Katie Elliott: Car Stories

Car Stories was created during the pandemic, at a time when theaters were shuttered and gathering together was no longer possible. Faced with this sudden pause, 3rd Law Dance/Theater pivoted quickly. We were determined to find ways to keep artists working, stay connected to our audience, and continue making dance in the face of uncertainty.

The work began as a live performance staged inside a three-level parking garage, created in close collaboration with filmmaker L. Ashwyn Collins and composer Paul Fowler. Audience members were guided through the garage as part of the experience, moving through a musical journey that included a saxophone quartet, a samba band, and the live performance of Car Stories surrounded by parked cars.

In a moment of playful ingenuity, the lighting for the performance came entirely from the cars themselves—their headlights illuminating the dancers—while the music played through the cars’ sound systems on a shared radio channel, filling the garage with layered, unexpected sound.

From this live event, Car Stories was transformed into a dance-for-camera piece, allowing the work to live beyond the moment and eventually return to the theater once doors reopened—offering audiences a glimpse into what we had been creating during a time when we could not gather in person, or for those unable to experience the parking garage performance firsthand.

The choreography was built from deeply personal stories shared by the dancers about their very first cars. These memories ranged from the practical to the poetic, the frustrating to the sentimental: cars that broke down in the desert, cars that leaked rainwater into the trunk, cars that required gloves to block cold air blowing through faulty radios, cars inherited from friends or family, named for their color, repaired by hand, bungee-corded shut, or driven across the country again and again. Each movement phrase emerged from these lived experiences, layered with factual details—year, color, make, model—forming a physical archive of memory, independence, care, and identity.

We offer deep gratitude to Ash Collins for the extraordinary sensitivity and vision of the film work, to Paul Fowler for the stunning musical score and live performance that anchored the piece, and to the dancers whose stories, movement, humor, and vulnerability live in both the live performance and the film. Car Stories stands as a testament to adaptation, collaboration, and the quiet power of shared human experience—even in the most unlikely of spaces.