Joe Goode Performance Group

Promotes understanding, compassion and tolerance among people through the innovative use of dance and theater

The Resilience Project

The Resilience Project aims to explore how we as humans deal with trauma, using storytelling & performance as a way of finding universality and strength in the face of adversity.

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Life isn’t turning out the way we planned it.
Sometimes it’s much messier than we imagined.
Sometimes it’s a flat line that emits a flat buzzing sound.
Still, we mostly find a way to live it –by making deals with ourselves or with the gods (small g) of love and fortune. I want to hear from you, my fellow travelers, about where you’ve been so far and the ways in which you have been surprised by it all. The result is what you will see performed. -Joe Goode

The Resilience Project begins with a series of Movement for Humans open to all veterans. Movement for Humans is a movement practice designed by Artistic Director Joe Goode that promotes the mind body connection, with a focus on easeful movement and breath. The classes are adapted for all bodies and levels of mobility. No movement experience is necessary or needed.

Volunteer participants are interviewed about their physical and emotional wounds from war, their recovery, and their ongoing process of adjustment. Their responses and stories become the verbatim text for a public staged work performed by the JGPG company, that collides words and movement, gesture, and song into a visceral experience of their profoundly moving stories.

This current Resilience Project is sponsored by SFVA, Bob Basker 315 AL Post & Veterans for Peace chapter 69, the Contemporary Jewish Museum and made possible by the Walter & Elise Haas Fund and The Koret Foundation. 

PAST RESILIENCE PROJECT RESIDENCIES AND PERFORMANCES
The resilience Project
April 2019
Presented at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

The Resilience Project at the CJM was developed from a series of interviews with veterans local to San Francisco and the Bay Area. The partnership began with 2 class series at both the War Memorial Building and the Third Street Downtown VA Clinic. Text from the interviews was interwoven with movement and song to create a revised iteration of the Resilience performance. Interviewed Veterans joined the CJM performance and spoke on a post-show panel Q&A; the SFVA also hosted a screening of the performance video, which was well attended by veterans and culminated in an open group discussion about the video and Resilience process.

THE RESILIENCE PROJECT
FEBRUARY 2016
PRESENTED BY THE AMERICAN DANCE INSTITUTE

It unspooled with a light touch and zero melodrama, shedding light on intimate experiences with occasional glints of wit. – Sarah Kaufman, The Washington Post

The Resilience Project at ADI was developed from a series of interviews with veterans and their family members across the nation. Text from the interviews was interwoven with movement and song to create a performance based on their stories of resilience.

RESILIENT
FEBRUARY 2015
OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE (OLLI)
PRESENTED BY CHICO PERFORMANCES AT CSU

When they spoke my words it went straight through my heart. -OLLI participant

Resilientwas the culminating performance following a residency at Chico State University where Joe and the company worked with five OLLI members, ages 71-90. The participants were interviewed about life-changing events they have experienced, or are currently experiencing, including chronic disease, loss, and social isolation. The text from the interviews was then incorporated into a resilience-themed performance. A short, documentary video about the residency is currently available online.

 

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE RESILIENT?
FEBRUARY 2013
INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH AND WELLBEING FOR MILITARY VETERANS AND THEIR FAMILIES
IN COLLABORATION WITH KANSAS SATE UNIVERSITY

It was an uncompromisingly honest and emotional performance… -The Collegian

What does it mean to be resilient? was the culminating performance following a week-long residency at Kansas State University where Joe and the company worked with military families, caregivers, and civilian employees who have been affected by war emotionally and physically. Those open to participating contributed their personal stories about loss, injury, stress, dislocation, separation, and grief and asked them to answer questions including, ‘How do you bounce back from something really tragic – and a difficult circumstance?’ and ‘Can you really heal from those situations?’. Joe and the company then integrated the stories word-for-word into a performance about resilience. Read the reviews below to learn more about the experience.

OUT OF THE BLUE
NOVEMBER 2011
JOE GOODE ANNEX

Out of the Blue was the first in the Human Kind series and the first experiment in exploring the real life stories of being human. For Out of the Blue we asked our audience from our online community and at the performance questions about the trajectory of their lives:

  • Has your life turned out pretty much the way you imagined it? Or was there a bend in the road that sent you in an unexpected direction?
  • Have you taken any sudden turns in your life trajectory? What caused the shift? Was it an external influence or something within you that shifted?
  • If you hark back to what you dreamed of being or doing when you were a child, how close to that have you come? Do you still dream of those same things or have they fallen away and been replaced with new ones?

We were blown away by the honesty and vulnerability shared with us by so many. The answers we received were the primary text for this evening’s performance and were interwoven into Human Kind: An Evening of Dance and Discussion and finally the full length 2012 production When We Fall Apart.

“I had a line from my submission used in the show [When We Fall Apart] – so it was terribly exciting to see the workshops and the final piece and know that I am in a very small way part of the JGPG canon.”-Human Kind/When We Fall Apart Attendee