Northwest New Works Festival at On the Boards on May 9th in Seattle

Annually, On the Boards presents a series of new works from the Northwest region. I was really happy to be in town during the festival as it was an opportunity to see some of the region's most vibrant artists. I was curious to see what their interests were and who was influencing them. I guessed half the work would be atrocious and half surprising and wonderful.

On the Boards is like a regional and much smaller version of BAM. The staff brings incredible international artists to Seattle (this year, including Elevator Repair Service and Societas Raffaello Sanzio) and showcase the work of local/regional artists. It's the kind of resource anyone who likes contemporary art hopes to have in his/her city and that artists are grateful for. Seattle is lucky to have it.

At the Northwest New Works Festival I saw four performances. The first was by a woman from Portland. It was very Laurie Andersonesque in that she had a control box (doubling as a make up case) from which she controlled the sound and lighthing cues, including a device that recorded her voice and repeated it in order to layer sound. The piece was about Ondine, a woman who came mysteriously from the water, had a difficult life (which was somewhat romanticized in the piece -- the way heroines of fairy tales are romanticized), and was thrown back into the water by her sister. The performer played different roles through songs, with each songs describing an episode in Ondine's tragic life. The best parts were the her visual work, which came largely through costume. The story itself, while dark and dramatic, never quite provoked an emotional response. As with dark fairy takes, it seemed that fear and pity should at least have been present.

The second performance was by two young women who seemed to have been trained as dancers. It was a playful piece, bordering on wacky, about the tasks involved in getting to the earth's core. My favorite parts included dance/movement. Every now and then the two performers would move in unison, which was always surprising and lovely, perhaps precisely because it came against a backdrop of wackiness. At one point they performed in the style of poetry slam artists, mimicking their eponymous cadence and voicework. You know, that way of speaking poetry that makes it all sound like the same poem written by a Beat poet.

I enjoyed both performances and was very interested to see the way technology, spectacle, and storytelling came together in both pieces. The second two were less successful for me. The third piece was a dance performance about birds that, according to the notes, was inspired by an Edward Hopper painting. While we saw just an excerpt I can't imagine Hopper ever painting a bird. I could be wrong. In either case, the choreography was a bit rudimentary and the dancers lacked energy. The music was a combination of music, bird sounds, and city living sounds that was more interesting. The fourth piece was an alternative country trio of banjo, ukulele, and guitar players singing about small town Western Washington life. Parts of it were fun, especially the parts about Dairy Queen and Tasty Freeze (which I'm sure I'm spelling wrong), but overall it didn't go anywhere. It lacked the musical inventiveness of the first piece and its attempt of storytelling was underdeveloped.

While I didn't love everything, there was something to admire in each piece. More than anything, though, I thought it was fantastic that these artists got a chance to perform their pieces in front of an audience, something crucial as they continue to develop their ideas and aesthetics.