Thursday, March 01, 2007

Wilmington, N.C. - Dance-theater innovator Joe Goode and his multi-talented company of dancers/singers/actors, the Joe Goode Performance Group, will perform Stay Together at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, March 20 in UNCW Kenan Auditorium. Collaboratively written with San Francisco Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, Stay Together is a poetic exploration of the challenges imposed by personal relationships. The work will be performed along with Deeply There, an intimate exploration of the AIDS crisis in a work widely acknowledged to be Goode's masterpiece. Audience members are invited to stay after the performance for a meet-the-artists discussion. The event is presented as part of the UNCW Presents Arts in Action Performance Series.

Goode and his Group balance their core discipline of dance with incisive narrative, clever costumes and sets, moving and memorable music, and engaging acting to create a full theater experience that few companies can match. Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times writes, "The absolute polish with which Goode integrates speech and movement should stand as a model for many others in the dance and performance art field." The San Francisco Chronicle praises Goode, asserting, "Make no mistake, nowhere is modern dance more daring and new, more exhilarating than here in the hands of this San Francisco choreographer...The canon is enriched by his witty and powerful spectacles."

The two works on the program embody the Joe Goode ethos, as they pose rich existential questions while remaining unfailingly good entertainment. Stay Together, presented as the highlight of the company's 20th anniversary season, marks the first time Goode and Tilson Thomas have worked together and the first time Tilson Thomas has composed music for a dance company. "Our efforts, thus far, have resulted in new music and movement sections that are inspired by a tiny gesture in the original composition or a fragment of the original lyrics," commented Goode. "Of course, for me, just the title alone offers endless possibilities of how we stay together in a society that dogmatically emphasizes the new." As it seems to be unfolding, Stay Together regards an older artist and how he approaches his work, his personal relationships, and what it takes to stay together not with a desired effect, but with an appetite for dialogue.

Deeply There (stories of a neighborhood), Goode's powerful and critically praised 1998 response to the AIDS epidemic, will serve as the ideal companion piece for an evening that represents the best of 20 years of provocative and enlightening dance theater. Goode's kinetic narrative explores the havoc of the AIDS crisis and how San Francisco's Castro District has reshaped itself into a more humane and diverse community, examining the many unlikely alliances and alternate family structures born out of necessity with the urban AIDS culture.

Joe Goode first came to public prominence as a dancer with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. In 1986 he founded the Joe Goode Performance Group as a way to explore his diverse interests in theater and dance. Goode is also a visual artist, and has presented installation projects at museums and galleries across the country. In 1995, he was one of only ten U.S. choreographers to receive a prestigious National Dance Residency Program grant for artistic development. In 1998 his work Deeply There won both a New York Dance and Performance Award ("Bessie") and a San Francisco Isadora Duncan Dance Award ("Izzie"). "Goode likes to blur the boundaries between modern dance and theater, and the results are often uproarious," the Los Angeles Times writes. "Clearly, Joe Goode is a major subversive and must be watched. The only question is how soon we can watch him again."

BOX OFFICE AND TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets are $6 for university and area students, $14 for UNCW faculty/staff, senior citizens, and UNCW alumni, and $18 for all others. Call Kenan Box Office at 910.962.3500 or 800.732.3643 outside the Wilmington area. Box office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday.

About UNCW Arts in Action Performance Series

Sponsored by the University Union at UNC Wilmington, the Arts in Action Performance Series seeks to culturally enrich, educate and entertain both students and the general public through the presentation of diverse programs featuring professional, high-quality performing artists. For more information, please visit the Arts in Action web site at www.uncw.edu/presents.

UNCW Presents is a member of the NC Presenters Consortium and the US National Association of Performing Arts Presenters. The 150 member venues of the NC Presenters Consortium may be visited at www.presenters.org