San Francisco, October 30, 2008—Perennial dance theater innovator Joe Goode presents new work for the New Year exploring music and movement in three performances of small experiments in song and dance, December 31st and January 2 & 3 at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco. Joe Goode Performance Group (JGPG) will be joined by guest singer/songwriter Holcombe Waller in premieres of works that collide music and movement in unusual ways, testing tried forms and re-framing perceptions about sound and theater. Opening night will be a special New Year's Eve Celebration Wednesday, December 31, with a pre-performance champagne reception at 9:30 p.m., performance at 10:30 p.m. and Midnight New Year's toast followed by a post performance party. Additional performances will be given Friday and Saturday, January 2 and 3 at 8 p.m. The Brava Theater Center is located at 2789 24th Street, San Francisco.

Joe Goode's uncanny and insightful style creates highly personal and emotional works that reveal multiple layers of meaning, cultural reference and interpretation while deftly examining the forms and functions of performance and art. Small experiments in song and dance restores an intimacy of space and context Goode's audiences have enjoyed in past seasons with his acclaimed "Side Effects" series. "We will be taking performance out of the box, off the stage and into the theater space," he says. "I always strive for a level of intimacy and the feeling that the audience is a real part of the experiment, which is ideal in a smaller space like Brava." The performance features JGPG's six versatile dancers, many of whom are accomplished musicians in their own right, and two musicians, who will also dance, blurring the boundaries between genres and disciplines. "This will be more than an evening of three-minute singing, dancing 'cupcakes'," says Goode, "but a substantial experiment in performance."

Joe Goode Performance Group, formed in 1986, tours regularly throughout the U.S., and has toured internationally to Canada, Europe, South America, Africa, and the Middle East. Joe Goode is known as a master teacher; his summer workshops in "felt performance" attract participants from around the world, and the company's teaching residencies on tour are hugely popular. He is a member of the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley in the department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies. Goode's most recent work, Wonderboy, received its premiere at San Francisco Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in June 2008, and will enjoy upcoming seasons on tour in the US and abroad.

In 2007 Joe Goode was awarded the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship; he has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the James Irvine Foundation. Goode and his work have been recognized with awards for excellence by the American Council on the Arts, the Business Arts Council/San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the "Heritage" award from the California Dance Educators Association, a New York Dance and Performance Award ("Bessie"), and Isadora Duncan Dance Awards ("Izzies"). Joe Goode Performance Group and small experiments in song and dance have been generously funded by Grants for the Arts/The San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Jamieson Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Fleishhacker Foundation, Bernard Osher Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Charles Schwab Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, and individual donors.

Holcombe Waller is a singer-songwriter and performance artist with three critically acclaimed albums. Waller studied Art as an undergraduate at Yale University, specializing in Video Installation, and he spent his twenties honing his folk songwriting skills in the coffee houses of San Francisco. He has spent the past several years creating and studying interdisciplinary performance integrating music, movement, video and theatrical staging. He is the recipient of a 2008 MAP Fund for his new live performance work, "Into the Dark Unknown: The Hope Chest," which premiered at Seattle's On the Boards' main stage this past October. The piece will run at The New York Public Theater from January 7th through 18th, and will be coming to San Francisco March 5 through 8 at Mission Dance Theater. Waller is an avid fan of dance and recently scored music for Seattle choreographer Zoe Scofield in a commission by Spectrum Dance Theater. He is thrilled to be collaborating with Joe Goode Performance Group. More info at www.holcombewaller.com.

Tickets for the December 31 performance and New Year's Eve Celebration are priced $95—$125, a portion of which is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law, and may be purchased at www.joegoode.org or by calling 415-561-6565.

Media Contact: Scott Horton
510.735.9200
Bluescott260@hotmail.com

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