“This next song, I’m going to sing it a cappella. Give the boys a rest. It’s a quiet song. How to get your cowboy to stay at home,” says the old cowboy at the start of Maverick Strain,the first of two pieces performed at the Joyce Theater by the Joe Goode Performance Group. The night is April 23rd, and the old cowboy charmingly lulls the audience into this first piece. His endearing voice tells of the glorious days and lives of cowboys.
The dance troupe suddenly bursts through one aisle in the audience in a flurry of brash costumes and toy-gun pointing. Once on stage, they do a little dance and then break into a scene. One line that got a laugh from the crowd was, “She’s got to be strong. Cuz that’s all she’s got when she’s done being pretty.” One interesting scene depicts two men and two women conversing on the topic of the Wild West. The scene occurs twice, the second time changing the character who speaks the lines and their order, giving a different meaning to the scene. This points to the arbitrary nature of scene writing, language, and movement. The choreography is a traditional dance vocabulary of leg kicks with some beautiful partnering. The piece ends with jeopardy-like lights and cheery hat waving.
Wonderboy is the second piece starring a gay-sensitive-boy puppet. Dancers manipulate it while another talks into the microphone. The overstated story is spoken of the harsh life of this puppet wanting to have real human feelings and on top of that, directing them toward a male. Some interesting manipulations of the puppet include it humping another man’s leg and walking in the air. A surprise technical element arrives at the end of the show- fabric curtains descending the sides of the stage indicating that the dancers too are puppets. For Joe Goode's troupe, being on-stage is like performing in a living picture frame, and whether it's a picture of the old West... or the rising issues of homosexuality acceptance in today's culture... It's a finely painted picture.
iDANZ CRITIX CORNER
Official Dance Review by: Leah Schrager
Performance: Joe Goode's Performance Group
Choreography: Joe Goode
Venue: Joyce Theater
Performance Date: Thursday, April 23, 2009
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