Off-Leash Area: Contemporary Performance Works creates original performance work and was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1999.
Off-Leash Area is a design and movement collaboration between the Artistic Directors, Jennifer Ilse (choreographer, dancer, director), and Paul Herwig (Scenic Designer/Builder, performer, director), and a growing community of some of the Twin Cities best performers and performance makers.
To date, Off-Leash Area has created nearly twenty original productions, and has been chosen among numerous Ten Best Lists including City Pages' 2005 Artists of the Year. It's directors have received several individual grants and fellowships. The company has twice been honored by the Ivey Awards and the Sage Awards, recognizing outstanding artistic work in theater and dance in the Twin Cities. Off-Leash Area has had support from numerous individuals and institutions, including the National Endowment for the Arts.
For a dozen years, Off-Leash Area's Ivey Award winning work has paved the way and set the standard for independent contemporary interdisciplinary movement performance in the Twin Cities, creating culture that neither surrenders to easy commercialism, nor indulges in confounding or frustrating audiences.
Off-Leash Area has thrived, creating better and better work, evolving and developing new paths of their artistic vision, presenting stories of strength and survival, and celebrating the disenfranchised without condescending or preaching to the audience.
