3…2…1 Celebrates Short Narrative Works

Three minutes. Two minutes. One minute. GO!

That’s basically the premise behind Saltshake Production’s 3…2…1! Celebration of Short Narrative Works, a regularly occurring event that’s been happening monthly for the last year at Seattle Open Arts Place (aka S.O.A.P.). The night’s guiding question: “How much time do I actually need to tell an engaging story?” Turns out the answer might be anywhere between 60 seconds and infinity, depending on how many shoes, oranges, or existential crises are involved.

Thirty minutes total, give or take, of organized chaos.

The timing itself felt like part of the art — you could feel the collective thrill of artists trying to express the entire human condition in less time than it takes to microwave popcorn.

S.O.A.P.’s black box theater is cozy (maybe 50 seats if you count laps), but the energy was big. The audience was totally in on it — family, friends, art weirdos, all packed together and cheering like it was the Olympics of experimental performance.

The premise was sweet and simple: give artists a chance to “fail forward” by exploring how much time they actually need to share an engaging idea. The evening unfolded in a triptych of duration and compression—three-minute works in Act One, two-minute works in Act Two, and one-minute pieces in Act Three—culminating in a 30-minute show of narrative vignettes. It was a celebration not only of brevity but of vulnerability—an understanding that this was a place to experiment, to share half-formed thoughts, and to celebrate process as much as product. 

The evening was guided by the creator of Saltshake Productions, Megan Margaret Moore, a warm and slightly mischievous host whose stage presence felt reminiscent of a cool camp counselor—encouraging, a little sarcastic, but always with good humor. At one point she prompted the audience to turn and talk to two strangers about what we were seeing, creating an impromptu web of shared reflection. That sense of hospitality carried through the evening. S.O.A.P.’s small, black-walled space—humble and unpretentious—was the perfect vessel for this kind of intimate exchange.

Erica Badgeley opened the evening with a three minute dance about the simple act of putting on heels. Her movement—measured, somatic, and deeply embodied—made something hypnotic out of repetition. She crawled to a pair of heels set center stage and made her way to standing without facing the audience. As she finally turned to show her upright humanness, she balanced on one leg, gently sliding a foot into a shoe, her gestures expanded into a meditation on the spine, its rippling intelligence. I found myself thinking less about shoes and more about evolution, like watching a mermaid remember she has legs. It wasn’t so much a story as a somatic spell — quiet, surreal, and weirdly emotional for something involving footwear.

In a shorter vignette she started onstage lying on her side facing away from the audience, still reaching toward those heels (now placed stage right). The dance became a tale about transformation through simple movement. Mixing moments of slow travelling with swiftly spiraling limbs that seem to grow and float from the unravelling of that spine, Badgeley’s short offerings felt like an invitation to witness sensation itself—a surreal, sensual meditation on everyday actions, balance, and incremental change.

Next up, Lou Chow’s trio of dancers brought us the rhythms and awkward tenderness of friendship — literally three people moving around like planets that occasionally make contact. They had set pathways, near-misses, synchronized gestures, and this adorable moment where two made a heart shape with their arms so the third could pop through. Peak serotonin. 

And then, the grand finale: in their one-minute piece, they just sat in a circle, peeling and eating oranges. That’s it. And it was beautiful. Like, I wanted to join them. There’s something about three dancers quietly sharing citrus that made me want to text my friends and say, “Hey, you’re my favorite part of the performance art of life.”

Sally Hollomon’s piece felt like flipping through someone’s mental radio stations. Hollomon’s choreography introduced a theatrical, almost cinematic sensibility. For their three minute vignette one dancer sat reading a book with headphones on, while three others swirled in as the “voices” in their head. Their movements mirrored shifts in mood and style depending on the soundtrack—musical theater, jazz, hip-hop, indie rock and K-pop like gestures were all explored. Their second vignette offered a duet featuring dramatic kicks and turns, pushes that became points of lift off for exhilarating kicks… a dance-fight-love-battle that looked like the world’s most edgy lyrical jazz bar brawl. 

Then came Rafael Moraga, the wildcard. The only performer who didn’t dance, unless you count pacing and vulnerability as choreography (and honestly, you should). He set a timer and started talking in Spanish — softly, earnestly, about trying to practice his language, about family, culture, memory, all the things that get lost when your brain is too full of English.

I couldn’t catch every word, but the feeling came through. It was like watching someone wrestle with their own tongue, gently. It became its own kind of dance — one between identity and expression, words and silence. He paced the stage, not performing for us but with us—inviting us to witness the exercise of communication itself. It became, paradoxically, a kind of dance: language as movement, sound as gesture. His piece stood as both protest and prayer—a reclamation of cultural voice in a world that often erases it. When the timer beeped, he just stopped mid-thought. It hit harder than many blackout cues I’ve seen. 

What made 3…2…1! so satisfying wasn’t just the novelty of its format, but its sincerity. Each vignette gestured toward a story but never claimed to complete it. Instead, the evening collectively suggested that storytelling isn’t always about endings, but about the courage to begin again—three minutes, two minutes, one minute at a time. There was a lot of artistic generosity. The night wasn’t about “finishing” stories or dances — it was about artists willing to be witnessed engaging with short bursts of time. Turns out, a minute can hold a whole universe if you’re brave (and maybe holding an orange).

September’s 3…2…1! ran September 23, 2025 at Seattle Open Arts Place. The next iteration of 3…2…1! will be a special Halloween edition held on Oct 31 at a “new gallery on Ballard’s picturesque NW Market Street” followed by regular editions on Nov 28 and Dec 30. Follow @saltshake on Instagram for updates.

The program for 3…2…1! on September 23, 2025 can be found HERE.