Joe Goode

Joe Goode, american dancer,choeographer, actor, director, writer, and company director was born in Presque Island, Maine in 1950, dancing with a local civic ballet company in Virginia by high school. Early on he wanted to express his love of language and moved toward the theatre, earning a degree in drama in 1973. He then went to New York city, working on/ off Broadway regularly. Goode moved to San Francisico in the late seventies joining the Margaret Jenkins' dance company and in the early eighties began to makes dances for himself.

Many of his dances concern social and political issues and explore cultural fears and taboos. His work deals with events that are puzzling, accidental, unexpected, and often out of control. He is specifically open about his sexuality in pieces like 29 Effeminate Gestures, structurally a classical theme and variation, which concerns tolerance. He says his work I'm Sorry was a litergical lament "for being a homo sexual man in a culture that wants macho heroes, for being an artist in a society that wants steady wage-earners, and for being a dancer who, instead of offering complacent viewing, puts these issues before audiences."

The Joe Goode Performimg Dance Company was formed in 1986 and his dancers were expected to be strong actors as well as trained movers. They had the ability to speak text while executing difficult movement sequences. Goode's danceworks are now in the repertoires of modern and ballet companies in the United States. He continues to remain focused on the mystery of the human condition.