been a dream of mine to have a space. I love that it has its own life as a performance venue, but I love going into the studio, clearing out all of the chairs, getting in front of the mirrors and moving, creating, practicing. Having that is so valuable because it allows me to just work on the art and tune everything else out."
Her art teeters between the mainstream and the fringe. In the past few years, she has worked at the New Theatre alongside TV actors of yesteryear which has afforded her the ability, resources and freedom to produce her own work borne of the fringe.
"There is time for both, you have to make time for both if that is what you need to survive. There is difference between my art practice and my art business. My day job now is a touring theatre gig that is in town, so it is nice that my day job is still a creative outlet for me and does inspire me to create."
The pert native of Kansas City, Kansas, slips seamlessly between panning farce for the dinner theatre crowds and the red-nosed pathos and buffoonery of her original clown shows The Coppelia Project, 53 Days and 52 Nights: A Clown Requiem and La Histoire. In these shows, music is a common theme serving as a percussive muse.
"I try to find the rhythm of the words. I grew up a dancer and am moved by music but let's face it, I don't fit the requirements to be a ballerina," says the 5'4", 36-25-38, 30-something.
Van credits her motto of "If you're not working, make work for yourself" for her success.
"If I could do it over, I would have overcome my fears sooner and taken control of my own destiny much earlier in my performing artist career. There are many ideas that I wish I had pursued but their time has passed. I remember that now and so when I am inspired, I try to harness my creative energy and that of others to produce a product in a timely manner so that the work is relevant to the time and place."
The time is now. The place is the Fishtank.
Heidi is a Spring 2010 Artist INC Fellow.
Visit Heidi Van's website.
Written by David Wayne Reed, October 2010