Mayor's Arts Awards: On the Boards

The staff of On the Boards. Photo by Jennifer Richard.

On the Boards is Seattle’s home for the strange, provocative, stunning and avant-garde. A platform for experimentation and risk. A presenter, producer and incubator for innovative contemporary performance. A champion of Northwest artists and their peers around the world.

Today, they are one of six recipients of a 2011 Mayor’s Arts Award.

“We’re the kind of organization that the mayor usually wouldn’t want his name associated with in most cities,” says Lane Czaplinski, On the Boards’ artistic director.

But Seattle is not most cities and OtB finds itself in good company among this year’s award winners. “It’s a great cohort,” says managing director Sarah Wilke. “We all work together to make Seattle a really vibrant arts community. If you’re going to be a world-class city, you need to have people like us.” 

OtB got on its feet in 1978 and has since presented some of the world’s most compelling performers—including Laurie Anderson, the Wooster Group, Sankai Juku and Bruno Beltrão—as well as hometown heroes such as Pat Graney, 33 Fainting Spells, Amy O’Neal and Reggie Watts. Its Lower Queen Anne building houses both a main stage theatre and a black box studio space. 

“When we consider the recognition of this award, we think about it in terms of the artists who perform here,” Czaplinski says, pointing out that OtB doesn’t just present artists, it supports their creative process. In the coming year, nearly half of the organization’s will also include residencies, among them sculptor/sound artist Trimpin and dancer/choreographer Mark Haim.

Choreographer Zoe Scofield and visual artist Juniper Shuey did a production residency at OtB this summer, during which they spent “hundreds of hours of rehearsal time developing new work here,” according to Czaplinski. “We provided space, feedback and technical support,” he says, before zoe|juniper premiered their new work, A Crack in Everything, at the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow festival in late July. A Crack in Everything, which was two years in the making, will appear at OtB in December. 

In the meantime, OtB will welcome Madrid theatre star Angélica Liddell in October for her North American debut. Liddell’s solo performance involves paint balls, a blow torch and original text. “It’s going to be one of the most provocative performances we’ve done here in 10 years,” Czaplinski says. “She considers the stage to be a battlefield.”