Imagine a crack.

A carefully scratched jagged line in polished stone.

A peeled and stained curl in a formica desktop.

A crumbling split in dusty concrete at your feet.

For some people cracks cause anxiety. They are a blemish. Something to be filled and corrected. But for others they can be expressive, even artistic. A person might put gold foil in them to highlight their very nature and embrace the broken, transforming a flaw into an attraction.

Kintsugi Pottery

But a crack is a glimpse. It is not a full fissure. For that we need something else. A portal.

Imagine a blue door. Bright, luminescent, almost neon when you were near them, because of course they sense you and respond. They never touch the ground. They hover 16” in the air in the darkness between two houses, stuck in the shadows, glowing blue but never illuminating anything around them. The light is internal, drawing you in like a blue blackhole. It is obviously a portal. Why not go through? How could you refuse?

You find yourself in a gap of Liminal Space. You are in between. Liminal Spaces can be physical (like a doorway), emotional (like a divorce), or metaphorical (like a decision). This portal happens to be all three.

This can be unsettling for some people. They may feel a sense of disorientation or a loss of sense of place, as these spaces lack clear markers of identity or ownership.

 These are the cracks in the Layers, the Doors we pass through in life, the ones recorded in the Book of Findings visible through the Spyglass, and tread by Those Who Left. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves and for another time in the future. You don’t need to concern yourself with that right now.

All you need to know is that Portals lead to Liminal Spaces, and that is where Wonder hides, and Wonder is the seed of Imagination.

The beginning bar area at The Doors of Divergence. Image Credit Escape the Roomers.

Escape Room Field Report - East Coast

Location: New York City. Williamsburg, Brooklyn to be precise.

Events: Doors of Divergence

1)    Heresy 1897

2)    Madness 1917

Environmental conditions: Hot. Hot. Hot. Hazy with Canadian smoke. Pride Weekend in NYC brings a celebration of thongs.

Summary:

We do two narrative heavy escape rooms produced by Doors of Divergence. Escape rooms started out as simple puzzle rooms with a theme, short on the story with a ton of padlocks. But the genre has grown, so more and more have turned up the performative elements to create a world. The Ministry of Peculiarities has been doing this for some time. Doors of Divergence are new to scene (opening in 2022) and the word on the street is that they are full of characters and story. Also, the two rooms can operate as individual experiences, but they are parts of single narrative, and choices made in the first segment, Heresy 1897, will affect the situation in the second segment, Madness 1917. In this way, a patron can return and make different choices solving one of the issues with escape rooms, “repeatability” or the return customer.

In both experiences, you start off in a bar. Everything should start off in a bar. The bar patrons are used to seeing strangers pass through from one timeline to another, and they give you the lay of the land before you enter the timeline that awaits you.  

Stepping into Heresy 1897, heavy on Symbology. Photography is discouraged, this image is credit to Escape The Roomers.

1)    On the first adventure, Heresy 1897, we go in as a duo without a team hoping we meet some quality folks. And we do, but only 2, so there are only 4 of us to tackle this escape room. We could have used more.

The experience is dense in puzzles. There are twists and turns and tiny details to be noticed to move forward. This is when a larger team comes in handy. Our guide, a masked figure belonging to the Order of the Three Keys lays on a thick narrative and works hard to keep us moving along on the right track, but there is a lot to do here. We learn the symbology of gods, explore Egyptian maps, deduce life altering experiments, decode the carvings on an ancient obelisk, all leading up to an encounter with a demon yearning to enter our world and wreak some sort of havoc. And in that moment, you are given a choice…

Yes, we respect the rules. But rules are made to be broken. Personal info redacted during Madness 1917. Photo by Terry Podgorski.

2)    The next day we return for part 2. We only have 1 other person joining us so we persuaded the 2 lovelies from the first adventure to join us for the second portion. And they do. Thank goodness, because we needed them.

In segment two, Madness 1917, we enter Holy Grove Sanitarium catering to those shell shocked by the events of World War 1 which was probably instigated by the demon we helped in the previous story. But no worries, there’s always a chance at redemption. Here, we meet a doctor and nurse new to the job. After a brief introduction we are given a tour where to our surprise we end up in two adjoining cells, admitted to the asylum, the group split, but able to communicate.

Over the next hour we work as a team to discover who inhabited these cells before us, play with spooky dolls that correspond with local, macabre murders, deduce that the doctor wants to lobotomize us, deduce that the nurse is not who she seems to be, steal a key that leads to our escape, and once again a member of the team comes face to face with the demon and is given a choice…

Conclusions:

What we learned from our choices in these two segments: We like to help rampaging demons cross over to this world. We don’t know why. We’re not even sure we knew we were doing it when we did, but the choice of eternal life seemed just too damn tempting. So maybe we learned something about ourselves.

We also learned that some rooms are tough nuts to crack. In the first segment, we looked over some obvious clues, but again that’s what a large group is for in these trying times. 2, 3, or 4 people cannot see or do everything.

In both segments, the sets are well drawn populated with ancient maps, carved figurines, tubes of scientific goo, and a monolith with glowing runes needing to be activated. The props and puzzles fit well within the story. The dollhouse and doll situation, truly creepy. In the second segment (Madness 1917), the need to communicate between two cells turned up the excitement, and we required less help in general because it was more intuitive. The presence of the two actors playing the nurse and the doctor provides for more banter and easier storytelling. On the first adventure, I began to feel a bit sorry for the poor actor who had to prod us through the Heresy 1897 story. But in Madness 1917, the narrative flowed smoothly.

Recommendation:

It’s for those who like to escape more than they like immersive performance. We read that Doors of Divergence was heavy on the narrative, which they were, but we expected more in the way of performance and less in the way of escape room. That is not the case. These games are not for novices. Though again, the actors are helpful and no player will be locked away for life and called a loser. We survived. Everyone survives. In the end, it is fun.

The worlds are very well defined: the first a dungeon with hidden Egyptian secrets for eternal life, the second an asylum of murderers controlled by a demon. The puzzles and the tech high quality. Be prepared.

The East Coast tour to Doors of Divergence concludes our Field Reports from the Summer of 2023. We’ve been off investigating other suspects, but these belong to a different category of experiences, those of an Alternate Reality! Stay tuned…

Apologies, but another illicit puzzle photo of Madness 1917. Beginners, beware. Photo by Terry Podgorski.

Interior at Lab Rat taken by Terry Podgorski

Escape Room Field Report - West Coast

We’ve been on a wander to discover what is going on out there in the world of entertainment in 2023. We’ve hit up theme parks, immersive museums, conference, and escape rooms.

 To be clear, Nordo is NOT opening an escape room. But, escape rooms are increasingly more narrative and theater is increasingly more interactive and somewhere in the middle is a sweet spot that will sweep audiences off their feet and into a suspension of disbelief and wonder. This is the spot we are looking for

So, for your perusal, a top secret Field Report.

Location(s):

1)Seattle, WA

2)Los Angeles, CA

Event(s):

1)   Locurio’s “Storykeeper”

2)   Hatch Escapes “Labrat”

Environmental Conditions: spring to summer delight. Almost bordering on too warm for these Northwest souls. Visit the La Brea Tar Pits everyone! They’re so cool. LA is weird.

Seattle Summary:

 1)   We put together a team of nerds and competitive game nuts and met for dinner and a couple of drinks in Fremont at the Red Star Taco Bar. We then headed out to find Locurio. The business hides in a sneaky apartment complex in central Fremont. Down an alley. Through a gate. Up the stairs. The first part is a success. We feel pretty good. A bit edgy

“Storykeeper” is rooted in fables of old. One of these stories has been absconded and must be returned and fixed! We begin in a library with shelves of tales, traverse a magical forest full of creatures and mazes, and end in a hut with a particular disgruntled creature that might seem familiar once you’re there.

We struggled at first. It took us awhile as a group to get our puzzle brain on, but once we did we made good progress with minimal hints. The last couple of puzzles nearly got us, but with an “aha” moment here and a bit of luck there, we put the components together and turned the crank to “solve” the room with a whole 3 minutes to spare.

The world of fables was back to how it should be!

 L.A. Summary:

2)   Flying in for the Next Stage Immersive Conference we only had a few friends to hit up for our team in Los Angeles. Though our team was small, it was mighty. We met in a neighborhood that I’m sure has a name, but to me, who has only been to L.A. once or twice, seems to be between many neighborhoods, but then again most of L.A. seems that way. Labrat is in a tall, older warehouse that used to house copies of all the Screen Actors Guild scripts ever written. Truly. Every script submitted to SAG had a copy in this building. I think that’s hilarious.

 You’re a human. Duh. In a cage. Oh no. With real bars. Giant rats in lab coats are experimenting on your team to judge the extent of human intelligence if there is any at all. The rats (really actors on screen in rat garb so don’t worry) are a bit rude and demeaning, but then again you would be too if you had been test subjects for centuries and the tables flipped.

We passed through a series of tests based upon true lab experiments, win the treats, conquer the giant water bottle puzzle, stumble at charades a bit (I am terrified of charades and nearly froze), then spin the hamster wheel in the correct pattern to prove our intelligence and win our freedom!

Humans do have intelligence! Even the rats have to agree!

The unassuming entrance to the Hatch underworld, where LABRAT is contained. Photo by Terry Podgorski.

Conclusions:

 1)   It’s amazing what Locurio has done in the confines of the space they have. The worlds are clear and delightful. Because it’s based on common fables you feel like you should know what to do, and in a way you kind of do if you could only see it, but surprises abound. The puzzles are a masterful blend of styles and everyone in the group found a way to contribute and win the day!

2)   Labrat is hilarious. Cute. A riot. The event is full of “aha” group moments. I’d love a video to take home of our team in the throes of delight chasing a ball rolling through a track system suspended from the ceiling. The story is also clear and complete, and the puzzles flow from one to the other in the context of the “experimentation”. “Inventive” is the word!

Recommendations:

1)   Visit and support Locurio now. It’s in Seattle. So close to downtown. Plus, based on a reliable source we know that Locurio is also looking for a new home to expand their brand of narrative escape rooms. Rooted in literature with a wicked eye for good puzzles, we’re sure the new venue will be a success.

2)   If you like this kind of thing and are in L.A. hit up Labrat. It’s a laugh. But also, keep an eye on Hatch Escapes, the parent company. In their building they also house “The Nest”, immersive narrative designed by a couple of Imagineers for only two guests at a time in which you explore the life of person through what is left in storage.  And, they have a couple of promising new rooms on the horizon including “The Ladder”, a corporate espionage piece with multiple characters and multiple endings that we are eager to see. The tour we were given of the almost finished rooms blew our little tech minds. They’re on the edge of new things.

That concludes Field Report #1. Stay tuned…

Our intrepid L.A. team of “Lab Rats”. Photo by Terry Podgorski.

The site of the NEXT Summit, the Herald Examiner Building in downtown Los Angeles

What do Disneyland, Meow Wolf, League of Legends, and Nordo have in common?

It’s Saturday June 3rd in beautiful Downtown LA. 9 a.m. We arrive bleary-eyed looking for the free coffee. We sit. 250 attendees and 50 speakers have congregated in one room. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you.

Mission:         Figure out what the heck this immersive movement is and who is a part of it.

Top Secret Mission:    All evidence points to Nordo fitting into Immersive Universe, but how exactly? And what new elements can guide Nordo’s development into that “next big thing”?

Where:            Los Angeles, California at the Next Stage Summit by the Immersive Experience Institute. Held at the beautiful Herald Examiner Building where Arizona State University has opened a new, technologically advanced center for design and the arts, this conference dedicated to all things Immersive was 4 years in the making because of COVID interruptions. The organizers breathed a huge sigh of relief to open their doors to the hundreds of guests from all over the world.

The Content:   Over the course of 2 days there are 10 time slots for presentations. There are individual speakers and panels convened on specific topics.  At any given time, there are up to 3 options to choose from and attend. A total of 50 presenters! There were talks on producing, writing, marketing, virtual reality, gaming, costuming, one-on-one performances, audience development, the list goes on. Intense. An overload really.

Image Credit: Katheryn Yu

Here are a few examples of those people that I either had a direct connection with or who touched me with their talks… 

·     Wendy McCellan Anderson who started in the theaters of NYC (like our own Erin Brindley!) before directing 115 performers on the Disneyland Starcruiser Project and now acts as lead storyteller for Riot Games ensuring all the narratives live in one consistent world.  

·     Writer Margaret Kerrison who spent 6 years with scripting the narrative for Disneyland Galaxy’s Edge Star Wars Project and wrote a book on immersive storytelling. Extremely helpful to hear tips from a seasoned agent working on some of the largest projects in immersive.

·     Nonny de la Peña presented on her astounding Virtual Reality career that has spanned decades and has been showcased around the world. She did the first VR exhibition at Sundance for example in 2012. Her focus: bring a spotlight on the injustices of hunger, immigration, and incarceration using VR. She’s the real deal using tech to bring about societal change.

·     Terry Pettigrew-Rolapp and Tommy Wallach, the founders of Hatch Escapes and The Ministry of Peculiarities (I am so envious of that name) shared ideas on how to move the genre of escape rooms forward into something more narrative and not just a collection of puzzles.

·     Joanna Garner, Senior Story Creative Director for Meow Wolf, spoke on becoming our better selves through art and how “reality” is co-created when artists and audiences interact in space. Some of you may remember Joanna authored a piece that happened at Nordo in 2017, “Please Open Your Mouth”.

A production shot from Please Open Your Mouth at the Culinarium in 2017, photo credit: Ryan Warner

There were numerous others. Here is the list of speakers if you’re interested.

 The Puzzle:      Here, amongst all these talented creators are clues to the answers to our Top Secret Mission. They’re here just screaming to be found. You see, Nordo will be a mix of the disciplines gathered at this conference. But the exact recipe is alluding us. How will we continue to tell stories? How will we capture the interest of our future audiences? This is why Erin and I attended this Summit

So, what actually happened?

After a couple of days of escape rooms, the Le Brea Tar Pits, the Museum of Jurassic Technology (see most important side note below) we arrive on Saturday morning , and it begins. And… where do we start? How about, immersive is undefinable and always will be, so stop trying! That’s not the question to be asking! The question we should be asking is: how is immersive valuable?

We dove right in.

Let me clarify - immersive is undefined. And likely, always will be. The term encompasses too much. It’s a new term for ideas both old and new. A zeitgeist. And why is that? Well, because it is offering something that people need. It has commercial and social value. And after many talks, and many opinions, the general consensus is that the new word scratches that very old itch for storytelling. Humans love storytelling. Immersive is a new approach to storytelling.

Transformation is at the heart of it. The immersive arts create fully functional fictional worlds that engage and transform the perceptions of the participants. And transformation is the beating heart of storytelling. The heart beats, and creates storytelling.

In a nutshell, immersive is themed entertainment. Or more broadly perhaps, themed engagement.

(Not everyone in the immersive world is attempting to entertain, some educate. The aforementioned, Nonny de la Peña’s work blew my mind and is remarkably educational, and does not care to be or need to be entertaining.)

And whether you are a solo performer engaging a single audience member journeying through self-exploration (like Spencer Milone Williams or Whisperlodge) or engaging millions of tourists with a mega popular intellectual property like Star Wars the goals are the same- to capture a person’s attention and take them on a journey. And the processes of design are the same regardless of scale.

All of these fields: museums, theaters, theme parks, video games, escape rooms, etc., realize that they are all trying to do the same thing with the same mechanics just using slightly different terms. But the big umbrella over it all is Immersive.

And, before the word immersive was common place, Nordo was doing just that with a fictionalized chef and restaurant in the warehouse of Theo Chocolate in Fremont back in 2009. And Nordo will continue to do that because that is art.

Annastasia Workman in The Cabinet of Curiosities, Washington Hall. Photo Credit: Bruce Clayton Tom

Conclusion:      Overall, the conference was spectacular. A success. Honestly, it was a marathon of introductions to new people and ideas which spun me through heights of inspiration, “This is so damn cool I can’t wait to get to work”, and lows of intimidation, “How the hell could I ever do something as beautiful as that?”

The people that attended it ran the gamut of skills from producer to writer to technician to performer. Some have done all of those things at one point in their careers, some  all at the same time. Some were new to the field and others were pioneers. Some were just beginning and others have held high level positions as Imagineers at Disney. The talent at the conference was .

Attendees may have recognized one another, may have worked with one another, but before the conference they did not recognize one another as a community. But at this conference a community was realized. There was a fluency of language. And Nordo speaks this language. Whether we are producing site-specific works like we did from 2009 to 2015 or building an institution like we did from 2015 to 2022 we speak this language. And as we transition we will continue to speak this language. Nordo is themed, it engages, and it is transformative.

The Question for the Future:What alchemy of these elements of narrative, installation art, performance, game mechanics and technology will be brewed together to create the next flavor of Nordo? You’ll have to wait and see, but, it’s brewing.

Most Important Side Note:    Also, I must say I visited a place that I have worshipped from afar for over 20 years ever since I read the book Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders by Lawrence Weschler. The book singlehandedly changed my mind on how to approach creating art. And the world really. The place is called The Museum of Jurassic Technology. And stepping from the bright concrete sidewalks of LA and into the dark, musty corridors of the museum I crossed a threshold and lost an entire afternoon perusing the mind bending exhibits

It’s an American art institution. It is truly a museum, a place to stand in the presence of the muses, “a place where a person can stand aloof from every day affairs”, a place where we experience “the incongruity born of the overzealous spirit in the face of unfathomable phenomena”. Their words not mine.

You have to give yourself over to it and let it tell its story. It’s a novel weaving of fiction and non-fiction seamlessly before your very eyes. It’s an alternate reality (What is alternate reality? Oh, this we will delve into more in an upcoming entry!)

The Museum of Jurassic Technology entrance…until next time.

Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More. Photo by Thom Kaine

For me it began in 2008 with Sleep No More, that haunted labyrinth of the McKittrick Hotel in Manhattan. As an audience member you don your mask and wander amongst bloody bathtubs, candy shops, asylums, graveyards, and forests as characters from Macbeth race through “Scotland” in a noir fever dream. After the production was completed not a single piece of taxidermy could to be found on the East Coast, so heavily stocked was the multi-story experience. 

To this day it remains one of the most influential productions I have ever seen. It also proves to be one of the best examples of an Immersive Experience: The world of the story revolves and evolves around you, and you discover it.

Nordo has been producing immersive experiences since 2009. We built our worlds around your dining table. We put you in an airplane lounge as espionage bubbled, a saloon the night before a hanging, the lobby of a haunted hotel, inside the doll house of girl named Violet. We engaged all of your senses. You, the audience, had a role and were implicated in the action. In our very first production we opened of a pop-up restaurant lorded over by an enigmatic chef who demanded your attention and preached the tenets of the Carnal Food Movement.

The set of the Modern American Chicken, 2013. Photo Credit: Bruce Clayton Tom

Production Images from The Modern American Chicken, 2009. Photo credit: John Cornicello.

In the decade that followed the “Immersive Theater” genre exploded. Escape rooms, themed bars, and site specific performances popped up in every major city. Then, the Sante Fe based company, Meow Wolf, created its first exhibit the “House of Eternal Return”- an entire world designed by artists through which you explore and discover a story simply by finding objects, reading letters and experiencing the art. Meow Wolf has solidified the word Immersive in the zeitgeist.

Like all things live, COVID squashed the momentum. But the creative wheels were still turning, waiting for an opportunity, because as restrictions  lifted around the country immersive experiences have been popping up like mushrooms. In major cities like New York, LA, and London there are dozens of options to choose from.

So, “what is immersive?”. The word “Immersive” covers a lot of ground from escape rooms to performance art, from theme parks to haunted houses, to dinner theater. The immersive experience is one in which the audience member is a participant and not simply a voyeur. In many ways, theme parks are the original immersive experience.

In 2023 it’s a buzz word trying to describe an emerging style of entertainment. In the age of screens patrons want something vibrant and interactive, and “immersive” is nothing more than asking you, the audience, to engage with your experience.

So, in considering what the next steps for Nordo should be, we asked ourselves, “What do we enjoy? What do we want to see in the world? What makes our faces light up with Wonder?”

We discussed our love of spectacle. The sense of danger at not knowing what may happen around the corner. The joy of entering a portal and being transported into a different world. We’ve stepped through refrigerators looking for wormholes, walked the aisles of a multi-dimensional grocery store searching for alien artifacts, and stepped off elevators into a maze of birch trees with no purpose other than to marvel.

And we realized, with some surprise, that Nordo has been cresting this wave without quite knowing it. Our Cabinet of Curiosities production way back in 2012 guided our audiences on a tour of the best exhibits of a time traveling museum dedicated to the culinary arts, for example.

The Cabinet of Curiosities, Photo Credit: John Cornicello

Today, we have an explosion of great storytelling through all of our streaming services. And gaming is having a renaissance whether it is on a console or the dining room table. Immersive experiences are a mixture of these two trends, and it’s going to continue to grow. I want to pull back the curtain a tiny bit on the world of immersive entertainment that is going on right now.

Let me introduce you to No Proscenium, a website that attempts to describe, encapsulate, and review all things Immersive.

And this site, Everything Immersive, by the same people, attempts to catalogue every immersive experience currently going city by city.

Would you like even more of a distillation? Here are some current shows that have peaked my interest …

 Madness 1917

Officially a cooperative game and not an escape room, this production by the Doors of Divergence is chapter 2 in a three-part series described as a narrative puzzle. Join the journey to solve how time broke and who is responsible. With performers and multiple endings the production asks you to leave your life behind and give it over the staff at Holly Groove Sanitarium. I plan on being in NYC in late June and will definitely be buying tickets to this.

The Nest

Equipped with flashlights you explore the storage room of a recently deceased woman obsessed with documenting her life. Piece by piece you unravel Josie’s dramatic life story. Part escape room, part narrative story, part podcast (there are audio tapes she left behind) this production by Hatch Escapes is a new take on intimate storytelling. 

These are just 2 of the many that caught my attention.

I will be going to a conference in LA called Next Stage for immersive artists and companies. I can’t wait to see and hear what innovators in other cities have been conjuring. Stay tuned for what I find.

Immersive is everywhere.

-Terry Podgorski, co-Artistic Director and World Builder at Nordo

Nordo co-Artistic Directors Terry Podgorski (writer) and Erin Brindley.

The search is on for a permanent venue!

Nordo is looking for a new home, a new production house to continue the storytelling that has been the central focus of the company: to be a unique brand of world building and sensory engagement that provides escapism and joy and wonder. That’s the hope. The task of finding this new home is daunting, and the possibilities endless.

To be honest, there are not many facilities in Seattle that are suitable for what we are talking about. We want a place for Nordo to stretch its wings, but where we can also partner with other experiental artistic businesses to create a destination for Seattleites. The facility will be a rare gem that checks all the boxes; we will know it when we see it.

People ask, “How’s it going? Has anything happened yet? What are you doing?” And the answer is, learning. There’s so much to learn when you want to take over the world. Or even just little old Seattle.

The REAL World

There’s learning commercial real estate, permits, zoning, development, investment strategies, purchasing strategies, and on top of all that learning is the art itself. What exactly does this new Nordo want to be? What kind of clothes does it want to wear? What does it imbibe? What stories does it want to tell?

At least we know how to do the latter. It happens through exercising the imagination, and dreaming, and conversing with collaborators. All that other stuff needs to be learned. And how does one learn? Through meetings.

Many meetings. There have been meetings with commercial real estate brokers, real estate investors, representatives from the office of economic development, the heads of local business improvement agencies, and fundraising professionals. Meetings are how relationships are made and relationships are the only way a dream like this could come to be. Also, through meetings you learn what is going on in Seattle. I don’t know about you but I find it difficult to hear what is really going on in our city. Where is the next art show? The next big event? The next big move that will change the city?

In these meetings I have learned of some important and very cool enterprises…

The Watershed Community Development

Born out of Equinox Studios begun in 2006 in Georgetown with the intent of providing affordable living and work space for artists this organization, the Watershed Community Development will take these ideas to the next level and change the fabric of the city. Over 4 city blocks of property along the 4thAve corridor in Georgetown will be developed into affordable live/work space over the next seven years bringing 1000 units online as well as providing shop and retail space for those artists.

I first heard of it during an initial conversation with Sam Farrazaino, the founder of Equinox, and the sparks of imagination immediately began to fly.

Imagine a hub of live/work space and in the same neighborhood an artist run hub of entertainment hiring those resources. It’s an exciting prospect. The Watershed group hopes to break ground this year, and the first building will not be completed until late 2025 at the earliest, so it’s a long-term project, but the final product will completely alter that part of the city and solidify a strong artistic community in Seattle for decades.

Perhaps Nordo will be a part of it.

Seattle Restored

This project, created years ago and curated by Nordo favorite Matt Richter, attempts to fill vacant storefronts with temporary art projects. It beautifies an area while bringing traffic and vibrancy, and giving artists the incredibly valuable asset of space.

Storefronts in Belltown, the Central Business District, Pioneer Square, and the International District have been embellished. Many of the projects are art galleries, but there are also retail stores of locally handcrafted goods and a couple of performance spaces including one inhabited by long time friends of Nordo, Degenerate Art Ensemble.

The DAE have yet to produce any live performances in their space, but they undoubtedly will and when they do we will be there.

COVID  hit the downtown corridor hard with vacancies, and no one sees this trend reversing quickly, so let’s turn it over to bright and creative stars who will happily fill the spaces with imagination and give all of us unique and entertaining things to do again.

The mayor is expected to announce a larger, stronger, more streamlined version of this project this summer, and hopefully there will be funding attached. Cross your fingers Seattle makes this concerted effort to fill our downtown with imagination and life.

This project may not lead to a long-term home for Nordo, but pay attention, because a pop-up Nordo performance may materialize amongst the desks of a vacant office floor or in the cavernous vaults of a bank. One never knows…

The Seattle Restored storefronts in the Downtown Corridor.

Location, location, location…

And finally, for those of you still reading, beyond meetings, we learn through site visitations. Many commercial buildings have been visited, and each time we learn more about what is available, but also what the needs for our dream project are.

Jackson and 26th?

16th Avenue in White Center?

Nordo in Ballard?

Nordo further south on 1st Avenue?

We have visited sites in SODO, White Center, Georgetown, and Ballard. Each neighborhood provides a different atmosphere for the business. As you walk down the sidewalk you ask, “What would it be like to be here?” In fact, every site visited conjures new visions of what could be.

The facility and its environs are a uniquely shaped vessel that will alter the contents that are poured into it. Here is where the possibilities can be daunting. Imagine our sign hovering over each of the facades. Each one is a new world.

What do you see?  

From the desk of co-Artistic Director Terry Podgorski