As an eight-foot tall chicken runs down the sidewalk chased by a young woman with a giant cleaver, Washington street is lit up with the sounds of gasps and giggles from a crowd caught off guard. Nearing the group, the gaudily dressed pair slows as the butcher brandishes her blade. Whack! The fowl’s head falls to the ground as it runs in circles to the humor and horror of the observers.

Next time you are downtown minding your own business on an ordinary day, watch out. Trevor Stone is on a laughter-fueled expedition and is headed your way.

He also holds a full time position as the Visual Arts Coordinator at the Neutral Zone, a widely esteemed teen center in Ann Arbor.

Stone, along with partners Natalie Berry and Chris Sandon, has created ridiculous performance art pieces including remote control primates, insect shaman, and “the 12 foot long, nine foot tall pooping cat.” Their current project is hosting live video games where audience members are put through a series of active situations.

On March 2, the games were opened to the public for the first time at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. “We set ourselves up as robots operating on a program, so we had very specific challenges and tasks that we had people do and they went in a very specific order. The point was more about fun and getting people to jump in and take on this sports-like challenge with us,” said Stone. “We had people ducking and jumping and dodging and backtracking and throwing, that kind of thing. It was basically making a game for them to participate in.”

As in all of his performance art pieces there was more to the activities than the surface level would suggest. The social experiment questioned more discreetly the roles of confidence and self-consciousness.

“Some people were watching other people and their friends were saying, ‘Go do it, go do it’ and they were like, ‘No, I’m not going to do it,’” Stone recalled. “That’s the curious thing. Why would they take that attitude? You have an opportunity to have a certain amount of fun or a certain experience, why do people say ‘no’?”

This audience participation is a staple in the collective work of Stone and his cohorts. They thrive off the energy created when a group of people shed their personal boundaries.

“People operate by a lot of self-imposed rules and part of our mission is to shake those…If we get people to blur those and abandon what the thought they couldn’t do in these playful ways maybe it will carry into the rest of their lives,” said Stone. “People don’t expect us to walk in and rewrite the rules, the social code, in a room or a park. That’s what we try to do.”

With his troupe Stone has held performances at venues in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, and around Michigan, but he also enjoys bringing his unique flavor of entertainment right to the street. “We walk into a restaurant or just into the public in full costume and do our thing,” said Stone. “That’s when it’s really fun.”

“The surprise factor is there, but also people congregate and laugh and joke and talk, sometimes people from different socio-economic backgrounds, different races. They might not start talking until their kids are playing with some of our props and being involved. It kind of brings people together in a strange way. Fiction first, community later.”

Much of this relationship-building sentiment hidden within the outlandish costumes and absurd characters stems from Stone’s attitude and experiences. “There was a time in my life where I was going to be a clinical psychologist; I actually quit art for a couple years to do that,” evoked Stone. “So that’s a big part of how I think: interpersonal connections.”

When the silly, hysterical, occasionally gross creatures Stone and his friends create are put into their element the line between audience and performers is quickly blurred.  The participants shed their expectations to share scarce moments that add color to days filled with consistency and routine.

“Life is a temporary event and it goes so fast,” said Stone. “The quality of our life is made up of the quality of slipping moments. We’re trying to give people beautiful moments – funny, creative, connective moments – because that’s all we have.”