San Francisco Wonderboy - 6/14/08

No, I'm not self-aggrandizing, I'm referring to the premiere of Joe Goode Performance Group's latest work, "Wonderboy." My San Francisco-based sister and I had the pleasure of attending a performance at the Yerba Buena Center - a GORGEOUS facility. "Wonderboy" was the largest part of an evening which included excerpts from "Maverick Strain" originally produced in 1996. Admittedly, I was less impressed by "Maverick," the evening's opener. It never managed to captivate me in the way Joe's work generally does, but it was a relatively short piece. Then "Wonderboy" started and within three minutes my sister sitting next to me was already moved to tears. All of the components worked together beautifully. The dancers and the choreography alone were engaging on their own. Add an evocative musical soundscape by Tin Hat Trio's, Carla Kihlstedt and her handsome new husband and collaborator Mattias Bossi and then there's the puppet. Basil Twist and Goode have adapted Japanese Bunraku-style puppetry in a way that have the dancers actively manipulating Wonderboy and engaging directly with the puppet. This is the puppetry technique primarily used in the Dan Hurlin "Hiroshima Maiden" seen a couple years ago at the Edison.
Like most of his work, Joe Goode pulls no punches. He pulls from his own life experience, explores acceptance, diversity, gay bashing. At times the adult language pushes the limits, clearly with the intention of evoking a visceral response from the audience - reminding me of verbal gay bashing segment of the CoisCeim performance presented earlier this year at the Edison. I'm excited to share this performance with St. Louis and look forward to seeing it again in February.
Just so you don't think it's all work for me when I'm traveling. I am able to sneak in some fun here and there. The picture below is a gathering in San Francisco's Union Square on Saturday observing World Wide Knit in Public Day - no kidding. That's me in the lower left corner and my sister, Kat, is the tall, attractive woman directly over my shoulder. She was demonstrating how to "turn a heel," necessary for knitting socks. I only started knitting in October and still learning some upper level techniques. This was a fun group of ladies and a gorgeous day.