Off-Leash Area: Contemporary Performance Works creates original performance work and was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1999. To date we have created over a dozen original productions, toured twice to Canada, and have been chosen among numerous Ten Best Lists and have twice been honored by the Ivey Awards, recognizing outstanding artistic work in theater in the Twin Cities.

Off-Leash Area's Mission

With a playful disregard for artistic boundaries, Off-Leash Area recombines vocabularies and styles to create deeply transforming experiences for audiences.

Off-Leash Area: Contemporary Performance Works is a performing arts company that creates original performance work and was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1999. Off-Leash Area is an artistic collaboration between Paul Herwig (Scenic Design and Direction) and Jennifer Ilse (Choreography and Direction), the Co-Artistic Directors. Named after the public parks where dogs run untethered, Off-Leash Area’s creative approach is playful, crosses boundaries, and takes risks. Audiences describe their experience of the resulting performances as being emotional, organic, and spiritual.

"Well, now I know what all the fuss is about. Friends and artistic collaborators have been agog over Off-Leash Area for the last several years, but I'd never managed to catch one of their shows myself. Until now…a dazzling, five-star experience" - Matthew A. Everett, theatre critic for TC Daily Planet, and Minnesota playwright

"Off-Leash Area's riveting movement-theater productions, realized through the note-perfect conjoining of economical movement and spoken text, are also as accessible as they are profound" - Camille Lefevre, Minn Post Dance Critic

"Any production by Off Leash Area is an event: this group consistently pulls together extraordinary talents from all over town to produce performance that is dance, installation, theater, and concert in one." - Ann Klefstad, former Editor of News & Features mnartists.org, and visual artist