San Francisco, May 27, 2009—Light, space, time and what humanity decides to take into the future—by choice and of necessity—will be explored in the world premiere of Traveling Light, a new site-specific work by choreographer/director Joe Goode in collaboration with leading dance and theater designer Jack Carpenter at San Francisco's Old Mint Building. Sixteen performances of the one–hour work will be given July 30–August 9. Hard on the heels of fall within, a sold–out, site–specific work at the Ann Hamilton Tower at the Oliver Ranch in Geyserville, CA in May 2009, Traveling Light is the next work in a series in which Goode explores non–traditional venues for dance/theater by revealing external and internal landscapes that resonate with history, place, ideas and time. San Francisco's Old Mint is currently being restored and repurposed by the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society and is rarely open to the public. These performances are a unique opportunity to experience this historic building. Performances of Traveling Light will be given 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Thursday–Saturday, July 30–August 1; 8 p.m. Sunday, August 2; 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, August 4 and 5 ; 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Thursday–Saturday, August 6–8; and 8 p.m. Sunday, August 9. The Old Mint is located at 88 Fifth Street, at Mission Street, San Francisco 94103. For more information: www.joegoode.org, twitter: joegoodegroup.

At a time when the international dialogue is increasingly turning to eco–consciousness, Goode and Carpenter want to challenge the viewer to examine his or her relationship to excess. In particular, how do we "travel light" into the future? What is the role of fossil fuels, of synthetic materials, indeed of personal possessions? What does it mean to be "natural" and do we still have that capacity in this overtly technological society?

As we "travel lighter" we will need to consider what we must shed—our ideas of prosperity, of ownership, of territory. Perhaps we enter a world with no borders, a place where one's sense of self is defined not by what you have accumulated or accomplished but by how porous and transparent you can make yourself. Akin to the spiritual journey, this effort to "travel light" is an attempt at losing attachments and beginning to see oneself as a humble component in a vast and rich ecosystem.

Goode and Carpenter will push the boundaries of their respective crafts by creating a very specific and nuanced set of conditions in a series of rooms within the Old Mint for this dance/theater work. Audiences will be divided into several groups that will simultaneously move through the spaces in the course of the performance installation. As such, each presentation, while containing the same elements, will be a different experience for each group, and the "narrative" of the piece will shift according to audience members' perspective. Composer Jay Cloidt will create sonic landscapes that enhance the performance, permeating the spaces as audience members move through the Mint. Costumes will be designed by Wendy Sparks and performers include Felipe Barrueto–Cabello, Melecio Estrella, Damara Vita Ganley, Jessica Swanson, Andrew Ward, Patricia West and Alexander Zendzian.

Says Goode: “We are clearly leaving a glutted, overfed age of prosperity and waste and moving into a more ecological era out of necessity and perhaps desperation. Traveling Light considers what we bring forward and what we leave behind. There are certainly personal and financial ramifications of our situation, but there are also spiritual and psychological issues about how we are going to be different now. I think the future will be a more reasonable time, not so much about personal greed. The Mint is an historical, institutional representation of money and capitalism and where we are coming from, and it seems ironic and right to explore where we are going inside of it.”

Jack Carpenter adds: “This project is exciting in that, in many ways, it gets back to some of the original work Joe and I did in the late 1980s and early 1990s (the Capp Street installations, early Disaster Series, Markers). The site–specific aspect of the work is a bit of a wild card. Our original ideas of combining natural light and "artificial light" and letting each reflect its respective environments changed when we finally settled on the Old Mint. The character and contradictions of the building overwhelmed our preconceptions. In recent years, Joe has used technology in much more sophisticated ways (most notably video and audio). He is now interested in a sculptural light element that is mobile and operated by the performers. This element of real time spontaneity intrigues me.”

About Joe Goode Performance Group www.joegoode.org, twitter: joegoodegroup

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. Fall within, Goode's most recent site–specific work created in collaboration with the San Francisco Girls Chorus at Ann Hamilton's internationally regarded tower at the Oliver Ranch in May 2008 Geyserville, CA, sold out in record time. Goode's Wonderboy received its premiere in San Francisco in 2008 and continues to tour, including its New York premiere at the Joyce Theater in April 2009.

Joe Goode was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007, and the United States Artists Glover Fellowship in 2008. In 2006 Goode directed the opera Transformations for the San Francisco Opera Center. His play Body Familiar, commissioned by the Magic Theatre in 2003, was met with critical acclaim. Goode and his work have been recognized with awards for excellence by the American Council on the Arts, the New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie), and Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (Izzies).

Joe Goode Performance Group and Traveling Light have been generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, Grants for the Arts/The San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The James Irvine Foundation, Jamieson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission, The San Francisco Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Zellerbach Family Foundation.

About Jack Carpenter

Jack Carpenter (light design) has designed lighting and scenery for Dance, Music, Theater, Museum Exhibits and Opera. Notable designs for Mr. Carpenter include: Curlew River for Chanticleer; the world premiere of Angels In America, for the Eureka Theater Company; Walk Before Talk for Diablo Ballet; Arrival and Departure at the San Francisco International Airport; Ghost Architecture and Invisible Wings for Zaccho Dance Theatre; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Beauty Queen of Leenane for Berkeley Repertory Theater; Sightings and Thirsting for Oakland Ballet with a live musical performance by Zap Mama; Humansville, Grace, What the Body Knows, and Gender Heroes for Joe Goode Performance Group; Concerto Romantique for San Francisco Ballet; MLADA for San Francisco Symphony; the exhibit lighting for The Science Adventure Center, Bishop Museum in Honolulu. He also directed and designed the performance by The Cypress String Quartet, Inspired By America. Mr. Carpenter has received four Bay Area Critics Circle Awards, and four Isadora Duncan Awards for lighting design and is currently the Production Manager for World Arts West, the producers of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.

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