otb: announcing their 2010-2011 season

ON THE BOARDS

 

PRESS RELEASE
(nearly verbatim)


ON THE BOARDS 10/11 SEASON
OCTOBER 2010 – JUNE 2011

(Seattle) – On the Boards (OtB) announces its 10/11 Season, featuring one of its most ambitious line-ups to date with 12 performances between 2 programming series and an additional special event. The Inter/National Series will feature the Seattle debut of 4 leading artists from NYC, Poland, France and Mexico and the return of 3 artists who shook up the local theater and dance scenes when they last appeared at OtB. The Northwest Series features some of the NW’s most influential dance makers and 2 highly anticipated solo theater performances.


Inter/National Series
Christian Rizzo | Paris
Ralph Lemon | NYC
Radosław Rychcik | Warsaw
Sarah Michelson | Richard Maxwell | NYC
Vivarium Studio | Paris
Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes | Mexico City

Northwest Series
Pat Graney Company | Seattle
Dayna Hanson | Seattle
Paul Budraitis | Sean Ryan | Seattle
Kidd Pivot | Crystal Pite | Vancouver BC
Charles Smith | Seattle
Catherine Cabeen | Seattle

Special Event: The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2010-2011

OtB is currently on track to finish out it’s 09/10 season with record high attendance, including filling more than 90% of the season’s total capacity and bringing in the most subscriptions in the organization’s history. In 10/11 OtB will continue to feature a 4th night of most performance runs due to the growth in audience throughout 09/10.

Subscriptions for the 10/11 Season go on sale Tuesday, May 4. Single tickets for most performances will go on sale in August.

The 10/11 Season will also include 12 Minutes Max, 2 weekends of regional works-in-progress in the NW New Works Festival and a series of master classes, Q&A’s, opening night parties and podcast lectures.

10/11 INTER/NATIONAL SERIES

Christian Rizzoô b.c, janvier 1545, fontainbleu.
Paris ô Dance
Thu – Sun | Oct 7 – 10, 2010
North American Premiere
“I was excited about this project because of Christian’s own excitement about working with Julie [Guibert]. She’s an acclaimed dancer who has worked with some of the most interesting choreographers in the world and I’m intrigued by how Christian frames her and builds a space for her to inhabit. He made a huge impact on his first trip to North America when he visited us in 2006 and since then he has established himself as one of the most unique performing artists of our time.”
– Lane Czaplinski

After making a stunning North American debut at OtB in 2006 with i might as well want the blue of the sky and ride away on a donkey, Christian Rizzo returns with celebrated dancer Julie Guibert in a highly crafted visual set and movement ritual. The piece, b.c, janvier 1545, fontainbleu was created specifically in response to Guibert’s presence and technique and incorporates Rizzo’s choreographic and visual sensibility honed from years working in fashion design, rock music and fine arts. His career in choreography has made him a leader in France’s non-dance scene and led to commissions by companies like the Lyon Opera Ballet. Julie Guibert formerly danced with companies such as Ballet du Nord and Ballet Cullberg and choreographers like Russell Maliphant. She has had additional works set specifically on her by William Forsythe and Trisha Brown.

Ralph Lemon | How Can you Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere?
NYC | Dance
Thu – Sun | Nov 18 – 21, 2010
Seattle debut
“I often try to fill programmatic voids with artists that we should have had the chance to see in Seattle by now, Ralph is one of those artists. He works in a variety of mediums and is perhaps more interested in the process of making a performance than he is in the performance itself. The staged work sort of acts as an intervention with the material that he researches over long periods of time with his performers. For this project, he’s been inspired in the past couple years by a 104-year-old sharecropper from Mississippi who has served as his muse.” – Lane Czaplinski

How Can you Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? is a multimedia performance in 4 parts (lectum, dance, film and visual art installation) inspired by 104-year-old Mississippi sharecropper Walter Carter and Russian avant-garde filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris. Ralph Lemon is often considered to be one of the most important working artists in contemporary arts and is associated with masters of the American post-modern dance movement such as Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown. In 2005 he complete the Geography trilogy, a series of performances that took a decade to create, spanned multiple continents and toured to venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music (NYC), Walker Arts Center (Minneapolis) and the Yale Theater Review.

* How Can you Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? was co-commissioned by On the Boards.

Radosław Rychcik | Stefan Zeromski Theatre | In the Solitude of Cotton Fields
Kielce | Theater
Thu – Sun | Jan 13 – 16, 2010
Seattle debut
“He’s one of the most exciting young artists from today’s considerable theater scene in Poland. Colleagues of mine saw this work on a recent trip and said it was extraordinary. We only had to look at the trailer in the office to see that they were right. The work features a hot band and these 2 actors who are like Eastern European emo punk rocker kids. It’s really intense physically, the music is crazy and you don’t even have to know what they’re saying to get a sense of the play. It’s exciting stuff.” – Lane Czaplinski

Styled more like an Eastern European punk concert than a play, In the Solitude of Cotton Fields capitalizes on a house band (The Natural Born Chillers) and 2 actors in stylish suits who fiercely dance and deliver from Bernard-Marie Koltès’ original script. The cast, taken from Stefan Zeromski Theatre, is directed by Radosław Rychcik, a 29-year-old theater director based out of Warsaw who is swiftly becoming one of the “it” boys of theater. Recently he has directed shows by Bertolt Brecht (Versus: In the Jungle of Cities), Roland Barthes (Fragments: A Lover’s Discourse) and is currently working on an adaptation of Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. This performance will also tour to PICA’s TBA Festival in the fall.

Preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In-0pHcTflc

Sarah Michelson | Richard Maxwell | Narrative Ballet on the Subject of Martyrdom
NYC | Dance Theater
Thu – Sun | Mar 10 – 13, 2011
West Coast Premiere
“This is going to be one of the most talked about performance projects in North America next year. It pits one of our most provocative choreographers with one of our most experimental playwrights. They’re calling it a narrative ballet and while these guys are both really sincere about making dance and theater, it certainly will look and sound like no other narrative ballet that anyone has ever seen.” – Lane Czaplinski

Two of NYC’s superpowers of experimental theater and dance team up to create a new narrative ballet. With Richard Maxwell writing the script, Sarah Michelson creating the movement/staging and a host of dancers and non-dancers, actors and community members performing, this will be unlike Swan Lake, Cinderella or other narrative ballets in this style. Maxwell, director of the NYC Players, is one of the leading writers/directors of experimental theater in the US. He and his company were last seen in Seattle with 2004’s Drummer Wanted. Michelson’s 2005 performance of Daylight was a rare appearance for the choreographer outside of NYC that had local audiences walking around the stage and talking for the entire 05/06 season.

*Narrative Ballet on the Subject of Martyrdom is co-commissioned by On the Boards and NPN.

Vivarium Studio | L’Effet de Serge
Paris | Theater
Thu – Sun | Apr 14 – 17, 2011
Seattle Debut
“I think people respond to the sweetness of Philippe’s characters, even though they inhabit elaborate terrarium like stage environments, which can seem cold and bleak. He embues these environments with a lot of warmth and humanity. It has all the makings to be really snooty conceptual art and ends up being endearing and accessible.” – Lane Czaplinski

L’Effet de Serge is a glimpse into the living room of Serge, a character who entertains small groups of friends with his lo-fi special effects. Director/performer Philippe Quesne creates an onstage terrarium, complete with a living room and a driveway with a car. L’Effet de Serge has traveled to Under the Radar (NYC), Festival d’Avignon (France), Festival TransAmérique (Montreal) and over 16 countries. Philippe Quesne founded Vivarium Studio in 2003 as a lab for theatrical innovation. Outside of the company he has done design work for opera, concerts, theater and contemporary art exhibits.

Preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnQJSxhXAuQ

Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes | El Gallo
Mexico City | Theater
Thu – Sun | May 12 – 15, 2011
Seattle Debut
“This is the last of several works in our season that incorporate live music. Claudio has made many ambitious projects over the years that combine live music and theater. I saw the premiere of El Gallo in Mexico last year when people were getting swine flu and the work has only gotten better with time. Claudio and company will be the first artists we’ve brought from Mexico during my time, which is something I’ve been desperately trying to correct.” – Lane Czaplinski

El Gallo takes an A Chorus Line­­-like audition process and turns it on its head (a la Constanza Macras/Dorky Park), going terribly wrong before it starts to go amazingly right. Sharing an aesthetic style along the lines of Constanza Macras/Dorky Park and featuring a multinational cast and a string octet, the performance uses the paradigms of theater and opera to look at the intense process behind the premiere of a new work. Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes is a contemporary theater company from Mexico City. Their projects, led by director Claudio Valdés Kuri, have been seen at many prestigious festivals and venues, including the Kunsten Festival des Arts (Brussels), Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Melbourne International Festival and the Singapore Arts Festival.

10/11 NORTHWEST series

Pat Graney Company | Faith Triptych
Seattle | Dance
Thu – Sun | Oct 21 – 24, 2010
“Pat is a regional treasure and this unique production will give audiences the opportunity to see 3 works that she created between 1989 and 2000 that have been remounted as one evening. And whether this allows audiences to revisit the work or new audiences to see it for the first time, it’s going to be a major event. It’s funded by a grant from American Masterpieces from the NEA and is going to be filmed for OntheBoards.tv.” – Lane Czaplinski

Three iconic performances are combined into 1 night from penultimate OtB choreographer, Pat Graney. Faith, Sleep and Tattoo, performances that span from 1991 to 2001, form a triptych that is made possible by an American Masterpieces grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In the remount of all 3 works Graney is attempting to work with the original casts, which included dancers like Amy O’Neal and Kara O’Toole. Throughout her nearly 30 year career, Graney’s body of work has been seen throughout most major US cities and across Japan, England, Scotland, Germany, Singapore, Chile and Brazil. Recently she has focused on Keeping the Faith, a performance project with women in prison.

Dayna Hanson | Gloria’s Cause
Seattle | Dance
Thu – Sun | Dec 2 – 5, 2010
World Premiere
“Since the end of 33 Fainting Spells, Dayna has been focusing more and more on live music and filmmaking and this project is the perfect vehicle to incorporate these elements into her cool brand of performance making. I think Dayna has developed a pretty impressive following nationally and internationally over the years and there’s a lot of anticipation about where this artist is heading. I think it’s cool that she’s collaborating with Dave Proscia and that we’ll get to see her onstage again with Peggy Piacenza.” – Lane Czaplinski

Iconic and not-so-iconic moments of the Revolutionary War come to life in strange ways in Gloria’s Cause, a documentary-infused rock musical directed by Dayna Hanson with longtime collaborators Dave Proscia, Peggy Piacenza and Paul Matthew Moore. Based on the short film Improvement Club, Gloria’s Cause showcases Hanson’s choreographing, writing and filmmaking. In her post 33 Fainting Spells career, Hanson has won a Guggenheim Fellowhsip (2006), created an evening-length performance (We Never Like Talking about The End), directed numerous short films and launched a clothing line.

Paul Budraitis | Sean Ryan | Not. Stable. (At all).
Northwest | Dance
Thu – Mon | Feb 3 – 7, 2011
World premiere
“This piece isn’t so much a social or political solo performance art statement as much as it is an opportunity for Paul, a gifted actor/director, to have the chance to explore different vocal and physical ranges without the burden of working with an ensemble. I think it’ll be intense to watch and listen to, and yet, given that he’s working with Sean, it’ll probably also be free of many tricks or avant-garde posturing.” – Lane Czaplinski

Not. Stable. (At all.) is an original theater piece by Paul Budraitis that has been workshopped over the past year through a series of performances in 12 Minutes Max, the Solo Performance Festival (Theatre Off Jackson) and the 2010 NW New Works Festival. Directed by Sean Ryan, the piece is a series of characters and monologues that toys with the trust of the audience.

After working extensively with Degenerate art Ensemble in the late 90s, Budraitis spent 7 years directing contemporary theater in Lithuania. Since his return to Seattle in 2008 he has directed performances at Balagan Theater, Rough Play and Cornish College. Sean Ryan is a dancer (Scott/Powell Performance), director (Allen Johnson’s Another You) and art administrator (OtB’s Regional Programs and Facilities Director).

Kidd Pivot Frankfurt RM | Dark Matters (a work by Crystal Pite)
Vancouver BC | Dance
Thu – Sun | Feb 17 – 20, 2011
US premiere
“Since we’ve begun working with Crystal 6 ago, she’s grown into one of the most exciting choreographers in the world. Two years ago when she was in Seattle I told her that she had a “come back to Seattle anytime” card that I was giving her and I was pleased she took me up on the offer with Dark Matters. This piece is sort of a take on a Frankenstein tale with a sweet little wooden puppet that goes berserk and leads to choreographic mayhem featuring Crystal’s usual cast of freakishly talented dancers. Somehow her movement keeps getting more and more challenging, and yet, more and more refined.” – Lane Czaplinski

Crystal’s last appearance at OtB in 2008 (Lost Action) drew gasps and spontaneous applause during the performance. Her return to Seattle with 6 brilliant dancers features her experimentation with puppetry and other theatrical devices, building on her strong choreographic sense honed from years dancing with William Forsythe. The show will tour widely around Europe, including a stop at the Venice Biennale, before making its US premiere at OtB. Since her last trip to Seattle, Pite and the members of Kidd Pivot have taken up residency with the Mousonturm, providing space and salaries for the young company to continue making new works.

Preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzWvkcRH8C8

Charles Smith | My Hand Is Up in the Air
Seattle | Theater
Thu – Sun | Mar 24 – 27, 2011
World Premiere
“I’ve been trying to get Charles Smith to create and perform in a work for years because he’s one of Seattle’s best performers. In recent years he’s been teaching himself the hammered dulcimer and bowed psaltery, and he’s going to create a kind of music theater with these instruments that will feature his own deft handling of language and comedic misdirection. Charles has a bone dry martini sense of humor and a clear vision of what he wants to achieve onstage. I think this will be one of the sleeper hits of Seattle’s performance season.” – Lane Czaplinski

My Hand is Up in the Air was originally inspired by an idea Charles Smith had for a performance that would not actually be performed, only promoted. It would be for a solo actor, whose promotional images would be the one performer with his arm raised in the air, a la the stereotypical press picture for solo shows. Smith has expanded this original idea into a 4 part evening directed by Matthew Richter that combines maze-like monologues satirizing language with his own mastery of the bowed psaltery and hammered dulcimer. Charles Smith has been working as an actor, director and designer in the Seattle theater scene for 20 years. He has been seen frequently in 14/48 (winning the Mazen Award), Greek Active and The French Project.

Catherine Cabeen | Into the Void
Seattle | Dance
Thu – Sat | Apr 28 – 30, 2011
World Premiere
“It’s a loaded proposition for a Graham trained, Amazonian dancer to take on an artist like Yves Klein, who painted canvases using the paint-covered bodies of naked women. But, Catherine has all the moxie and intelligence and dance ability to make this an intriguing project. She recently finished her masters at the UW and brings a tremendous amount of thoughtfulness to why and how she creates.” – Lane Czaplinski

Inspired by Yves Klein, choreographer Catherine Cabeen takes on his blue period in Into the Void. Mixing drag, visual arts and precise choreography, the performance will take on themes of gender. Before moving from Seattle, Catherine Cabeen was a longtime Bill T. Jones dancer and assistant (including on the award winning Spring Awakening). Catherine’s work has been seen in Seattle, NYC, Philadelphia, Miami and Santa Fe with her Catherine Cabeen and Company and collaborators such as Philadelphia’s Pig Iron Theater. In 2009 she was a finalist OtB’s co-presentation with the Joyce (NYC), The A.W.A.R.D. Show!.

Excerpt from The A.W.A.R.D. Show!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0Q5jVzNgKs

SPECIAL EVENT
The A.W.A.R.D. Show!
Seattle | Dance
Thu – Sun | Jan 27 – 30, 2011
It’s back! OtB is partnering again with The Joyce (NYC) to present the controversial, conversation-starting dance competition which gives 12 contemporary dance makers the chance to showcase their work and win $10,000. It was a sold out success in 2009, bringing new audiences for dance, sending $12,000 (generously made possible by Boeing) into the local dance community and inspiring ongoing dialogue about the performances and the format of the event. For the 10/11 edition, we are excited to announce 2 Seattle-specific changes to The A.W.A.R.D Show!. After listening to feedback from participants, patrons and the wider community we felt it was important to allow applicants to send proposals for new work and to also offer honorariums to all the chosen participants. Applications are currently open and will be accepted until May 11.

BOX OFFICE
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100 West Roy Street (lower Queen Anne)
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TICKET INFORMATION
Subscriptions on sale Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Single Tickets for most performances go on sale in August.

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION
Early Bird Subscription prices available through June 30.

Inter/National Series Subscription
6 performances for $130 ô After June 30 $140

Northwest Series Subscription
6 performances for $100 ô After June 30 $110

Complete Series Subscription
12 performances on the Inter/National Series and Northwest Series for $225  After June 30 $240

Pick-6 Subscription
Choose 6 performances between Inter/National Series and Northwest Series
Available in August