Goat Island: the end of an era

After 20 years of creating challenging and highly acclaimed performance pieces, "The Lastmaker" is Goat Island's ninth and final piece; a fitting conclusion to the company's journey. The performance is structured around the form and iconography of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul; a site that has been a Byzantine church, a Mosque and a museum over its history. Incorporating the company's highly energetic and physically demanding choreography, Goat Island explores the layering of these three identities and the complex interweaving of stories and cultures enclosed within the building.

Goat Island is a Chicago-based collaborative performance group. BA(Hons) Visual Performance graduate Mark Jeffery is amongst the organisation's core members organising Goat Islands' final series of projects and performances. Mark has been a member of the Goat Island company since graduating from Dartington in 1994.

The Last Performance is a constraint-based collaborative writing, archiving and text-visualization project responding to the theme of lastness in relation to architectural forms, acts of building, a final performance, and the interruption (that becomes the promise) of community.

This project was conceived in response to Goat Island's decision, after 20 years of practice, to create a collaborative last performance. Based upon the architecture of a Byzantine dome, The Last Performance will evolve over two years, alongside the creation and performance of the company's final work, The Lastmaker. Upon completion of the final performance tour and this writing project in 2009, the company will end, will complete the process of ending, in order, as they have put it,"to make room for the unknown that will follow."

Noted for incorporating historical and contemporary issues through text and movement, Goat Island creates visual/spatial images to encapsulate thematic concerns. Members' preference to place performances in non-theatrical sites when possible is another notable aspect of Goat Island's practice.

Members contribute to the conception, research, writing, choreography, documentation and educational demands of each work. They also research and write collaborative lectures for public events, and often subsequently publish these, either in their own artists' books or in professional journals. Goat Island's marked characteristic is an attempt to establish a spatial relationship with audiences, rather than the usual proscenium theatre situation. Their performances are noted for the extreme physical demands placed on the performers, and attention demands on the audience.

Goat Island was founded in 1987 and incorporated in 1989 as a non-profit organization to produce collaborative performance works developed by its members for local, national, and international audiences. Eight completed works include Soldier, Child, Tortured Man (1987); We Got A Date (1989); Can't Take Johnny to the Funeral (1991); It's Shifting, Hank (1993); How Dear to Me the Hour When Daylight Dies (1996); The Sea & Poison (1998); It's an Earthquake in My Heart (2001); and When will the September roses bloom? Last night was only a comedy (2004).

The company has toured the US and England, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Germany, and Canada. Goat Island is currently touring The Lastmaker, the company's ninth and final performance.

For more information about Goat Island, visit www.goatislandperformance.org

For more information about the Last Project, please visit www.thelastperformance.org

For further information about BA(Hons) Art (Performance) and Theatre at University College Falmouth, visit:www.falmouth.ac.uk/art or www.falmouth.ac.uk/theatre, email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01803 862224.

For further information about this story, please contact: Julia Burdett, Communications Manager, University College Falmouth, Dartington Campus, Dartington Hall Estate, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EJ

Telephone: 01803 862224 or Email: j.burdett@dartington.ac.uk

Tweet