NW New Works Festival is Back!

NW New Works Festival returns by popular demand with a new format to showcase the most daring, cutting-edge performances in our region once again!

TIMELINE

Fall 2024 | Applications open

Spring 2025 | Artists announced

June 12-14, 2025 | Performance Dances

Since 1983, the NW New Works Festival (NWNW) has been a vibrant celebration of artists from all performance disciplines, showcasing the dynamic arts community of the Pacific Northwest. This festival directly supports artists in creating and presenting new works, and developing their practices, while offering them an invaluable stage to shine.

Curated by Kemi Adeyemi (professor, writer, dramaturg), Roya Amirsoleymani (curator, writer, producer), and Fox Whitney (artist, writer, producer), the 37th NWNW will feature eight new works performed across the two stages at OtB over three days in June 2025.

The return of NWNW is made possible through generous support by the Raynier Foundation and John C. Robinson.

Meet the Curatorial Cohort

  • Kemi Adeyemi (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of Feels Right: Black Queer Women & the Politics of Partying in Chicago (2022) and co-editor of Queer Nightlife (2021). Her forthcoming book, Writing About Black Art, was a 2023 recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writing Grant.

    Kemi founded and directs The Black Embodiments Studio, an arts writing incubator, public programming initiative, and publishing platform dedicated to building discourse around contemporary black art.

    Instagram : @the_works

    Website : kemiadeyemi.com

  • Roya Amirsoleymani (she/her) is an independent curator, writer, producer, & project manager in contemporary art and performance, based on Twana lands on the Olympic Peninsula in rural Washington. From 2012-23, she was a director & curator at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), where she organized visual art exhibitions, performances, residencies, community and public programs, and the annual Time-Based Art Festival. She just self-published her first chapbook and is working on a long-form experimental narrative about death and friendship. Roya supports the ideas, labor, and livelihoods of artists & arts workers–especially those historically excluded from mainstream art worlds and economies.

    Instagram: @roya_a

    Website : royamir.com

  • Fox Whitney (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of performance, sound, film+video, dance, writing and visual art. He currently fronts the psychedelic transfuturist band Light Aloud and performs solo under his own name. He started the interdisciplinary performance project Gender Tender in 2012. Both Light Aloud and GT center Fox’s queer and transgender POV and engage a team of artists saturated in Fox’s methods modeled on visual + performance art practices, cults, riots, QT history and the surreal nature of transformation. . Fox’s ongoing project, MELTED RIOT is the current focus of his performance making. MELTED RIOT investigates the effects peaceful and violent forms of support and sabotage have on the bodies, minds, and spirits of the transgender and queer community. MELTED RIOT is a surreal protest song, a queer meditation, a psychedelic research project, a punk prayer.

    Instagram: @fox_whitney_ @lightaloud @gendertenderforever

    Website: foxwhitney.weebly.com