by Emily Wilson
-USA-

Reviving a piece doesn’t happen very often in the dance world, but director, choreographer, and writer Joe Goode doesn’t do things like other choreographers. For one thing, he loves language as much as movement, so in his pieces, his dancers tell stories with words as well as dance.

This summer Joe Goode presented his dance/theater piece, Traveling Light, at the Old Mint in San Francisco. This wasn’t the first time Traveling Light has appeared at the Mint – Goode’s performance group staged the meditation on excess and eco-consciousness there last year as well.

For Traveling Light, Goode worked with longtime lighting designer Jack Carpenter to create a dance that addresses ecological issues. The dancers’ bodies show the strain and struggle of trying to stay afloat in a world that is changing environmentally and economically. They struggle with what they need to do to change, what they need to let go of, and what to hold on to.

by Emily Wilson
-USA-

I admire boldness. So Katrina Rodabaugh’s The Dresses / Objects Project, a multi-disciplinary installation combining a dizzying array of artistic forms appealed to me. Through poetry, dance, fashion, photography and letterpress, Rodabaugh embraces a broad swath of disciplines and takes on a wide range of ideas. She uses women’s clothing to explore gender and femininity, the line between art and what is generally considered women’s crafts, and how context affects the way we view things.

Rodabaugh’s The Dresses / Objects Project was inspired by Gertrude Stein’s book of experimental poetry, Tender Buttons, published in 1914. Rodabaugh, a poet and an artist, loves the way Stein played with language, focusing on the sound of the words. She finds poems like A Petticoat modern and moving almost 100 years later:

A light white, a disgrace, an ink spot, a rosy charm.