neoNuma Arts: literature, performance, art

With Regard to the Publishing Venture

2011-01-02T19:27:00.000-08:00

neoNuma Arts has, for intents and purposes, has ceased to exist as a publishing venture. The neonuma.com website no longer exists and I may not bring it back. It sort of slipped out of existence when I was preoccupied with other things and not sure when or if I'll get it back.

The books that neoNuma Arts published continue to be available. Those books are:

Nighthawks by Evan Guilford-Blake. Evan continues to get produced here and there and around the world. Check out this play. It's a lovely piece of drama.

The Comic Flaw by Alan Berecka. I've recently described this as "Sh*t my Dad Says only in poetry." Except it's the whole family. Alan isn't all laughs, as he usually turns the hysterical anecdote into poignant human commentary---which is what makes him brilliant. It seems this book has a special resonance with people who grew up in a strongly ethnic, Roman Catholic family, but that doesn't describe me, so the appeal is broader than that. I'm just saying, in case a Roman Catholic from a distinct ethnic heritage is reading. (There are rumors of a second Berecka collection coming in 2011 --- get this one now so you don't have to buy too many books at once!)

Necropolis by Jill Alexander Essbaum. Jill is the superstar of the neoNuma fold. She had a poem in the 2010 Best American Poetry and her name is on the cover of the January, 2011 issue of Poetry Magazine (on stands now). She's even in a text book, now. I forget which one. A Longman anthology, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway. I'm biased, but I still love this collection best of all, dark and brooding as it is.

The Fatal Gift of Beauty and Other Plays by Christopher E. Ellis. Christopher isn't as produced as Evan, but these plays are such little gems of theater. The title play is a tour de force for two young actors. Give this a chance, especially if you're in the theater world and have need of short plays. There's some beautiful stuff here.

Able to... edited by Neil Ellis Orts. This was the first venture into literary publishing and I only have the rights to publish these stories through the end of 2011, so if you're interested, get it in the next 12 months. These stories about people (not superheroes) with super-powers still remain close to my heart. I always feel like they never found their audience. Poignant, horrific, wonder-filled, funny . . . they run a gamut of emotions. Perhaps that's its weakness---to many flavors between one cover---but I've always thought variety was a good thing. Check it out and see if you can't be persuaded. You'll believe a man can glow. And that a boy can run on water. And a girl can speak flowers. Among other things.

And if you've found this blog while looking for the old neonuma.com and you're needing to contact me, here is one place to do so, or you can reach me at neilellisorts (at) yahoo dot com. (The neo@neonuma.com address died with the website.) The P.O. Box remains available for contact as well:

P.O. Box 460248
Houston, TX 77056

These are rare gems of books and I'm so proud to have presented them to the world. If you haven't yet, won't you purchase one (or more) soon?

'Splaining . . .

2010-11-30T17:37:00.000-08:00

Well, my attempt to re-start this blog fell apart pretty quickly.

Let's just say I've been a bit . . . down lately.

Shortly after I started work on the Desert Fathers project, I learned that my day job would be quitting me. The retail store where I've worked for the last seven years is closing at the end of the year. Suddenly, everything seemed overwhelming and I felt like something had to give. The only thing that didn't have either income potential or other people counting on me was the Desert Fathers project. So that gave.

It's been a couple of months and I realize that those few short weeks with the project have been terribly clarifying, so hardly wasted time. When I return to this---probably next summer---it will be with a clearer vision of what it can be.

So . . . stay tuned. It's not over, just postponed.

Forward Movement and Problem Solving

2010-09-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

In my head, and occasionally with in range of other human ears, I'm calling this Fieldwork session "Desert Fathers, Phase One." What I'm really doing is seeing if the crazy notions in my head will translate into reality.

I've a small group working with me for three sessions now. I'm encouraged. I think there are possibilities that what's in my head might find expression on a stage. The people who have shown up for this are willing to do some odd things and they seem not at all phased by it. Movement, sounds, really exaggerated line readings . . . they're playing along beautifully.

That's not to say there aren't problems to solve. This is almost like a sketch comedy show (except not everything is comedy) where every few minutes we're in a new scene, and everyone is playing a different character. How do I simply, effectively, QUICKLY denote that the not-so-bright character in one scene and the centered, peaceful, wise character in the next scene are, indeed, different characters even though they're played by the same actor? I have some ideas, but I've yet to start practically solving that.

And this phase one isn't really about solving all those technical things. There are stories from the Desert Fathers that I've adapted but are prop heavy. I don' think this Fieldwork session is props. That's at the very least a phase two problem to solve, but it's in the back of my mind. I've cobbled together a short script that we'll perform for the Showcase in November. No props in this one.

Because, really, the big part of what I have to solve at this first stage is how to make transitions between the scenes. Some scenes are very short---as quick as two lines---others are longer. I feel in me a rhythm for these transitions that I think is going to be rather hard to put on the stage. I'm working on a device that is either going to cue the audience that we're changing scenes again, or is going to drive them absolutely crazy by evening's end. I think the answer to this problem is in the rhythm, the timing of the transitions. And if I end up doing small costume changes between scenes to denote change of character, the rhythm becomes even more difficult.

This probably makes no sense at all, and I'm not ready to explain it. I'm ruminating in public. I'm simply finding this to be a great deal of fun while noting some struggles ahead.

But, you know, if art was easy, everyone would be doing it.

I'll just repeat: I'm encouraged by what's happening so far and leave it at that.

First Fieldwork with the Desert Fathers

2010-09-08T20:18:00.000-07:00

Let me first just say, I'm a doofus. And I owe my cast this enormous crazy big apology. So I asked them if they could be at the first Fieldwork session a little early, to go over the bit we were showing. Well, they could, but obviously I couldn't. I'd forgotten how far it is from my apartment to Barnevelder, especially by bus. Also, I've not met this facilitator before. I always intend to make better first impressions and never quite manage.

This first snippet of the project is one of the funnier stories from the Fathers. Two monks who have lived in peace together for years attempt to have an argument and fail. In my adaptation, I have two of us (the two men, in fact) cross the stage in a ridiculous, cartoonish argument. The two monks are played by two women.

The feedback I received was both encouraging and troubling and I plow ahead with the hope that the larger context that will grow around this snippet will ease some of the troubling feedback. I also didn't give any background or information about what we were doing, we just got up and did it. Even so, I'm not sure a program or show publicity will completely erase what I don't want to convey.

Here's the thing. I think it was Balanchine, in talking about his abstract ballets, who said, "You put a man and a woman on a stage and you have a story." (Or something like that---maybe one of my readers will know the exact quote and correct me if it wasn't Balanchine.) I got a lot of feedback about gender roles, gender traits, that sort of thing. The two men arguing were displaying masculinity and abundant testosterone, the women were being woman who are more peaceful. I actually hadn't considered all of that, but I had considered that if I had a man and a woman arguing, that's a whole other rack of luggage to unpack. And a man and a woman living in peace together for decades leads us to another type of relationship. So I went with the same gender pairs (using, by the way, the people who came to play---I didn't cast these looking for any particular sex to play any role), thinking we'd at least keep away ideas about comparing marriages. I didn't completely---people still spoke of both pairs as "couples," which is its own sort of progress. And I wonder if we'd had the women arguing and the men living in peace together, if we would have had the "male=calm rational thinking, female=irrational emotion" dichotomy (cf Herman Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund).

So, I'm left with no good solution with a mixed sex cast. And, well, we control what we can, we must let go what we can't.

It does cause me to reflect on the fact of humans having sexed bodies. I really don't want that to matter, but I'm always confronted with it. Whether it's on a stage where a man and a woman on stage creates a story, no matter how abstract the material presented or whether it's in real life where I meet people for whom having the correctly sexed body is worth surgeries and prescriptions to have some peace of mind. "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." My desire is to focus on the Imago Dei, but the male and female of it keeps causing me troubles. Which, of course, means the Imago Dei causes me troubles. And really, depending upon the person in the audience, personal histories, other "texts" (to use the deconstructionist term) will influence what is seen anyway. Any two bearers of the Image of God on a stage creates stories that the storyteller can't control.

The work before me is going to be challenging. And worth doing.

On a lighter note, I remain crazy happy with the people I have working with me on this. One of the familiar Fielders asked me, "where did you find these people?" I said, "I posted some things on an internet site and they showed up." Which is a long way of answering, "Grace."

And So it Begins . . .

2010-09-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

Just home from my first rehearsal for my Desert Fathers performance piece.

Could I be happier? I don't know how.

After posting for actors/movers on various websites and bulletin boards, there were five of us gathered in a room at my church. We moved around, we made loud, interesting noises, we laughed, we got a really good start on the style I'm going for in this production.

Sometimes, you don't know what you're looking for, but the right people show up.

Well, I'll probably post more about them as the process progresses. But the energy and openness to exploring some of my odder notions . . . it was all so welcome and surprising. One woman ended the evening with telling me I wasn't all that weird after all, that I could get weirder.

Nothing like encouragement. Or was that a challenge?

I'm approaching this thing a bit as a workshop, a bit as a rehearsal. The first half of the evening, I took us through some movement and vocal exercises. I noted my influences, I noted a few of my theological thoughts about them. I admitted where I took someone's practice, baptized it, and think if it as "practicing resurrection." No one seemed to think that was weird.

This makes me very happy, very encouraged that the right people have shown up to let me get some ideas out of my head and into practice.

Anything can happen. That includes bad disappointing things, I suppose, but tonight I feel like the "anything" is wide open and exciting and full of exploration and discovery.

After playing around physically and vocally, we looked at one piece of the script I'm developing. It was awesome. I gave direction, they took to it with ease. They had ideas and everything became better.

This may be the best I've felt all year.

It's only one rehearsal. But I'm crazy encouraged. And maybe a little inarticulate. I don't know if I'm saying anything. I'm just trying to record how I feel right now after one rehearsal. It'll be something to look back at when/if we hit a snag in the development of this thing I'm creating. We're creating.

More another time. It's a ridiculously crazy week and I have other responsibilities pressing. I'm just spilling here. I'll come back another time with more about the process. I think I want to record the process of this thing.

Starting Something

2010-08-13T22:27:00.000-07:00

This fall, I am going to be working on a brief performance piece. The hope is that this will grow into a full evening's work. I'm looking for people to join me in this endeavor.

Who I'm Looking For:

You are a performer who has maybe some dance training, maybe not, but are interested in the ways bodies can be expressive. You are interested in exaggerated physicality. Maybe you can't leap across the stage, but your body is expressive. That's the key word here: expressive bodies.

But that's not all. You are also interested in being vocal. That includes speaking lines of dialog, but it also means making sounds that are not words. This might include singing, but only if you define singing in the broadest possible sense. The performers I'm looking for are not afraid to make noise. That noise may or may not be beautiful, but it will definitely be interesting.

So, in other words, I need people who are not afraid to be foolish in rehearsal in order to find something extraordinary for performance. A sense of humor (and some comic timing) will be vital.

A tolerance for, affinity for, or belief in Christianity would be helpful. Read on below.

The Project:

I have been adapting some of the sayings and stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers into script form. We will not be portraying these in historical (i.e. 4th Century) context, but in modern dress (albeit in modern rags). This first outing for the fall will only be presenting maybe three stories, intertwined. The working title for the piece is The City, A Desert (in homage to the classic work on the Desert Fathers, The Desert, A City, by Derwas Chitty). This will be more theater than dance, but have dance elements. It will definitely be influenced by modern and post-modern dance techniques.

Regardless of what else I say below, the main point is to create a piece of performance art. It will be serious art but with a sense of humor. Much of what I outline below will not be "seen" by the audience in any tangible way.

The Process:
We'll meet once a week, according to everyone's availability and schedule. These meetings will be as much workshop as rehearsal. I have some definite ideas on how to build the look of this performance, those ideas being more starting points than anything set in stone. We'll be working on not only expressive bodies but on things like stage presence.

The project itself has religious content. The process will, as well. Theological ideas such as resurrection, incarnation, spirit, and creation (to name only a very few) will be brought up and used as imagery.

We'll be making this work in the context of the Fieldwork workshop, sponsored in Houston by Several Dancers Core. Fieldwork is a series of sessions during which artists show work and get feedback from the other artists in the session. Dates for this fall's Fieldwork are not nailed down yet, but will most certainly be on Wednesday nights, most likely starting on September 8. You may not be needed each week for the Wednesday night session. A public showcase will be produced at the end of the sessions, currently tentatively the first Sunday of November. I'll update this information as it becomes available.

Theory:
This may be my work more than participants, but I'm hopeful I'll find participants who will be animated by these two inverse ideas:

Doing theology is a site for making art.
Making art is a site for doing theology.

Theology and art, in my mind, have these things in common:
Both require occasional leaps of faith.
Both are about learning how to see.
Both are concerned with creativity, creating, creation.
Both are personal but not isolating, that is, both are best undertaken in community.

I hope that discussions will spin out of the process, and maybe some fresh theological insight for broader consumption will result. As noted above, however, this is not what the audience will see on stage. It will merely inform the making of the performance.

Interested? Intrigued? Email me at neilellisorts at yahoo dot com.

Moving Forward

2010-04-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

Obviously, I've not posted here in a few months. At the end of last year, I started a re-evaluation of my work and time allotted to the various facets of my life.

One of those things is this: neoNuma Arts as a micropress has ceased operations, at least for 2010. I'm not saying it's gone forever, I'm not saying it's coming back. As something that basically broke even, I count it a success. However, life sometimes demands you make money (a demand I despise, but what are you gonna do?). I'd started to make a little dough on the side doing some freelance writing. This is not making me rich or buying me a new car, but it's better than breaking even. Life also sometimes demands that we sleep sometime. So between a full time day job, a micropress, and freelancing, something had to give. The micropress lost out. I remain disappointed by this, because I had a couple of things in the pipeline that I was really excited about, but I've encouraged the people behind those projects to shop them around elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the books published by neoNuma Arts continue to be in print and available at all the major websites that sell books. Links to all of them are at the end of the blog post.

This blog, in general, feels like it's lost its way. It was started to talk about my own work as a writer and performer, and as I got busier with other things, it became a blog about other people's work. Part of my 2010 goals is to do more of my own work---yes, in between the day job and freelancing, writing about other people's work. You can guess which is going to get short shrift. *sigh* But, hey, I did have a short story published in the literary mag, The Blotter, last January. A pdf of the magazine in which it appears is online here. My story starts on page 6. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, I'll write about a couple of other things, one I've done recently (a small thing, but the process was fun and want to reflect on it), another I'm doing this week. Watch this space for more.

Then, finally, I'm starting a third blog. It's up without content at this point, but I'll change that soon. It turns out arts organizations like to be written about even if it's on a blog that is read by tens of people. I occasionally get asked to write a review for my blog, but since I've been in this re-evaluation phase, I didn't know where or when I'd do it. Well, now there's Orts on Arts. What that space for my reviews and reflections on art I see.

And I guess that's the update and the plan, going forward. Oh, yes, there's still the religion blog, Crumbs at the Feast. That rounds out my irregular blogging life.

Below are the promised links to books published by neoNuma Arts. It's a small catalog, but truly worthy of your time and attention.

Able to..., a fiction anthology edited by yours truly, a collection of fantastical and magical realism stories wherein a character has an unnatural ability. Think super-powers without the super-heroics.

The Fatal Gift of Beauty and Other Plays by Christopher Ellis, a collection of short plays by the Chicago playwright and screenwriter. Beautiful, hard writing. If you are a theater person, check out these plays.

Necropolis by Jill Alexander Essbaum. Jill continues to burn up the poetry world. She's forever flying around, giving readings here and there. She has a poem in an upcoming (or is it out? not sure) Longman's anthology of poetry (so she's getting taught to college students) and she's in another upcoming anthology that is rather impressive, but I don't think is announced and hence I can't announce. But yeah. She's a superstar of poetry.

The Comic Flaw by Alan Berecka. Alan gives readings all over Texas and sometimes beyond. He usually sells lots of books after a reading. Take a chance on this one and see why. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll laugh some more. He's a serious poet with a serious sense of humor.

Nighthawks by Evan Guilford-Blake. Based upon the painting by Edward Hopper, Evan imagines the lives of the lonely people in that painting. It's really two plays, one taking place in the 1940s, the other in the 1980s. Theater people, take note of this one. It's a beautiful piece of drama, and has been produced in several major cities in the U.S.

Nighthawks have Landed!

2009-09-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Finally available after many delays and difficulties, neoNuma Arts is quite pleased to present to the world a trade paperback edition of the play, Nighthawks by Evan Guilford-Blake. Above is the front and back cover, the latter so you can see for yourself the type of reviews this fine play gets when it is produced. Below are two blurbs that were given to me but I ended up not using. They are longer recommendations from previous directors of the play. After you've read them, please consider adding Nighthawks to your drama library, either from Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Our theatre department produced Nighthawks by Evan Blake in 1999. Several factors influenced our selection of the script, but most important was the acting work it provided for our students. This one-act offers four fine roles, which are challenging, yet within the range of freshmen and sophomore actors. An added benefit was the cross-disciplinary connections our production made with art history and humanities students on campus, who had studied the works of Edward Hopper. Our set reproduced the buildings and the cafe in the Hopper's painting; the faculty had their students write about our three-dimensional version of the painting, how art (Hopper's) inspires art (Blake’s), and provided a springboard for diversity discussions.

Sheilah A. Philip
Professor of Theatre, Academic Coordinator for Theatre
Johnson County Community College
Overland Park, KS

I found this play to be a heartbreaking evocation of isolation and loneliness at the center of every human heart. Evan painstakingly delineates his wounded midnight characters reaching out to connect with one another, sometimes violently, sometimes yearningly. His ultimate lesson? Reach out, hold on; none of us can traverse this journey of life alone; our emptiness can only be filled by others of our kind through mutual caring. We must shoulder each others' burdens.

The action moves from the dark, stormy, early-morning hours of despair to a slow-breaking dawn of hope.

Glenn Meche
Theater Director
New Orleans, LA
(see more about Meche's production of the play here.)

Lament of a Dance Fan

2009-09-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

My day job is in a bookstore. One phenomenon you can count on is that when a famous person dies, You'll be asked for books by or about that person. Not a lot, not enough to put a book on the best seller list, but a few. Even the books about Michael Jackson haven't done all that well. Better than most, perhaps, but not outrageously well (to the disappointment of the buyers who decided we all need mountains of some books). When E. Lynn Harris died, his books, especially his latest (last?) novel, Basketball Jones. Walter Conkrite's memoir picked up in sales. Again, these are small jumps in sales, but there is acknowledgment of someone passing. I think part of being American is mourning famous people through books and magazines. (Or, if not mourning, living vicariously the crazy media circus a celebrity death can be.)

This past summer, as I was at the American Dance Festival, it was impressed upon us how precarious is the existence (i.e., the funding) of the arts in general and of dance in particular. This left me in a funk for some weeks afterward.

A couple of months ago, I read a review of a new book of photography by Mikhail Baryshnikov, Merce My Way. Working in a bookstore, I ordered in two copies. It is a lovely book, really. The photos are of the Cunningham company in motion. These are not the photos of someone like Lois Greenfield, with her stunning, crisp moments captured in mid-air. Baryshnikov's clarity comes not in the focus but in the blur. He captures a path the dancers travel. So, you can't see every detail of the dancer's face or body. You do see every detail of how they're moving.

Over a month ago, when Merce died, I put those two copies on display, hoping that someone will see them, want to mourn Merce with these photos. A major, giant of a dancer and choreographer had just died and I thought surely someone would come in asking about books on him. Some one.

But it hasn't happened. And the books sit on a display. They'll probably be returned to the warehouse soon.

I'm not sure what I want to say about this. Maybe I just want to say it. Maybe I've said enough.

Merce

2009-07-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

While I was in Durham, the world lost a dance innovator, Pina Bausch. I'd only seen one live performance of her company and various YouTube videos, but her death was sad in that she wasn't very old. She was not yet 60 years old and it happened suddenly, unexpectedly. I often say that I reserve my grieving for people I actually know, but it's hard not to feel sadness at her passing.

Of course, many people have been discussing the death of Michael Jackson. I might still have a Michael Jackson post in me somewhere. He was a part of my high school and college experience and there's some sadness at his untimely death, maybe even more sadness at his unfortunate life. But as far as his dancing is concerned, Joan Acocella has written much of what I thought about MJ and his dancing, so I needn't repeat it here. (I'm not entirely comfortable writing about MJ in the same post as Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham---these are entirely separate worlds.)

Today the dance world is taking in the news that Merce Cunningham has died. Some are mourning, yes. His company and the countless dancers who passed through it are doubtlessly more affected by his death than most. But I say "taking in the news" instead of "mourning" for a very particular reason.

Merce was 90 years old. He found his path and followed it with great success. He had a partner in life and collaboration in John Cage. He was innovating, using computers to help choreograph when he could no longer stand on arthritic feet. From what has been said of him, I would expect he went to sleep last night with some new idea floating in his head, some new dance that we'll never see.

And there is the sadness, I suppose. The flow of creativity and curiousity is stopped.

But for finite people, Merce had an incredibly good run (full, no doubt, of hardship and sadness of his own---one does not create the body of work he leaves without hardship and sadness).

So, for someone like me, who never met the man, who experienced him mostly through books and video, I merely take in the news that he has died. Merce Cunningham is canon, pantheon, legend. He is as alive to me today as he was yesterday.

Blessings on his memory.

3 weeks out of 2,378

2009-07-15T18:45:00.000-07:00

2,378 weeks. That's roughly what I've lived so far.

So 3 weeks shouldn't have too much influence, right? It's only 3 weeks out of 2,378 weeks.

Of course, when the 3 weeks in question ended just last Friday and were an intensive, stamina-testing 3 weeks of watching dance, talking about dance, and writing about dance . . .

Here's the thing. The arts are grossly under appreciated in the world. People sacrifice their entire lives in pursuit of some artistic expression and too often it is swept aside as the work of crazy people. Meanwhile, truly crazy, power-mad people are running around, claiming to be too big to fail, too important to go bankrupt, and other truly crazy, power-mad people listen to them and we're left with money being spent to keep some of these people in their penthouse apartments. Money for making beauty, for making mirrors to the society, for waking up the sleepers . . . it gets cut and what's left to spend is called waste.

All of which to say, my 3 weeks as an NEA Fellow at the American Dance Festival as part of the Institute for Dance Criticism has put me in a funk.

I don't think this was the expected outcome.

Is this fatigue or depression? Is there a difference? I find myself roller-coastering between re-dedicating myself to my sacrificing life of artistic pursuits and wondering if it's too late to learn engineering or accounting or something practical, something this culture respects.

I'm not as angry as I might sound.

I'm not as depressed as I might sound.

But I am angry and a bit depressed. And I feel a bit derailed.

Of course, 3 weeks is plenty time to influence a life. Lives are altered in much less time. Lives change in seconds.

Perhaps my greatest worry is the weight of helplessness I feel in the wake of these 3 weeks. My greatest worry is that these 3 weeks won't change a thing.

But perhaps that's up to me, eh?

A few more full nights of rest. Let's see what that will do for me . . .

Duham Blogging

2009-07-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

Here I am in Durham, NC, attending multiple performances at the American Dance Festival and I'm not sure what to tell you. It's been nearly nonstop talk with fellow critics-in-training, with choreographers, dancers, technicians. I've now sat in the same room as 3 former dancers who were there at the beginning of Paul Taylor's career (oh, how I'd love to spend more time with them! Delightful doesn't even begin to cover how much fun these women are!) and I've heard a lighting designer talk about his years putting illumination on Merce Cunningham's company. I've been able to ask questions of two Israeli choreographers and one Japanese choreographer, the latter through an interpreter since she doesn't speak English. I've met and been critiqued by leading dance critics in the nation. I'm colleagues with a 11 other dance writers from around the nation, most of whom have incredible careers in journalism.

It makes me wonder how a farm boy from Paige got here.

It's all too much to process as it's happening. Maybe when I'm back in Houston, I'll post the reviews I wrote for the critique sessions. Maybe I'll have time to think about what has happened here and how to frame it all, what it means for me as a writer and dance lover.

But here, on the first day of the last week here, I'm nearly fried. Really. I don't know where to begin.

It just seemed appropriate that I blog Something from this place. Pretty content free, isn't it? Well, that's a bit how I feel. Content free and full, all at the same time.

KDH Dance - 10!

2009-06-19T06:31:00.000-07:00

This is not unbiased reporting. This is not a fair and even review. This is a mash note to a company I love enough to drive 6 hours round trip to see a 2 hour performance.

The Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company (these days more often seen advertised as the more abbreviated [initialized?] KDH Dance Company). I used to take a modern class with Kathy and yoga with associate Kate Warren. Of all the things I miss about Austin, these two women are pretty darn near the center of them.

So I'm flying out of Houston to the American Dance Festival tomorrow morning. I'd sort of assumed I'd just have to miss this KDH concert. So much not getting done here. Then I was looking at the program. They revived two of my favorite pieces: Brief Histories in Three Acts and Framed. I knew it would hurt---and I'll be up late tonight packing the final things I need for my trip---but I became determined to make this performance.

It was well worth the trip. Both of these pieces were tweaked. The company has changed a lot since they were first performed and Kathy naturally enough recasts the piece according to personalities and strengths of the current company. The feelings generated with the pieces remain intact, however. The longing and nostalgia in Framed is made more tender by Kate's taking over the central role of the piece, a woman sitting immobile, staring off into space. The role was originated by Lisa Nicks, who is still with the company (and a fine dancer---a master of the solo dance), but for whatever reason Kate took on the role, Kate brought a vulnerability that I hadn't seen before. When Kate made her first movement, it was so tender and full of memory and loss, well, a my eyes teared up. Then she gets up and dances with the other women (who, if I read the dance correctly, are younger versions of the character), you see that not everything that immobile woman is remembering is sad or wistful. There is joy and excitement, as well as loss and pain.

I never saw the full lenght Brief Histories when it was created. I was living in Chicago at the time, but saw an excerpt of it when I brought the company up to Chicago to perform. It is the KDH company at it's most introspective. I should note that this company is more known for it's humor and athleticism, but being something of a contemplative myself, I especially respond to their quieter pieces. Brief Histories has a haunting quality, as if our pasts are always there directing our futures, like a ghost who keeps rearranging the funiture, blocking certain paths. Again, it's not all wistful---there are moments of happiness and excitement, not to mention anger and frustration---but the images that stay with me are the wistful moments. (This may say more about me than the actual dance. Maybe I say too much!)

The other two pieces in the evening---The Loop, another revived piece, and Green Piece, the only new piece of the evening---are a bit more abstract dance, although there's clearly something of a narrative behind them (Kathy is a storyteller as much as a dancer). The Loop explores the repetive or cyclical nature of our lives, Green Piece seems to have a number of themes running through it---from "living green" to being new, or not quite ripe---and there are more than a few apples abused throughout. (I predict apple sauce in someone's future.) I heard in the audience that someone "didn't like the apples," but I found them cleverly used in some places. I suppose it depends upon what "apple" means for you, which is, after all, a symbol full of cultural information---from the Eden debacle to keeping the doctor away. There are times I'm not always certain what's going on in an dance, I just like the movement. The apples were a prop that, for me, were simply something the dancers were using. Any associations I had in passing were simply layers along the way. It's otherwise a lovely piece.

I don't have any more time this morning. I'll have to leave my KDH report at that. If you are in Austin---or within a 3 hour drive!---make the effort to see the last two performances tonight and Saturday. I admit, I love this company and the women behind it, but I'll also defend that bias by saying: If they made crap work, I wouldn't be writing this now, on too little sleep after too much driving.

Okay, that's all for today. Next blot spot (so to speak): Durham, NC, and the American Dance Festival!

Got Met

2009-06-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

Just got in a bit ago from the Summer Sampler of Dance with the Houston Metropolitan Dance Company. It was at Houston's outdoor venue, the Miller Outdoor Theater and the hillside was loaded with people. Really impressive turnout! Events at Miller are free, but that doesn't always mean people take advantage of it. (I know I don't, to my shame!)

Just some quick impressions. jhon stronks, one of the better choreographers in Houston, gave a nice piece in the first act. It looked highly improvisational, and it wouldn't surprise me, knowing jhon. The soundtrack he put together was quite fun. He used some poems from mutual friend, Margo Toombs, mixed in with the music and other sounds. I was sitting next to Margo and it was fun watching her react to her own voice, especially when it turned out jhon used a piece she wasn't expecting. Even more fun was when some kids near us started to repeat one repeated line of Margo's: Everyone has a cape. I leaned over and told Margo, "Listen, you're being quoted!"

In the second act, the youth/student company, Houston Met Too, tore up the stage with some extraordinary dancing, every bit as good as the parent company. Very, very impressive.

The piece I went to see, really, was the piece I blogged about last time, Salim Gauwloos' Elevated. Salim is the choreographer I interviewed for OutSmart this month (scroll down to last entry for more info). I'm happy to report that it's a lovely piece. The middle section, with two pairs of dancers, is especially moving and tender. (After the show, I'd mentioned how tender this section was, and Margo said "and bendy!" I said, "Yes, tender and bendy!" She said, "You'll have to use that in your review." I said, "I try not to use too many technical terms in my review.")

I'd write more, but it's late and I need to cut this short. Just wanted to give some very brief, quick impressions (and expose myself and my friends for how silly we are). All in all, a fine night on the hillside.

Dance, Dance, and Dance (among other things)

2009-06-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

It's 10 days until I fly off to the American Dance Festival to experience 3 weeks of dance watching, dance talking, and dance writing. So I think it's only appropriate that I talk about all the dance watching, talking, and writing I've been doing lately.

Most recently, I went to the Big Range Dance Festival' Program B here in Houston. I wrote a review for it and you can find it here. I won't repost it here (although I'm told I may---but you can click the link, right?), but I will add that NobleMotion Dance is added to my list of companies I hope to see regularly. Check out their collage video on their homepage. If you're in the Huntsville area (I know, right? Huntsville? Home of a very fine modern dance company?), make the effort to see them. Really.

The June issue of OutSmart is out and up on the web. I have several pieces in it this month. A book review of a wonderful new novel, Blue Jesus by Tom Edwards (plus a web extra interview with the author), a DVD review, and a profile of dancer/choreography Salim Gauwloos. Click the OutSmart link, scroll down to the Salim interview ("No Posseur"), and read it before continuing here. We'll wait.

hum de dum de dum la de dah . . .

Back? Yeah, I got to talk to a Vogue dancer. I feel really badly about referring to him that way because he's obviously moved beyond music videos (and good for him, I say!), but hey, the Vogue video was really very fun and stylish and he's clearly not the type of person who is saying he's above all that now. I could tell from talking to him that he really cherished his time with Madonna and doesn't in any way disown that experience. But surely he must think "That was over 15 years ago. I've done other things." The way of popular culture, I guess.

During our interview, he invited me to come to a rehearsal at the Met studios. I told him I wouldn't be able to use it for the article because the deadline was Immediately If Not Sooner. He said, not for the article or whatever, just because. So I said, sure and two days later, I watched about 20 minutes of a rehearsal.

It was quite a lot of fun. It was very early in the rehearsal process, of course, so there wasn't a lot set, but I saw enough to know that I'm interested in Salim's choreography. There was some very interesting partnering going on (and I'm a sucker for interesting partnering---I love how bodies play against each other's weight), so I'm looking forward to seeing the performance this Friday night. (Miller Outdoor Theatre, the Houston Met's Summer Sampler of Dance, 8:30pm---check the Met's website for more information)

What I want to say now about Salim is more of a personal reaction, but I think it's worth saying. I guess I have preconceived notions about fame or something, but I expected someone who has toured with Madonna and been in multiple music videos (not just with Madonna---check out Salim's website for more on his history) to be, I don't know, more aloof. I found him about as friendly and warm as you'd want a stranger to be. I felt that as I was interviewing him on the phone, and it was confirmed in person. Salim and his partner (who I shamefully cannot name just now---I'm terrible with names!) seemed like just really nice guys, the type of guys you'd hang out with at a coffee house for a couple of hours. The invitation to the rehearsal, without any real publicity to be gotten out of it, was very nice, but to meet him and see how he interacted with his dancers---he simply strikes me as a man who is comfortable in his skin. He's toured with Madonna and he wanted to show me his work in progress. It was all the same to him. I almost felt like I was doing him a favor by stopping by the studio.

I'm anxious to see the dance he made for the Met on Friday. I'll post my reactions here afterward.

To back up a moment, I will also take the time to point out the Blue Jesus/Tom Edwards interview. When I picked up the Blue Jesus review copy at the OutSmart offices, I wasn't really sure what I was getting into. Blue people in Georgia? I hadn't heard of it, so I thought this was some sort of magical realism thing. Well, in some ways, it is, but it's also based on the real blue people of Georgia, who, these days, are mostly cured of the condition that made them blue. The point being, really, that I've seldom been so charmed by a book. The voice of young Buddy Dean is so strong and so engaging, you swear you knew this kid in elementary school---or else were him. He is a mixture of having to grow up too fast (his mom is dead, and he gets pounded at school because he's a sissy and pounded at home because his dad is having trouble grieving and, well, also because Buddy is a sissy) and having a wonderful innocence about the world (he has this very obvious crush on Tony Dow, but he doesn't name it as such---he just wants to move to Hollywood and be Tony's best friend). There's much about the book that is laugh-out-loud funny and much that will break your heart---sometimes in the same line---and the ruminations on faith and courage and race and identity . . . it's just a fine, fine book. Find it, read it, tell others. I'm going out on a limb by calling it a new Southern classic, but I think it's the kind of book that could/should eventually find its way onto syllabi for literature courses.

That's enough for now. I really should be doing more prep for ADF. 10 days!

Comic Flaw review

2009-05-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

I just remembered I wanted to share the great review The Comic Flaw by Alan Berecka (published by neoNuma Arts, of course) got at the Midwest Book Review. Click here and scroll down a bit.

You can also see it on the book's Amazon page. While you're there, if you're in the mood for some great poetry, see that little button that says "add to shopping cart" . . . ?

this/that/hodge/podge

2009-05-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

A little bit of different things.

Recommended: Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography by Sabrina Jones. This is a well-done biography of Duncan done in comics style. It covers Isadora's mercurial personality well, including her series of lovers, without getting to (pardon the pun) graphic and with the exception of one bared breast, it does a remarkable job keeping this friendly for younger readers. I don't know what the standards are for school libraries, if one drawing of a breast is considered too risque these days, but if a library carries the Gossip Girl series, they should have no problem justifying this purchase. At any rate, I think it should be available to the young women who are devouring manga and maybe taking a dance class. Isadora was a world changer in her force of personality and insistence of doing things her way. She had contemporaries who were doing similar things, perhaps (Loie Fuller and Ruth St. Denis most notably), but in a world where there were vaudeville high-kicks and ballet with not much in between, Isadora created the path that would lead to modern dance. Dance students today should know her and this is a great introduction.

Even more, I want to say that what delights me most is that comics suddenly seem to me the absolute best print medium for doing dancer biography. I've read a couple of biographies (or collections of biographical sketches), and what Jones does here is she not only tells us Isadora's life, but through the drawings, gives us a taste of how she must have moved. From the few pictures that exist of Isadora, I'd say Jones captures her quite well. I'd love to see more dancer biographies done in this fashion. In fact, if any comics artists are out there reading this and want to collaborate with a writer on one, I'm raising my hand. I'd love to do a similar volume on maybe Rudolf Laban or Denishawn (Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn). Just putting it out there.

Speaking of comics, this month's OutSmart magazine has an article by me on gay comics creators in Texas. Read it here.

(It's hard to believe that they did a graphic bio of Isadora. Two of geek interests, coming together in one package---was there ever a chance I would not pick up the Isadora book?)

BIG News: This summer, I'm going to the American Dance Festival to attend the Institute for Dance Criticism. This is an NEA sponsored event and I'll spend three weeks seeing dance, writing about dance, attending workshops about writing about dance . . . basically living dance. It's all very exciting and an great opportunity for me. I guess the few dance pieces I wrote for OutSmart are paying off big dividends this summer.

What else . . . I guess that's all that's on my mind tonight. It had been so long since I last posted, and I did want to put the word out about the Isadora book. There's much on my plate these days and not always juggling as fast as I might, but it's exciting times, full of forward motion. Stay tuned through the summer, for sure . . .

Stations of the Cross coming down

2009-04-24T07:54:00.001-07:00

I managed to get by Xnihilo Gallery this week to see the unveiled final piece in their Stations of the Cross show. J and Tyndall Wakeham are the artists on the resurrection station (which isn't part of the traditional stations of the cross and is an Xnihilo innovation) and it's a large computer generated print of either a sunrise or else just a sunburst through clouds, as one might see from an airplane. I couldn't tell which, but that's not exactly the point. It's photograph of a burst of light, yellows and reds and darker hues from the clouds, and on top of it are superimposed four contemporary faces. Honestly, I only recognized Bill Maher but the artists' statement identified the others as Margot Kidder, Jeffrey Skilling, and an unknown face from the street.

I'm tempted to leave it at that and let you puzzle about those faces. In fact, I think I will for now. It's one of those pieces that works best with the artists' statement beside it, and I'm not sure that means it works at all. But I'll try to remember to come back in a couple of days to reveal what the artists said about those faces and see if anyone has responses to those faces in an art piece about the resurrection.

In the meantime, if you're in Houston, stop by Xnhilo and take a look yourself. The show is only up through this weekend, so hurry! 2115 Taft St. (And have a beverage at the coffe house and browse their bookstore while you're there!)

Ros Warby's Monumental (and the Places it Took Me)

2009-04-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

This past Friday evening (April 17), I waded through a torrential downpour to the theater district to see Australian dancer/choreographer Ros Warby in her solo piece, Monumental. This is going to be part review, part personal reflection. I'll try not to ramble.

There are some thing that I really appreciate about performing artists and one of them is a willingness to be still. The opening moments were very satisfying to me as Warby stood on stage, lit from the side, making small gestures with moments of stillness between. I was with her immediately, enjoying her stage presence and her willingness to simple let us look at her in her skull cap and tutu.

For the next hour, Warby moved about the stage with an almost matter-of-fact-ness. That is, she maintained a stage presence without doing particularly flashy dance moves. There were turns and dips and floor work and all kinds of dancerly things going on---don't get me wrong---but there was also a lack of pretense of the work. More on that later.

Warby was playing with images from classical dance, specifically the swan and the soldier. She danced in front of film and video projections of large waterfowl and her own dancing. The archival footage of the waterfowl were often grainy and lent a certain feeling of nostalgia. It reminded me of nature films in grade school, back when teachers had to know how to thread a film projector. The moments when her own dancing was projected behind her gave us that impression of dancing with herself---something that also often fascinates me. There were many elements of what she did that captured my attention in these small ways.

As for her actual movement vocabulary, her referencing the ballet images worked for me because she looked like someone who was playing at ballet, not trying to actually do ballet. (I was a bit surprised in her talk-back after the show when she said she was classically trained and much of her work is trying to undo that training---I'd say she's done well in the undoing.) There were no virtuoso turns or leaps. The most articulat part of her body appeared to be her shoulders, which I admit I found fascinating. Her shoulders were the source for most of her arm gestures and I was amazed at the range of motion there. There were times I would have sworn that her shoulder blades slid halfway around her rib cage or her clavicle might fold in half

All of which to say, this performance kept my attention. It played with conventions and devices that I find interesting and engaging.

This is not true of everyone in the audience.

Early in the performance---with all that small gesture and stillness---I heard a couple behind me make comments about falling asleep. They were not engaged and left about halfway into the performance. A man and a child two rows in front of me left just before the performance ended. The child especially appeared bored.

And I thought---This is not dance for a beginner dance audience. It is, in fact, advanced dance viewing. In hearing the comments behind me, I realized that I might have been in the same frame of mind several years ago. I would have been a bit more judgmental, also thinking, "would you please just DO something!"

But I brought to this performance not only a history of dance viewing, but also a knowledge of dance history. There was a point in the performance when I thought, "this owes so much to the Judson Dance Theater." That performance style I mentioned early---no pretense, no virtuosity---brought to mind the "No Manifesto" of Yvonne Rainer, who was a founder of the Judson group. It came as no surprise, then, when Warby told us in her talk-back that she was a student of Deborah Hay, also a member of the Judson group.

Much of this dance history is the result of my time at Columbia College Chicago, studying for my M.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts. One of the strongest aspects of that program was the dance history we got in out "movement images" class. When I lived in Austin, I had taken a couple of classes with Deborah Hay but was mostly befuddled by them---I didn't understand where she was coming from or what she was doing. After the movement images class, I had a much better appreciation for what she was doing. I understood more where she was in the spectrum of dance.

All of which raises the question: Do you need a master's degree to appreciate this art?

I'm not sure. Certainly there will be people who will pick up on the thought and intention behind post-modern art, just as I believe there are people who can pick up on the energy behind abstract expressionist painting without knowing the art history behind the movement.

At the same time, I sympathized with the people behind me. They simply didn't have the eyes for what Warby was presenting. I'd attained the eyes for it relatively recently myself. For me, that took studying for a master's degree.

Does that make what I saw Friday night "high art," or at least "higher" art?

I wouldn't say that. I would say that I've seen dance by, say a company like Philadanco, that was high energy, full of razzle-dazzle, full of crowd pleasing feats of physical prowess---and I would suspect the same amount of thought and creativity went into making that dance as Warby put into hers. It's different art. To use a loaded term, it's more accessible art. But low art?

Let's not kid ourselves. There is plenty of bad dance to be found. A lot of it is easy, move-and-pose dance, no matter how much energy goes into it. It's simply not that interesting. It might be entertaining, but it's ultimately eye candy. And I'm all for some eye-candy now and then---I sometimes say I like broccoli and I like Hershey's kisses, but I know the difference between their nutritional value and which is likely to better sustain me.

I enjoyed myself Friday night. I'm also glad that I didn't try to take certain friends with me to the show. It isn't the type of show that will fill a venue like the Cullen Theater and if it weren't for the huge projections, I would say it was better suited for a more intimate space. It's a credit to the Society for the Peforming Arts that they will book such challenging shows.

I often ponder the place of arts education in expanding an art audience. The above doesn't begin to cover all my ruminations over the last 48 hours since I left the theater.

But these are the places this performance took me. I would very much welcome comments on personal experiences with education and "getting" different styles or forms of art.

True Love from Xnihilo Gallery's Stations of the Cross Exhibit

2009-03-27T08:49:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, I posted about attending the opening of this year's Stations of the Cross exhibit at Xnihilo Gallery. One of the stronger pieces was Station 11 by Jessica Adams. Her father has sent me photos to post of this piece, which I'm glad to do. These photos show not only the final piece, but also the process. (I had not known, previously, that this piece had been made by a high school student. I saw that it had been created at a high school, it just didn't occur to me that it was a student who created it.)

Divergence Vocal Theater

2009-03-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was the second production from new indie performance company, Divergence Vocal Theater. The 10th Muse was a musical, theatrical, poetic meditation on love, heartbreak, and other such manipulations of Eros. Artistic director, Misha Penton, pulled from Berlioz, Gounod, and Boulanger (among others) for music. For text, she appropriated text from Sapho and also 4 poems from neoNuma poet, Jill Alexander Essbaum. Throw in some modern dance choreography by Toni Leago Valle, and you begin to get an idea of how fully packed a one-hour performance from DVT can be.

I should say up front---I've known Misha for 5 years now. I met her at Fieldwork and we became fast friends and fans of each other's work. We've worked together on a few things here and there and so I have some idea of how she works and her intentions behind the work she presents.

So I can't really do a review of what I saw this past Saturday night. What I want to do instead is talk a bit about one artist's evolution into force for re-imaging opera for the 21st Century.

First of all, Misha breaks a few rules just by forming this company. Opera companies are not formed by mezzo-sopranos. Mezzo-sopranos go and audition for opera companies, which are run by conductors or somesuch (I'm not entirely clear on all that, actually), and they wait for the permission of the conductor or director to be creative, i.e., to be cast in a production. Misha's background, however, is in dance and rock bands. Dancers form companies (Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, on and on) and dance in their productions because they have the need to be creative and can't wait to be invited to dance for someone. Rock bands pretty well do the same thing. Someone gets together a group of musicians and they meet for rehearsals in someone's garage and they start gigging. So it shouln't surprise anyone that Misha has taken her ideas for shows, gone out and assembled her "band" and called rehearsals.

On top of this, Misha has a history as a visual artist, a painter of abstract canvases that are all color and texture and mood and movement. This comes into play in her stage productions in that there is an arc to the evening, but not necessarily a story. She describes The Tenth Muse as a "watercolor collage" in her program notes and that's certainly one way to experience the evening. It's performance art as much as performing art. It's juxtaposition of ancient and modern art, it's a collection of thoughts on a theme, it is a collection of impressions intended to evoke feelings.

An evening with DVT, then, is a feast for the eyes and ears, with video projection, dancers, and highly trained voices and musicians. Mixing in spoken word fragments and poetry ups the intellectual involvement. It seems unlikely that someone would leave a performance without having seen or heard something that stimulated them on some level.

If this interdisciplinary approach to performance piques your interest in the least, I recommend you head over to DVT's website and subscribe to their email list. There are sure to be new and exciting things developing in the months to come and you won't want to miss out.

New Necropolis Video on YouTube

2009-03-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

I just posted a new video on YouTube. This one is my performance of Jill Alexander Essbaum's "Last Day," which is from her neoNuma Arts collection, Necropolis. Note the contest in the video description.

(full disclosure: I made this a couple of months ago, finished it all up, and THEN noticed the mistakes. I always intended to re-shoot it, but since that seemed to be an unlikelihood, I just decided to just admit my mistakes, post the video, and make a contest out of it. Lazy or overwhelmed? A little of both, but hopefully someone will have fun with this . . .)

Funny in a Sad Sort of Way.

2009-03-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

So there's this journal that I'd seen many many times at work. It's called The Book of Myself, and it's one of those things where you go through and answer questions about yourself.

What I'd never noticed before was the somewhat frilly writing that is the subtitle: A Do-It-Yourself Autobiography.

I kept looking back to see if it really said that.

A Do-it-Yourself Autobiography.

As they sometimes say in comic strips: ?!

March 14 Corpses

2009-03-17T23:09:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday (3/14), we had another Writing Marathon at the Montrose Library. As usual, we played a few rounds of Exquisite Corpse. In fact, we may have played more rounds of it this time than in the past. We were especially "on" this past Saturday and kept coming up with very interesting images. Here's most of 'em:

A red mouse dances a jaunty espresso.

A high-flying twirler regrets the sad apron.

A hopeful vine spills the golden desert.

A rowdy penguin climbs a lukewarm cheese.

The ecstatic hummingbird reads the warm closet.

A broken lion stung the slivered vacation.

The pretty heart creates the wimpish man.

The paltry sign flips the reckless story.

A humming person fastens the soft apprentice.

An imaginative horse watched an alarming book.

A western cowboy sipped the prismatic mess. (We commented on the fact that two players, sitting side-by-side, gave us the phrase "a western cowboy." We decided they were influenced by Houston's currently running Livestock Show and Rodeo.)

An ugly bee drives the thirsty ragdoll.

The fiery woman writes a diaphanous plate.

A hungry president wraps the hot forrest.

The pretentious tree swallows the intriguing paper. (cannibalism, anyone?)

The flirtatious margarita brings a perfect knee.

The beautiful performance writes the limited shore.

The squeaky girl captivates an appalling space.

A monstrous ferris wheel jumps the cynical watch.

A gray lover inhaled a red statement.

The pink storm washed the blue audience.

The gray day fell a stunning woman.

The timid hula-hoop chug-a-lugs a lukewarm coat.

The illustrious kite pounded a downy piano.

The breathtaking notebook flies the worn cushion.

A thin bowl clutched a surly thigh. (A fun thing about this sentence: it was written on lined paper and all the players put all the words on the same line, except the word "surly," which made the word itself appear a little surly. Or at least nonconformist.)

The hard spy transports a merry wassail.

The voracious stone sips the mysterious child. (A mysteriously liquified child? Um, ew.)

A wet nobleman holds a nasty window.

The strong cup nibbled a tasty girl. (And how did two players use nibbled and tasty in the same sentence?)

The gentle bandana smoldered the arid anteater.

The itchy offering spits a fresh choice.

The cloudy girl cracks the enchanted man.

So a lot of nonsense, to be sure, but some interesting images, too. And that's the fun of the game. Those surrealists really knew how to have a good time, huh?

I haven't set the date for the next marathon yet, but I will soon. Email me if you want to be put on the neoNuma Arts mailing list to keep up to date on these and other events. neo (at) neonuma (dot) com.

Joe Goode Performance Group

2009-03-06T22:04:00.000-08:00

Just in from an evening at the Cullen Theater. I had been looking forward to the evening for weeks, ever since I interviewed Joe Goode of the Joe Goode Performance Group for OutSmart magazine. It was well worth the wait.

Goode introduced himself to the audience, dressed in cowboy drag (which is really the only way to describe it in this context). It's cowboy by way of Porter Waggoner's closet. Lots of fringe, in other words (although not so many sequins). Goode immediately endeared himself to the Houston audience by pointing out that it was a costume and that he wasn't dressed up as he was simply because the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo are in full swing this week. He went on to say that they're performing in other cities across the U.S. where the costume is actually ironic. The audience warmed up to Goode's charm and his company would have had to screw up royally to lose it.

His company, of course, did not screw up royally. We were treated to a wonderfully inventive evening of dance theater. The first half of the evening was a revived piece from his history, Maverick Strain. This was inspired by the movie, The Misfits, and played with the American ideal of rugged individualism, machismo, John Wayne and Montgomery Clift. The company danced, they sang, they played out scenes that reversed gender roles. Joe Goode himself would swagger one moment in imitation of a Hollywood cowboy, then give us a swishy counterpoint to that image. What's most amazing is that he was able to do it, get laughs, and it never felt forced or cheesy or played only for laughs. As he said in the after-show talk, it was about being male in America---and all the ways a male is in America. It's agenda was laid out in a very friendly way, not pushed, not a strident voice, just politely presented with humor and grace.

Wonderboy, the second half of the evening, was a bit different. Using a puppet as the main character---a quiet, sensitive boy who watches the world from his window, but is afraid to go outside and engage the world---we're given a story of self-discovery that again uses humor to tell the tale, but doesn't shout. Goode may talk about the difficulties of growing up gay in Virginia in the 1950s, but his work suggests that he isn't angry or bitter about it, only that he wants people to see what that experience was like. This is very appealing to me. As a gay writer and sometimes performer, I know it can be hard to present the work without being defensive or antagonistic to a straight audience. It's a joy to see someone modeling a way to do it, to create work that makes seeing the difficulty easy, that doesn't place blame for the difficulty or rails against the oppressor. Goode has found a way to present the difficulty that makes it possible for others to identify with it, even if it isn't the viewer's personal difficulty. Wonderboy is, in the end, about wanting to belong, and pretty much everyone who has survived being a teenager identifies with that.

Even going in with some knowledge of what Wondergoy was about, even after talking with Joe Goode about it for the interview, I was surprised by my own emotional response to the climax of the piece. I knew it was about a boy discovering that his gift and, indeed, his power lay in his being sensitive. Still, when the puppet proclaims, "I'm sensitive!" I had this internal response of wanting to shout, "Yeah! That's right! You're sensitive!" It's a funny moment, yes, there's something kind of funny about this sweet little puppet proclaiming his power with the very thing that had made him afraid to go outside, but it also touched something in me that I wasn't expecting. It's nothing new, really. Mystics and poets have been saying this for centuries. Our weakness is our strength. My own religion proclaims the weakness of a state execution is the power of our proclamation. Humility, the Desert Fathers and Mothers told us, is the one thing that the devil can't match and so is our greatest strength. So it wasn't a new idea, that senstitivity, a "weakness," could be powerful. Goode just built up to it in such a way that swept me into a catharsis of sorts. And that is, the ancient Greeks would have told us, the point of theater.

I should talk about one aspect of the evening that I was most interested in. Goode is known for making his dancers sing and speak. His shows apparently rely heavily on text to create the story he's telling. This is an interest of mine, one that drew me to Toni Leago Valle (see a couple of posts ago) and when I was making performance myself, a thing I tried to explore. I often feel like dancers use text to explain the dance or else use dance to illustrate the text---neither of which is particularly wrong, but not what interests me. In my work, I would try to layer text and movement so that each element offered more information, that there would be information left out if one element was absent. Whether or not I succeeded with those attempts, I wouldn't dare say. But I wanted to see how Goode used text, how he integrated the two.

Here, tonight, fresh from his show, I would say Joe Goode is a storyteller, and he uses many elements to tell the story. There are moments of dialog/monolog that do that, and ther are moments of "pure dance" that propel the story forward. There are times the two overlap, but I'm not sure I would say they are completely integrated in the same way I was attempting, but neither are they simply illustrative/explicative. From my point of view, he uses all elements with ease and the result is a seamless story. It is a layering in that all these disciplines do add a different dimension the the overall work. It is skillfully done and I cannot fault it one bit.

But I'm still searching for some thing I can't quite describe, haven't really managed myself, and may be an unattainable idea---this notion that text and movement might be integrated so that one requires the other to create a third thing. I'm high on what I saw tonight and I want to stress that what I saw was wonderful, skillful, full of creativity. And I'm looking for someone to do something . . . else with text and movement. But that's my notion, and is no fault on the part of Goode for what he offered his audience tonight.

Oh, and for heaven's sake, the other thing I wanted to mention is his choreography for duets. I'm a sucker for inventive partnering, and there was some very exciting and breathtaking partnering in tonight's work. There was even one point that I literally thought, "that defies the laws of science! How are they doing that?" Someone in the after-show discussion noted it, too, so it wasn't just me.

But that's enough gushing. This was one wonderful evening of performance. I have a new favorite dance company, another troupe to keep my eyes open for. If you run across this and the Joe Goode Peformance Group is coming to your city, I highly recommend arranging your life around it.