IN SEATTLE, NEW DANCE IS ON THE BOARDS.

This season, one year shy of its twenty-fifth anniversary, Seattle's On the Boards is in an enviable position among contemporary dance presenters in the United States. It has an operating budget of $1.15 million (which has doubled in the last five years), and more than half of that is earned income.

The group says it owes its success to a willingness to take risks and a desire to showcase dance's leading edge of innovation. The 2001 New Performance Series, which starts this month, spotlights performance artists who use technology--a theme that's both a result and a reflection of OTB's go-for-it attitude and one that's likely to be popular with Seattle's technologically savvy audiences.

This season's high-tech focus wouldn't even have been possible if the group hadn't made the recent move to a new facility. And getting there was a risk in and of itself. About a decade ago, OTB's directors noticed that many contemporary dance presenters were facing financial peril.

"It became clear that we had two options--either downsize like everyone else or claim our position as a major international center by creating the facility that would expand our capacities to present truly leading companies," said Mark Murphy, who has headed OTB as artistic director for fourteen years.

OTB chose the latter path and acquired a new dance facility--the Behnke Center for Contemporary Performance. The $4.2 million used to buy and renovate the facility, which opened three years ago, came from public and private sources, with major donations from the Behnke family, whose contributions are ongoing. This season's juxtaposition of technology with classical and contemporary forms of movement would never have been possible in the group's old space, Murphy said.

The season includes a work called Memorandum by dumb type, a Japanese company known for both its contemporary performance works and installations. In Memorandum, projections are shown on a Plexiglas wall that cuts across the stage diagonally. Depending on what is projected, the barrier appears opaque sometimes and clear at others. "The effect is quite disorienting," said Murphy. And that is part of the message. The work looks at the barrage of images, sounds, and conflicting messages technology brings us every day and the effect this glut of information has on memory. OTB describes it as "both thrilling and exhausting to experience."

London's Random Dance Company will present Trilogy. Each section of the piece makes use of a different form of technology--computer animation, pre-recorded video, and a projection that creates a long hallway for the dancers to move in.

Another highlight of the season is Tamango and Urban Tap, an ensemble of percussive dancers, musicians, and vocalists led by Herbin "Tamango" Van Cayseele, (originally from French Guiana, and now based in New York), who makes use of both backgrounds. Caravane, the piece his group will present, mixes live and pre-recorded music and video and has a VJ onstage to bring it all together.

Murphy says OTB is always looking for artists who express themselves in new ways, and is interested in showcasing groups that use technology to enhance their performance art. "We surveyed the scene, and there were so many good artists using technology that the theme sort of emerged. Plus, Seattle is such a wired part of the world. These groups are expressing issues that are relevant here--and in contemporary society."