Events List Navigation
June 2016
NW New Works – Week 1 Studio
Fri, June 10 at 8pm Sat & Sun, June 11 & 12 at 5pm ILVS STRAUSS - performance Doin' It Right PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES! - performance Kaktus Kolache BRITT KARHOFF - dance Wonder Full . ALLIE HANKINS & RACHAEL DICHTER - dance/performance When We Now in its 33rd year, the NW New Works Festival presents experimental and in-progress work from Northwest artists. The Festival provides artists with rehearsal time, an honorarium, documentation, and the opportunity to present their work…
Find out more »NW New Works (Week 1)
Hello Friends and Family! Au Collective will be premiering a new work for NW New Works Festival at On the Boards! It is important for us to present our work to the communities that we have surrounded ourselves with and that have inspired us to be powerful POC, Queer, and Women artists. This work is for our community, so we hope to see you there! Come see, Bayanihan: A Collection of Physical Tales Created and performed by Au Collective June…
Find out more »NW New Works Week 2 Studio
PETER DEE hooked up SHONTINA VERNON Her Black Body Politic GARY HILL Unconditional Surrender (PERFORMANCE, 2016) KYLE LOVEN April at Dawn, Near Alta, Norway Now in its 33rd year, the NW New Works Festival presents experimental and in-progress work from Northwest artists. The Festival provides artists with rehearsal time, an honorarium, documentation, and the opportunity to present their work on the stages of OtB. The Festival lineup is curated by a panel of peer artists and arts administrators. Photo: Courtesy…
Find out more »NW New Works Week 2 Mainstage
JANUSPHERE DANCE COMPANY People and Objects MEGAN MURPHY Falling and Being Caught DAVID HARVEY Brake Tender THE THREE YELLS Giselle Deconstruct Now in its 33rd year, the NW New Works Festival presents experimental and in-progress work from Northwest artists. The Festival provides artists with rehearsal time, an honorarium, documentation, and the opportunity to present their work on the stages of OtB. The Festival lineup is curated by a panel of peer artists and arts administrators. Photo: Adam Weintraub
Find out more »November 2016
It’s Not Too Late | Markeith Wiley
The merciless humor of comedian and social critic Paul Mooney is channeled in a fast-paced and ruthless new work merging stand-up comedy, theater, and physicality. Billing himself as “Seattle’s first Black talk show host,” choreographer and performer Markeith Wiley unveils a new no-holds-barred persona as an engaging, brutally direct entertainer and loquacious dancer. The episodic format of It’s Not Too Late features live music and a rotating cast of local guests.
Find out more »December 2016
HOUSE of DINAH | Jerome A. Parker & Andrew Russell
The music of Dinah Washington and an aesthetic bridging Jean Genet and Paris Is Burning bring to life the stories of five inter-generational Black Queens. In a bitter world where survival is the only option, young queens are taught to serve their elders, live by any means necessary, and find power and purpose in their pain. Seattle theater director Andrew Russell teams with NYC playwright Jerome A. Parker in a Seattle premiere where religious ritual meets drag performance and Dinah…
Find out more »January 2017
By Heart | Tiago Rodrigues
Ten people commit to memorizing a Shakespeare sonnet in real time in an act of political and artistic resistance. Director Tiago Rodrigues marshals the willing soldiers and aids them in memorization with help from poet Boris Pasternak, sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury, literary critic George Steiner and his own grandmother. Battling the ever-present threat of fascism with poetry, this emotionally moving and direct piece only ends when all the soldiers know the words by heart.
Find out more »Oil Pressure Vibrator & CPR Practice | Geumhyung Jeong
Please note: CPR Practice will be performed Jan 25 - 26 Oil Pressure Vibrator will be performed Jan 28 - 29. There will be no performance Jan 27. Korean artist Geumhyung Jeong makes her Seattle debut with two beautifully strange, sensual, and compelling works centered on the human body and inanimate objects. How can a body or an object be transformed by desire, fantasy, and possibility? Physicality mixes uneasily with machinery in games of tenderness, risk, and sex featuring a…
Find out more »February 2017
Awaiting Oblivion | Tim Smith-Stewart & Jeffrey Azevedo
Awaiting Oblivion—Temporary Solutions for Surviving the Dystopian Future we Find Ourselves Within at Present Blurring the lines between fiction and reality, Awaiting Oblivion...follows the story of AO, an anonymous street artist who has tasked Tim and Jeffrey with the creation of a performance as a way to share AO’s “temporary solutions” for existing within our collapsing empire. Inspired by creative processes developed by the '60’s Fluxus art movement, each “temporary solution” is a visual/textual poem contained in a Flux-kit (a…
Find out more »April 2017
The Institute of Memory (TIMe) | Lars Jan/Early Morning Opera
“...dazzling stagecraft...startling.” – The New York Times An eerily glowing kinetic sculpture and a hacked '50’s era typewriter create a fuzzy portrait of a Cold War operative, privacy-obsessed misanthrope, and real-life father of director Lars Jan. Archival wire-tap transcriptions and missives from communist spies intertwine with MRI brain scans and the NSA, prompting questions about the nature of memory, privacy, and the possibility of ever truly knowing your dad.
Find out more »May 2017
The People’s Republic of Valerie
Kristen Kosmas | Paul Budraitis | Peter Ksander “In the Bright Future, the rampage will have ended, amnesty will be given to all those who return to their senses, and it will be said, ‘We are not free yet, but we are on our way!’” – The People's Republic of Valerie On an asterism situated between two constellations in a universe not far from this one, a motley assortment of well-meaning but ineffectual characters is assembled to train for the…
Find out more »Tesseract | Rashaun Mitchell/Silas Riener/Charles Atlas
Dance enters a new dimension in a daring collaboration between two former Merce Cunningham dancers and an iconic filmmaker. New perceptions of bodies in motion emerge as Rashaun Mitchell's and Silas Riener’s powerfully physical and precise choreography is mixed and projected live by radical video artist Charles Atlas. Ways of seeing evolve in real-time as the camera tilts, shifts, expands, and contracts, allowing for shocking new perspectives of human movement in time and space.
Find out more »June 2017
NW New Works Festival: Wknd 1: Studio Showcase
Now in its 34th year, the NW New Works Festival features established artists from a variety of performance disciplines, upholding its mantra to create a platform for tomorrow’s artists today within the Northwest’s creative community. Curated by a panel of peer artists and administrators from across the region, the Festival provides rehearsal time, an honorarium, documentation, and the opportunity to present work at OtB. WEEKEND 1: STUDIO SHOWCASE JUN 9-11 CAMEO LETHEM Isla (Dance | Seattle) A dance experiment, using…
Find out more »NW New Works Festival: Wknd 1: Mainstage Showcase
Now in its 34th year, the NW New Works Festival features established artists from a variety of performance disciplines, upholding its mantra to create a platform for tomorrow’s artists today within the Northwest’s creative community. Curated by a panel of peer artists and administrators from across the region, the Festival provides rehearsal time, an honorarium, documentation, and the opportunity to present work at OtB. WEEKEND 1: MAINSTAGE SHOWCASE JUN 10-11 NIKOLA TESLA PROJEKT The Light (Music/Theater | Seattle) A new…
Find out more »NW New Works Festival: Wknd 2: Studio Showcase
Now in its 34th year, the NW New Works Festival features established artists from a variety of performance disciplines, upholding its mantra to create a platform for tomorrow’s artists today within the Northwest’s creative community. Curated by a panel of peer artists and administrators from across the region, the Festival provides rehearsal time, an honorarium, documentation, and the opportunity to present work at OtB. WEEKEND 2: STUDIO SHOWCASE JUN 16-18 LINDA AUSTIN DANCE a world, a world — (Un)Made Chapter…
Find out more »NW New Works Festival: Wknd 2: Mainstage Showcase
Now in its 34th year, the NW New Works Festival features established artists from a variety of performance disciplines, upholding its mantra to create a platform for tomorrow’s artists today within the Northwest’s creative community. Curated by a panel of peer artists and administrators from across the region, the Festival provides rehearsal time, an honorarium, documentation, and the opportunity to present work at OtB. WEEKEND 2: MAINSTAGE SHOWCASE JUN 17-18 EARTH AND CEREMONY I Want to Hear the Sea (Music/Theater…
Find out more »Records, Pancakes & Bach
Brighten up your Sundays with a little help from JS Bach! Marimbist Erin Jorgensen plays all six of the famous cello suites, followed by a pancake breakfast/listening party in the OtB lobby. $5 - $10 suggested donation; proceeds will be split with the artist and OtB. SUN, MAY 28 CELLO SUITE: Suite No. 6 in D Major RECORD CHOSEN BY: SJ Chiro, filmmaker
Find out more »September 2017
Belarus Free Theatre: Burning Doors
★★★★ "A scorching piece of theatre: uncompromising, urgent and angry." — Financial Times Where do you belong when your government suppresses your basic right to expression? What do you do when the state imprisons you for making art? How would you survive one of the most brutal prison systems in the world? Belarus Free Theatre combines forces with PussyRiot's Maria Alyokhina in her stage debut to tell the stories of three dissident artists and to examine how art persists under…
Find out more »October 2017
Jody Kuehner/Cherdonna Shinatra: Kissing Like Babies
Explore the infantilization of the feminine. Embroil in the conundrum of being. Gape at the amazing circumstances within which we exist. Trace the ties from birth to death and back again with the help of drag queen Cherdonna, a chorus of adult toddlers, and a seven-piece brass marching band. Jody Kuehner is a queer, fem, female, professionally trained contemporary dancer who uses dance traditions, clowning, drag, theater, comedy, performance art, camp, pop culture, feminism, absurdity, and subversive commentary to make…
Find out more »Night Flowers: An Evening With Jomama Jones
!!! ONE NIGHT ONLY !!! Jomama Jones invites you to join her to mark the lengthening nights and to explore the power of witness, of dream and of regeneration in our turbulent time. Night Flowers will feature Jomama’s original songs taken from her albums Flowering, Six Ways Home, Radiate, and Lone Star. Dr. Bobby Halvorson, Jones’ longtime collaborator will join her for this intimate event of music and storytelling. Jomama Jones has been called “a true theatrical original” by Backstage…
Find out more »November 2017
Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance
GRAHAM REYNOLDS + SHAWN SIDES + LAGARTIJAS TIRADAS AL SOL: PANCHO VILLA FROM A SAFE DISTANCE Nov 16-19 Theater/Opera/Music | Texas/Mexico Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance is a bilingual cross-border opera about the enigmatic general, legendary bandit, and hero of the Mexican Revolution. Commissioned by Ballroom Marfa, the opera is the third installment of The Marfa Triptych, a genre-hopping trilogy of musical performances by visionary Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds. Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance is an insightful examination…
Find out more »December 2017
Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night
"Caroling has never been so epic." — Flavorpill “Kline’s luminous, shimmering wash of bell tones is one of the loveliest communal new-music experiences you'll ever encounter, and it's never the same twice.” — Time Out New York FAMILIES & KIDS WELCOME! FREE! NYC composer Phil Kline’s beautiful mix of electronica and holiday caroling is performed all over the world during the December holidays. It’s non-denominational caroling for the masses. Participants need only download a free mobile device app or free…
Find out more »March 2018
Alice Gosti: Material Deviance in Contemporary American Culture
ALICE GOSTI: MATERIAL DEVIANCE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CULTURE Mar 29-Apr 1 Dance | Seattle Material Deviance in Contemporary American Culture takes a sideways look at our object-based reality. Reflecting stuff-centered culture back to ourselves, this dream state passes through shame, nostalgia, patriotism, and the weight of inheritance. Choreographer and hybrid performance artist Alice Gosti asks, Do objects imbued with so much of our worth start to take over and take on a life of their own? This cluttered landscape expands…
Find out more »April 2018
Frank Boyd & Libby King: Patti & The Kid
FRANK BOYD & LIBBY KING: PATTI & THE KIDS Apr 12-15 Theater | San Francisco/Seattle Patti & The Kid: A post-apocalyptic western with Nerf guns. Holdovers from an American civilization long gone hide out in a vast and strange landscape. Haunted by their past and horrified of the future, they are just trying to get through the day. 'Patti & The Kid' is a quiet, eccentric, and tender examination of fear — and the struggle to make space for something…
Find out more »Dani Tirrell: Black Bois
DANI TIRRELL: BLACK BOIS Apr 26-29 Dance | Seattle Black Bois is a movement and theater piece that explores how black men/bois grieve, show rage, express joy, and cry. Dancer and choreographer Dani Tirrell looks into the depths of these emotional states and asks, How do we live with our pain? Who are we really in our pain? And how do we show love towards each other? Inspired by the lives of Kalief Browder and Tamir Rice, Black Bois is…
Find out more »October 2018
Solo: A Festival of Dance
Introducing Solo — an exciting new festival of dance for the 18/19 season, featuring thrilling dance artists and choreographers from across the U.S. and Canada. With performances ranging from classical Indian to contemporary movements, from street styles to site-responsive works, it's an electrifying weekend exploring a breathtaking range of dance. FEATURED ARTISTS: Alyza DelPan-Monley (Seattle), Emily Gastineau (Minneapolis), Vanessa Goodman (Vancouver, BC), Orlando Hernández (Providence), NIC Kay (NYC), Naomi Macalalad Bragin (Seattle), Wade Madsen (with Chloe Albin) (Seattle), Robert Adam…
Find out more »Andrew Schneider: Youarenowhere
** CAPACITY: 76 ** YOUARENOWHERE is a rapid-fire existential meditation. Acclaimed performer, writer, and interactive-electronics artist Andrew Schneider uses a lecture-style format, pop culture, and personal revelation to dissect subjects ranging from quantum mechanics and parallel universes to missed connections and AA recovery steps. Using an array of visual and sonic effects to produce a landscape of sensory overload, YOUARENOWHERE transforms the physical performance space and warps linear time to short-circuit preconceived notions of individual perspective and what it means…
Find out more »Andrew Schneider: AFTER
** Limited Capacity Show! ** Subscribe and get guaranteed access to this show! (ontheboards.org/subscribe) Andrew Schneider’s performances push theater into new experiences that defy easy categorization. These live works combine hallucinatory techniques and stretch the language of theater into new dimensions. Schneider, along with his recurring collaborators, will present two parts of an existential trilogy about what it means to be alive in the world today. Exploring our modern life and the relationships we have to technology and other humans,…
Find out more »November 2018
Dan Savage’s 14th Annual HUMP! Film Festival // Seattle
The HUMP! Film Festival has been bringing audiences a new kind of porn since 2005. The festival features short dirty movies-each less than five minutes-all created by people who aren't porn stars but want to be one for a weekend. The filmmakers and stars show us what they think is hot and sexy, creative and kinky, their ultimate turn-ons and their craziest fantasies. Our carefully curated program is a cornucopia of body types, shapes, ages, colors, sexualities, genders, kinks, and…
Find out more »March 2019
Markeith Wiley: Too Much on Not Enough
Join 18/19 Artist-in-Residence Markeith Wiley for "Too Much on Not Enough," a conversation surrounding the topics of safe spaces, audience participation vs audience engagement, and a how-to-guide on viewing contemporary art in the millennial age, featuring a guest panel of local artists. Learn more about our March weekend of Artists-in-Residence Works in Progress Showings: https://www.ontheboards.org/artists-in-residence Panel participants: Dani Tirrell Laura Aschoff Hatlo Markeith Wiley
Find out more »May 2019
Spectacle Spectacular 14: I’ll Be Your Mirror
reflecting the vision of On the Boards peering into the future celebrating our creative community Become famous at OUR Factory. Like the original, SPECTACLE SPECTACULAR 14: I’ll Be Your Mirror is a factory where artists, musicians, actors, weirdos, socialites, drag queens, tycoons, heiresses, and free thinkers get together to trade ideas, experiment and celebrate. Dinner, live performances, cocktails, art, music, fun. Your host is the incomparable Betty Wetter. With performances by Gender Tender, Wade Madsen with Chloe Albin, Randy Ford,…
Find out more »June 2019
NW New Works Opening Night Party & Drag Show
THE MERRILL LOBBY 7–10 PM OPENING NIGHT PARTY & DRAG SHOW: Hosted by Angel Baby Kill Kill Featuring the GRIEF GIRLS, Sam I'Am, and Rosa Marchita Music by Joy Ma FREE
Find out more »NW New Works Panel: Embodied Utopias: Queer Performance Strategies
PANCAKES & PANELS: EMBODIED UTOPIAS: QUEER PERFORMANCE STRATEGIES Sat, Jun 15, 12:00–1:30 pm Merrill Lobby FREE Free pancakes served at 12:00pm, panel starts at 12:30pm. Three northwest artists will explore their use of queer theories and aesthetic practices as techniques for utopian world building. What does it mean to imagine a better world in the present reality of mass violence and suffering? How do queer ideas and ways of knowing inform what is possible in art and the larger world?…
Find out more »Justin Vivian Bond’s Summer Solstice Cabarets @ On the Boards
***Get your Limited On-Stage Table Seating before June 12!*** The inimitable Justin Vivian Bond - aka Viv - is returning to Seattle! Perhaps you’ve missed them from their days as salty-sassy Kiki of Kiki & Herb. Or you’re now being newly introduced to them via their brilliant cameos in HBO’s 'High Maintenance', Netflix’s 'The Get Down', or 'Ugly Betty'. Viv is offering two shows – one with just themself and the audience, and one as House of Whimsy, Viv’s curated…
Find out more »October 2019
The Work of Robert Mapplethorpe: A Community Discussion
This event is free, however RSVP is required. https://www.tfaforms.com/4742959. Join Sylvia Wolf (Henry Art Gallery, Exec. Director) and Michelle Dunn Marsh (Chief Strategist, Photographic Center Northwest) in discussion about the influential and controversial works of Robert Mapplethorpe. Mapplethorpe's photography explored themes of sexuality, race, identity, nature, classic portraiture and modern art exploration to name a few. In celebration of Bryce Dessner’s TRIPTYCH (EYES OF ONE ON ANOTHER) featuring Roomful of Teeth at the Moore Oct 9th, we'll dive into the…
Find out more »On The Boards/Performance Lab: In the Round with KT Kusmaul
Performance Lab is a continuation of OtB's longstanding commitment to showcasing works-in-progress by artists from across the Pacific Northwest. Artistic risk is a cornerstone of OtB's mission & values: supporting new works by artists from our community is one of the most important ways we manifest this commitment. Each Lab includes a Q&A with the artists, who discuss their pieces and processes with the audience and each other. Co-curated by Performance Lab Producer Charles Smith and artist KT Kusmaul. KT Kusmaul is a fat, queer, genderqueer femme performance…
Find out more »Ten Tiny Dances® @ On The Boards
An experiment in confined space, Ten Tiny Dances® is a performance series dedicated to fostering inventive dance/performance art and providing an accessible performance experience for a diverse audience…all on a 4 by 4 foot stage! Choreography by Arson Nicki, Scott/Powell Performance, Mike O'Neal (Majinn), Etienne Cakpo, KT Niehoff, ilvs strauss, Vis à Vis Society, Cheryl Delostrinos of Au Collective, Fox Whitney, and Jessica Jobaris & General Magic. Ten Tiny Dances® was created in Portland, OR in 2002 and continues to…
Find out more »November 2019
On the Boards’ 40th Birthday!
Details In 1979, On the Boards was born; the love child of a group of artists with a dream for world-class contemporary performance in Seattle. Over the past four decades, On the Boards has shaped the way our region experiences performance. We celebrate the artists that launched here; and the audiences that have embraced and supported new art and ideas at On the Boards from 1979 to 2019. Get your ticket and join us for our birthday extravaganza from 6-10PM…
Find out more »15th Annual HUMP! Opening Film Festival // Seattle
ALL NEW FILMS! VOTE FOR THE WINNERS! The HUMP! Film Festival has been bringing audiences a new kind of porn since 2005. The festival features short dirty movies—each less than five minutes—all created by people who aren’t porn stars but want to be one for a weekend. The filmmakers and stars show us what they think is hot and sexy, creative and kinky, their ultimate turn-ons and their craziest fantasies. Our carefully curated program is a cornucopia of body types,…
Find out more »December 2019
An Evening with Auntie Mame
Don your gay apparel and join us for An Evening with Auntie Mame, a fundraiser for Three Dollar Bill Cinema! Dress in your winter wonderland/Auntie Mame finest for a special costume contest! Mame Dennis (Rosalind Russell), a progressive and independent woman of the 1920s, is left to care for her nephew Patrick (Jan Handzlik/Roger Smith) after his wealthy father dies. Mr. Babcock (Fred Clark), Patrick's assigned executor, objects to Mame's unconventional way of living and tries to force her to…
Find out more »January 2020
Performance Lab: An Augur: Future Visions
Happy New Year! Join us ushering in 2020 at our upcoming Performance Lab - An Augur: Future Visions, where you'll be invited to join featured artists in divining auspicious paths forward through our turbulent present. An Augur: Future Visions features new work experiments, rituals, and divination practices that will invite the audience to read the patterns of the present to foretell the future. Augury was a pre-Roman empire practice of interpreting the flight movements of birds to divine omens, messages…
Find out more »February 2020
Tim Smith-Stewart & Jeffrey Azevedo: Salvage Rituals
This work-in-progress showing invites the audience into the first iteration of an ongoing community practice and dance party. Born from a private ritual to mourn friends very much alive but lost to unsupported neurodivergence and addiction, Salvage Rituals is interested in the potential of communal ritual intersecting with DIY engineering as an embodied practice of mutualism/mutual aid. A rigorous movement score takes place on a hexagonal platform constructed of piezoelectric tiles, which transforms the mechanical stress from the performers' bodies…
Find out more »Solo: A Festival of Dance @ On the Boards
12 remarkable artists in inquisitive and personal performance. Solo: A Festival of Dance is a one-of-a-kind weekend long exploration of the solo as self-expression; we invite you to explore this integral part of dance creation. The 2020 Festival will feature an evening length program that includes trail blazing performances from five internationally recognized artists. Festival Artists: Jade Solomon Curtis, Allie Hankins, jumatatu m. poe, Adrienne Truscott, and Mariana Valencia. In addition to the evening shows, there will be free site…
Find out more »The Living Room with Randy, Dani and J Mase III
Join Randy Ford, Dani Tirrell and J Mase III for The Living Room with special guest jumatatu m. poe. This event is free and open to the public. The Living Room is a video/Blog and Talk show created by artists Dani Tirrell, J Mase III and Randy Ford. We will share our views and thoughts on what is going on in our world and the world around us. We hold multiple views that are informed by our Queer, Black, Trans,…
Find out more »June 2022
Gender Tender | MELTED RIOT: SPECTRA(L) @ On The Boards
https://www.ontheboards.org/.../gender-tender-melted-riot... MELTED RIOT: SPECTRA(L) uses tactics rooted in dance, punk music, durational performance, and visual art to investigate the effects peaceful and violent forms of support and sabotage have on the bodies, minds, and spirits of the transgender and queer community. Inspired by the Stonewall Riots of 1969, seances and apocalyptic cinema, this Gender Tender performance event happens on the summer solstice celebrating the longest day of the year and the journey we travel physically and spiritually from the darkness…
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