EVERYTHING You Need To Know About New Works Festival At On The Boards

EVERYTHING, I tell ya! It’s the 36th annual NW New Works Festival at On The Boards and this year includes TONS of queer content including divas in drag!

So much intel:

Welcome to the 36th annual NW New Works Festival!

Since 1983, the NW New Works Festival (NWNW) has celebrated the dynamic arts community of the Pacific Northwest, showcasing established and emerging artists from a wide range of performance disciplines. Over its 36 years, NW New Works has become a touchstone for some of the most innovative emergent performance in our region.

This year, the festival highlights works responding to the myriad upheavals currently affecting the Pacific Northwest, presenting twelve new and/or in-progress multidisciplinary performance works over the course of a single weekend. Curated by a panel of peer artists and administrators from across the region, the festival provides participating artists rehearsal time, an honorarium, documentation, and the opportunity to present work at On the Boards.

Alongside the performances, the 2019 NW New Works Festival also includes panel discussions, food trucks, and opening and closing-night parties celebrating 36 years of Northwest new work.

Jump to schedule →
Find out more about the artists of NW New Works 2019 →

NW New Works 2019 Festival Schedule 

NOTE: Performances in the Studio Theater will take place throughout the space, and audiences may be required to move throughout the space as the works unfold. Seating will be available for audience members who are not comfortable standing or sitting on the floor for the duration of each performance.

Find out more: 

About the Artists & Performances
About the Panels 
About the Curatorial Panel 

Tickets

Ticket packages: Create your own 2-show package or see all 12 NWNW artists with a Day Pass!

If available, single tickets and packages can be purchased online until one hour before each performance.

Single performance: $15
2-Show Package: $25 for any two performances
Day Pass (see all 12 NWNW artists): $40

Purchase a Multi-Show Package →
Purchase Single Tickets →
Box Office Info

Tickets can be purchased online or by calling the Box Office at 206-217-9886, x1019 (Tue-Fri, 12-4 pm).

If available, individual tickets and showcase packages can be purchased online until one hour before each showcase.

Walk-up tickets are available for purchase at the Roy Street Box Office kiosk, opening one hour before scheduled showtimes.

Northwest New Works is the wet eel of the performance landscape in the Pacific Northwest. It serves so many functions for so many different people it can be hard to say what it is. Throughout this year we have wrestled with what this festival does in the world and what forms best support that work. At the heart of this exploration is a deeper question, what is contemporary performance? To what extent is it a distinct genre and to what extent is it an amalgamation of or catch all for other performance genres? We hope this year’s festival is a chance for audiences and artists to gather in celebration and community to engage in important conversations.

–Eli Steffen, 2019 NW New Works Associate Producer

Artists of NW New Works 2019: 

Body Home Fat Dance: Weighted Bodies FIND OUT MORE
Mother Tongue: ADLFDA FIND OUT MORE
Sasha Petrenko/The New Urban Naturalists: Forest-time: Transmissions from a Future Forest FIND OUT MORE
claire barrera: sugar FIND OUT MORE
Arson Nicki: One More Time FIND OUT MORE
Dakota Camacho: –|- Tåno’ Dxʷdəwʔabš -|-:-|- MALI’E -|-FIND OUT MORE
Imana Gunawan: vestiges, to those who couldn’t hold onFIND OUT MORE
Naomi Macalalad Bragin: Little Brown Language FIND OUT MORE
Jenny May Peterson: ANVIL FIND OUT MORE
LanDforms: The Garden of Expectations FIND OUT MORE
Leanna Keith: Finding the InBetween FIND OUT MORE
HATLO: what mountains end FIND OUT MORE

About the Panels 

EMBODIED UTOPIAS: QUEER PERFORMANCE STRATEGIES
Sat, Jun 15, 12:30–1:30 pm
Merrill Lobby
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? How have and do queer artists utilize uniquely queer ways of knowing, being, and doing in order to generate their art? What are practical ways of applying these strategies in art-making and life?
Panelists: Naomi Macalalad Bragin, Fox Whitney, and Fabi Romero
Moderator: Eli Steffen

PANEL: TOO MUCH OR NOT ENOUGH?
Sat, Jun 15, 5:00 – 6:30 pm
Merrill Lobby 
In this no holds barred conversation, choreographer and OtB Artist-in-Residence Markeith Wiley will wrestle with the stick issues surrounding audience participation, safe spaces, and consent in contemporary performance.  Leading a panel of art-makers and collaborators, including Dani Tirrell, Laura Aschoff, and Hatlo, Wiley will ask how far is too far and can we afford not to go there.

FEAST OF FEATS: FORMS AND FUNCTIONS OF FESTIVALS IN CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE
Sun, Jun 16, 12:30–1:30 pm
Merrill Lobby 
A performer, a curator, and an audience member walk into a bar… is it a festival? This panel discussion will explore the relevancy of the festival within the modern performance landscape. Why do institutions and curators continue to put on festivals? How do these motivations serve or hinder artists and their creative explorations? And what do festivals offer to audiences? These questions will be asked with a special focus on the Pacific Northwest. Finally, this conversation will reimagine the festival form, asking if there are alternative structures that could better serve artists and audiences alike. Panelists: Juan Franco, Jekeva Phillips, and
Sara Porkalob
Moderator: Rachel Cook