 Welcome to On the Waterfront. I'm your host, Mariah Riggs, director of the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center. And this month I'm excited to bring Trish Denton to the show. She's a friend and an amazing theatrical collaborator with many organizations across the state of Vermont. So Trish, let's go back to the very beginning. I know, very exciting. So you grew up in Detroit. I did. And so let's go back to the very beginning and talk a little bit about growing up in Detroit and how that kind of supported your growth as an artist and how it led you to where you are currently today. Yeah, so I grew up halfway in between Flint and Detroit. Wow. And I was trying to figure out what is this? Is this rural? Is this suburban? Is this urban? Recently when I was there and I was like, I think these were villages and then sprawl sort of filled in the space in between. But I certainly spent all of my time driving down to Detroit to see shows once I was a teenager and was old enough to get out of there. And although I've lived in Vermont for most of my adult life, I feel like my earliest template and the culture of that place and the fact that Detroit is the blackest city in the US and that it is very much a place where black folks are not the minority but they're the majority rulers of cultural work and had a big impact on my artistic identity. Yeah, and upbringing. Yeah. Which is actually very unique to Vermont. Yeah. And so it's great that you bring that to the state. So I'm just kind of trying to get a sense of growing up in Detroit, like I mean, I know that's like the Motown Capital, the music, the influence, the culture. You were probably there too, specifically during sort of the hardest time in Detroit, like post, when the car company started pulling out and you probably saw a real shift while you were there. Yeah, so in the late 1960s is when there was what is called white flight where people started leaving the city in droves and that's when Detroit became one of the largest examples of suburban sprawl in the world is that the city began to be just liquidated of people in the job spread out outside of the city in the suburbs which is a very different model than you see in other, in other metropolitan areas. So we call it Metro Detroit. People live in Detroit. It's like Detroit also kind of includes Metro Detroit. But my dad was a mechanic, my stepfather was an assembly line worker for GM and I was very closely, intimately tied to the ups and downs of the economy based on the fall of the auto empire there. And Flynn, which was the headquarters for GM, which was the largest corporation in the world at the time. I didn't realize that. Flint, Michigan was the headquarters of GM. Yeah, GM was born out of Flint and if you've seen Michael Morris Rodger and me, there was 11 plants that were closed in Flint in the late 80s, early 90s when Rod... Oh, I forget the name of what Rodgers last name. Nope, don't ask me, I'm terrible at this. The CEO of GM. Closed down these plants and sent the manufacturing overseas to Mexico for cheaper labor and it just completely destroyed Flint forever and now we know what's going on in the headlines in Detroit and Flint with the lack of the auto industry being in those towns. But during that time, it's like, I was growing up while this empire was crumbling and of course there's constant talk of layoffs amongst your friends' parents and people being worried about their pensions and if they're on the right track and just real like blue collar issues were like something that I was reared on. How did you, now this is, I mean, I'm just wondering you in this environment, how did you end up falling in and falling in love with theatrical arts? Yeah, so I mean, I think I probably was born theatrical. Well, I mean, that's what most people say, right? But, you know, I mean, because it seems like something that would have been very outside, sort of like the normal culture. Yeah, absolutely. So I didn't know it was even a thing until I was in college because there was not, you know, programs or extracurricular activities. I think we had some very small drama program at my middle school and my high school, but you definitely didn't want to be doing that stuff where you were a nerd or whatever. So I didn't even give it a shot until I was here in college in Vermont. And so that's how you got to Vermont is you ended up in college here? Kind of. Because that was my next question. Yeah, so my son's father and I moved here in 2004 because he went to Vermont Law School. And we had traveled around Peru and had seen some pretty significant environmental devastation unlike either of us had ever seen. We were in our early 20s and both of us decided to kind of take a different path and he enrolled in an environmental law program at Vermont Law School. And I was looking for a program to do while I was in Vermont where I could continue growing my business at the time which was an info shop and activism project like challenging fast fashion. And so it was like sort of pre Etsy. You were like the anti Zara. Yeah. It was like pre Etsy kind of. You were way ahead of the wave on that. Yeah, so like upcycled stuff wasn't a thing yet. But I was doing these fashion shows and events where I was working with fair trade, remade, homemade and sustainable clothing producers to create immersive and engaging fashion show events. I need to start tapping into your potential for a costume. I had no idea you had a background in clothing. Don't tell anyone. You just outed yourself. Yeah, I don't do costumes. That's so interesting. No, but that's wonderful. I mean, that's really interesting because that is way ahead of the curve. I mean, it was like another 10 years until that was sort of a established path in the clothing industry. Yeah. Which is pretty cool. Yeah, and I mean, I think both of us, we were doing, you know, he was pursuing law and I was studying nonprofit management and event production and how to do these things in ways that were creating spaces for community engagement in real and engaging ways. We were both interested in using our potential like in the interest of the environment. And Vermont was a really great place to have those values. It's kind of one of the nexuses in America, at least from certain perspectives of sort of the ecological and environmental movement. You know, we have a real grassroots infrastructure in the state that comes out of the people here. And there tends to be sort of a natural inclination to take care of the environment. That's part of the culture, which... Well, it's hard to ignore here because it's actually nature is right there where you can touch it. Whereas if you're in these more urban built up environments, you become separated from and have less of a relationship with nature. And I very much was a victim of that, like growing up in a grittier area, like outside of Pontiac, Michigan. Pontiac, Michigan, really? Pontiac, it's a thing. Let me guess, is Pontiac where Pontiacs were made? Yes. I'm just curious, I wouldn't know. So that's really interesting. So you're doing sort of the anti-fast fashion thing in Vermont. Now again, how did you end up in theatrical arts? Yeah, so I was sort of pursuing that path and producing fashion shows and traveling with that project for a while. It was called Clothing Change. And there were a lot of people who are sort of coming out of the woodwork, like, oh, we do performance and dance and or cabaret style stuff or satirical stuff or comedy stuff that kind of goes with these events that you're creating, like, how could we team up on these things? And I'd often have a DJ that would be a part of the event. And so it was like this, it naturally started lending itself to these performances. There was a festival that I would go to annually in Chicago called Version Fest. And it was just so fun when, like, it would magnetize people who were just like, really like in the interdisciplinary arts production. No, I mean, that makes sense. So, and so you sort of, and then you probably fell in love with it and were like, wow, I want to pursue this more. And so once you realized that that was a direction in which you wanted to go to, what happened next? Yeah, so I took kind of a radical shift in my academic studies where I was going to school at Goddard College. I was like, I just want to study performance studies and storytelling. I'm really interested in the oral storytelling tradition and the way in which storytelling has been used to heal or resist or spread information. And all of those things was really fascinating to me. And so I was studying that and starting to do these sort of street performances and doing my own solo work. And people are like, oh, whoa, you're like really good at this stuff. Do you want to be a part of our theater thing? And I was like, I don't really know anything about theater. How does it work? And started, you know, naturally, I tend to be the organizer of projects. And I know this. So, yes. So, yeah, soon enough, people got wind of those tendencies. And skills. Yeah. And so they're like, well, can you be our stage manager? Actually, we'd like you to direct next time or we would love to have you on the production team because we need this particular skillset which translated really easily from producing events. Yeah, when you're producing events, especially like particularly fashion shows in a lot of ways are the presentation and the production is very similar to a play and a live performance. Absolutely. It's exactly the same nuts and bolts. Being able to apply that to a theatrical production probably made a lot of sense. Yeah, and so I think at first I came to it because I had the nuts and bolts skillset that was helpful to some of the things that were missing for folks like in this climate which has very little infrastructure for production. Yeah, that was something I was gonna talk about too. So, as you got involved in this, I mean, a big thing too that I constantly hear about is, you know, in Vermont, you know, for our size, we have a very engaged community, but from a national perspective, it's a small infrastructure and a small community. And so sometimes when artists are here, it can be sort of sacrificial because you're in a place where the infrastructure and the capacity is much more limited than in other parts of the country. And so I kind of wanted to ask you to, you know, settle in here, somebody who's in theatrical arts, which I appreciate, thank you, I'm so glad you're here. But, you know, that's a big decision. And so how did you come about that decision? Yeah, I mean, so finding theater and stage and storytelling and live performance to be my medium kind of came by surprise. And suddenly I'm hanging out with bread and puppet folks and people that are doing experimental theater. And, you know, I never had the young goals of being a starry-eyed, Broadway-bound performer. I was just so grateful that I found this place to express something deeply, and that was drawing on visual art and music and storytelling and acting and physicality and dance, all the things sort of included in one package. And so when I started practicing here in my early 20s and whatnot, I thought it was just gonna be a hobby. I didn't realize it would become my professional life. Yeah. And so, yeah, I was sort of pursuing it with just gratitude and the vigor of someone who wanted to contribute something to community. Yeah, a young, somebody in their 20s who's found something that they're passionate about. Yeah. It seems like a great thing to get involved in. Yeah. And, you know, that's something too, I think, that's always drawn me to your work is that your work isn't in sort of the traditional theatrical vein. And I do think, you know, after listening especially to you talking about your background, it makes a lot of sense because I would say that your work tends to have a lot more components to it than traditional theatrical work. You know, there's a lot of components of performance art. There's video art, you know, there's movement and there's music and there's media involved sometimes in how you create space and place and performance. That is particularly unique, I would say, especially in our community. And so, and I think talking about your background, that makes a lot more sense because it's not more of the traditional driven, you know, expression of theatrical production. Yeah. And so, you know, kind of talking about that too because it's a particularly singular voice and presentation of the craft and sort of how, because it seems like it's a very organic process for you that has sort of ended up that way. I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, so sometimes I wonder even if I had found theater and musical theater and straight acting and all of those things when I was younger, if I would have straight anyways. I think my tendency is to wanna push the envelope and is to want to explore the parameters of a medium or an issue or, you know, push the limits of things a little bit to see what can come out of the farthest stretches of our imagination and whatever, in whatever way I'm using the integration of media or mixing other mediums into it. It's cause, you know, I'm trying to stay true to the vision that comes from my imagination, not from what is prescribed in like a particular industry or practice of a medium. And so it's really fun to be like, how can we get as close as possible to the dream, to the vision that's in here and create something in the real life. Yeah, and you know, I think that kind of also, as we're moving forward sort of in the timeline, you don't know this, but my first time when I met Trisha is when she came to the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center to do orchestra's box, which was a production that was hosted that we had in the film, in the black box. And so maybe telling everybody a little bit about that production because I think that was, I mean, that's when I first met you. Yeah, and I think that was 2010. Yeah, 13 years ago. I think 2012 was, okay, good. That makes me feel better. When that one happened, you know, me too. It was only 11 years ago. I know, it still feels relatively recent for some reason, doesn't it? Yeah, no it doesn't. But yeah, so I think I had my mind sort of blown open the year before that cause I performed at the Edinburgh French Festival for the first time, which is just the mecca of independent performance. So just for our viewers actually, this is a great segue. Yes, the Edinburgh French Festival, just a quick description for our folks at home, like what that's about. Yeah, so the French Festival started in, I believe, the 1930s. It was a very anarchist, decentralized festival where people would come from all over Europe and do comedy, plays, theater, burlesque, music performances, just all different types of independent and alternative performance. And it's blown to the point where the population grows by 40,000 people when the festival is going on. And it's in this, you know, Edinburgh's a gorgeous place but it's like the seat of sort of this resistant sort of alternative, like, subversive at like what's happening in London, what's happening with the elite, or like whatever in the prescribed kind of BAFTA like community of acting. Cause it's, you know, like the Shakespearean kind of model. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the Scots are naturally rebellious and it was perfect that they hosted all of these radicals to come and put on art from all over the world. I mean, it's spread and there's French festivals all over internationally now. But that was the original French Festival and it's incredible to go there cause you're meeting people from all over. You're seeing just tons of new work and different, like just tons of different approaches to generating work and a spin on every different way you could possibly think of, like putting something on the stage, somebody's doing it there. Which is a great like kind of immersive experience. Yes. As you're starting out and you're starting, you know, you sort of an infancy of your creative expression. It's a great place to start out for that. And that actually also explains a lot. So backing back to Orchester's box, if you would like to tell our viewership about that production because it was sort of your brainchild. Yeah, that was my first fully directed and produced production. It was at Main Street Landing, perfect venue for it. And I'd come back from the fringe and I believe I was watching an Indian classical dance performance or something at the Flynn. And I just suddenly had, like out of nowhere I saw the whole design for that show in my head and I was like, like something, something gel. It was like when Tesla discovered alternating current or something, I was just like, the whole blueprint was there and I was like, oh, I just thought of a show. And it was, it's something like gelled while I was watching this beautiful dance performance. And yeah, so I spent, I think a little over a year creating the original score with Randall Pierce for it. Collaborating with the Porter Music Box Museum to like create a unique instrument like this like $30,000 mechanical music box. Loaned us and like outfitted for the production and we had contact mics all over it. And then Thought Faucet, which was an animation studio. We created a bunch of dream sequences that were projection mapped into the performance. And so it was working with original compositions that were played live on a mechanical music box of our design projection mapping and animation with a full ensemble of 10 or so physical actors doing this show. And I mean, if I had it my way, I would just create a show like that every six months. Like I would just keep going. Like 2012, you know, fast forward 10 years later, there's like 12 of those shows and I just kept replicating it. It was amazing. But you know, ultimately doing that show gave me this insight to how difficult it is to actualize something like that in this place that I love so much where I call home where I was raising my child, where I had all of my creative collaborators and realizing that I wanted to professionalize and take things to the next level. And it would be difficult for me to do that if I was here alone and you know, which has led to a lot of the projects at hand, which is trying to develop a ripe bed for younger emerging artists to lay in and dream in in this space. Which gets sort of the evolution into your art organization. In tandem arts is Tricia's baby. It's a wonderful organization. And so I think that leads us into the question of, so how did you end up coming into tandem arts? Yeah. So orchestrasco's box was in 2012. And then around 2013, I was just, I was having all these thoughts around, should I go to New York? Should I go back to Detroit? Should I go to Chicago? Like, if I really want to continue to grow this craft, I don't know if this is something I can do in, in this setting. And yet being completely in love with my friends here and the land here and like calling this place home. And very, you know, it's still an ongoing conversation. It's still an ongoing. Doing every other theater artist in Vermont. I mean, it's, Totally. I mean, it's a real thing. It's the siren call of New York. And we're so close. And it's a constant pull. Right. And there's a field is established there. You don't have to make it. And you don't have to rent all the stuff and pull it in like by foot from Boston to get it here for hundreds of miles. But yeah, so 2012 was that production. And then I started just having this idea for this mobile arts incubator where I could go around and be using the same process that I had learned through doing these ensemble creations to just work with anyone, to work with groups and like create some type of story or performance specific to that group and sort of facilitate them through that creative process. Cause ultimately, I think another thing I was coming to terms with around 2013, 2014 is that I don't know that I necessarily wanted to exist in the arts world. I wanted to practice the arts in this world here, which was very real for me and have it be integrated into my everyday life. Not go away and be in some type of niche that was very specific and precious, but to be in awe of how storytelling and performance gives us the tools to like live a higher quality of life and to connect with each other and have like amazing ways and tools to express ourselves. Like I just want to do that with people. And so I was having that realization and did a micro business program in 2014, started meeting with some folks to do some strategic planning and see like how viable it would be to launch that organization. It took me seven years to actually launch it. And it's wonderful because what you've been doing, I mean, just from my overview too is you've been going out in the community and you've been using your love of the arts and how you engage with it and again storytelling as a device for students and groups and people to be able to explore their community and their own lives and their own experience and their own consciousness as a tool. Which I think is a really special, I mean, you're talking about a niche but it's a very special place for people and it allows for growth and I think it's really given back to the community at large. Which I think is what is really wonderful. And then you say in tandem arts, after we talked about the fact that like what you pursue is something that is so omnidirectional and like in how it takes from so many different aspects of the arts and puts it together but then in tandem arts actually works to uplift the community. And so I really wanna touch base too on so what is in tandem arts right now? And now we did have a fabulous project last year but I don't wanna get too much into that. I wanna talk about what in tandem arts is doing right now. What are you guys up to? Yeah, so in tandem arts is I guess most succinctly I would describe it as a community based arts incubator. And so we have a space but we also have the infrastructure and the team to go into schools, go into community organizations, go into museums, go into your place of work, wherever as a mobile unit and create the stage wherever that may be. And so we're really working outside of traditional performance spaces. So we finished a residency recently with Burlington City and Lake Semester which is an experiential learning program where the students don't have a classroom but like Burlington is their classroom and we did an immersive performance, like site-specific performance with them at the Old North End Community Center. That's so cool. And they were exploring alternative visions of like, if we don't address some of the things that are our concerns in Burlington now, what that might look like in an alternate universe or in an alternate future. The metaverse of Burlington? Yeah. I love that. That's super cool. And the audience was school administrators, teachers, counselors, parents, people from that are higher up in education and just like such an amazing group of people to explore these ideas with and the students were leading it. And we literally led them holding on to a rope from place to place to look at these different stories. Wow, so there was like a tether. Yeah. And it was manifested as an actual, which is again, a way of bridging a lot of things with a lot of different types of art. So I wanted to, you know, tandem arts does a lot of great community work and I really wanted to talk to you about, to the audience on ways to connect with you, how to connect with in tandem arts. So it's www, so if they wanna contact you, what is the, it's www.intandemartsalloneword.com. So please go check out the website. If you wanna get engaged, if you wanna reach out to Trish and all the wonderful work she does, if you wanna invite her in, I know you've done a lot of work with the Folklife Center as well. A big part of it is storytelling, but actively engaging in very creative and unique ways of storytelling. Things that are more physical and more interactive and engaging, which we all know with children and anyone. The benefits are so much more beneficial to everyone. And I wanna thank you so much for all that work and bringing it to everyone. Yeah, thank you. So what would you say, just a last little quick thing to our audience, how do they reach out to you? Do you need volunteers? Yeah, so please reach out at www.intandemarts.com. Our Instagram is at in underscore tandem underscore arts. There's just tons of updates on that platform that show everything that we've been doing in the community right now. We have a space down on Flinav. Plenty of like drop in and workshops for people to connect and come and meet us and pitch ideas. And also very excited to come into your school or place of work or organization to talk about a collaborative project that we can co-design together. So that's great. So please reach out to Trish. She's a fabulous resource. We're so glad you're here. Thank you. And you didn't go to New York. And thank you so much for being on the show. It's been a delight. Thank you guys so much for tuning in today. And I will see you right back here next month. Thank you.