Immersive Pop-Up at Velaslavasay Panorama

This weekend only, meet “The Man in the Tuskhut” at one of L.A.’s most unusual venues

Credit: Photo by Chris Nichols

Nearly 24 hours after my encounter with “The Man in the Tuskhut” I am still shook. The one-of-a-kind interactive show, running this weekend only, is at the heart of Frontier Saloon, an immersive experience at the Velaslavasay Panorama

The West Adams-area art institution is celebrating its 25th anniversary with this fundraiser to help their mission of bringing pre-cinematic entertainment back to Los Angeles. The namesake panorama is a massive 360-degree painting of Shenyang, a northeastern Chinese city in the early 20th century. Beyond that is the ancient 1910 Nickelodeon-era Union theater where seances, gas-fired magic lantern shows and a live performance of the glass armonica have taken place.

The line between reality and imagination is often crossed at the venue. “It’s intentionally ambiguous,” says Kent Bulza, a friend of the Panorama involved in Frontier Saloon. “Sometimes it’s factual but still unbelievable.”

Visitors to the Frontier are first instructed to watch a short educational film about an old timey explorer-turned blind hermit locked up in a snowbound cabin, then enter an outdoor gathering ‘round the campfire with beans and weenies, cowboy vittles and roving characters. There’s a saloon with swinging doors and you might encounter a German magician or a troubadour strumming a banjo in the garden. A man in a top hat is showing magic lantern slides. Was that a Catholic friar hitting the slot machine? Who are these people? Are they real? Are we in Westworld? “I think that you’re supposed to be a little bit disturbed from the beginning,” Bulza says.

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A stone-faced guide escorts you to the Nova Tuskhut, the home of the old hermit, where you have your “intimate theatrical experience” created by the Velaslavasay Panorama, IRMA360 (Sara Velas/Ruby Carlson) and Incident, a secretive new experiential entertainment company from Jason Woliner (Paul T. Goldman) and Eric Notarnicola (The Rehearsal)

Bulza compares the event to Victorian-era phantasmagoria spook shows. “They were leveraging technology. Projectors were new technology that people didn’t understand. That’s why they thought the ghosts were real.”