SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2005- From Joe Goode, that "subversive artist who must be watched" (Los Angeles Times), comes a riveting new work for the stage. Presented by the internationally acclaimed Joe Goode Performance Group (JGPG), in association with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Hometown is a fusion of high-voltage dance, theater, song and video all linked together in a raw urban landscape that some call "home."

Created with award winning composer Beth Custer, the Joe Goode company artists, and four hip San Francisco and East Bay inner-city teen videographers from TILT (Teaching Intermedia Literary Tools), Hometown will offer a fascinating and diverse look at what "hometown" is, or is not. This world premiere work is the final installment of Goode's groundbreaking Folk trilogy, and also represents the culmination of a three-year Meet the Composer residency with Custer. The Beth Custer Ensemble will perform her musical score live at each performance

The company's 19th annual home season program will also feature an encore presentation of Grace, last season's acclaimed work that explores how ordinary lives experience moments of revelation. Grace is the second work in Goode's trilogy and set to a musical score by Mikel Rouse. Six public performances are planned for the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, beginning Friday, June 10 at 8 pm, continuing through Sunday, June 19.

"Hometown is a deeply nostalgic idea," commented Goode. "It is a mythic place of safety, a place where we are known, a notion of apple pie on the windowsill and the white picket fence. Though most of us have no first hand experience with it, our search for it remains."

Goode has been hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as "the real thing. Never boring, always surprising and utterly original, he is San Francisco's gift to the dance world. ...an American dancemaker working at the top of his form." The New York Times agrees: "The absolute polish with which he integrates speech and movement, should stand as a model for many others in the dance and performance-art field."

A gifted choreographer, writer and director, Goode's first concern as an artist has been to provide a "deeply felt, profoundly human experience" in the theater. He is widely regarded as an innovator in the field of dance for his willingness to collide movement with spoken word, song, and visual imagery. Goode is known as a master teacher and his summer workshops in "felt performance" attract participants from around the world. Goode joined the faculty of UC Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, and now resides in Berkeley.

Composer Beth Custer has collaborated with Joe Goode for over 12 years, having composed five of their past productions. Based in San Francisco, Custer has created original musical scores for the California Shakespeare Company, Campo Santos, Magic Theater, and Berkeley and San Diego Repertory Theaters. A founding member of the notorious silent film soundtrack purveyors the Club Foot Orchestra, Custer has received numerous commissions from Meet The Composer, National Endowment for the Arts, San Francisco Art Commission, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Marin Headlands Art Center.

JGPG artists performing in the June 2005 program are Felipe Barrueto-Cabello, Marit Brook-Kothlow, Elizabeth Burritt, Melecio Estrella, Joe Goode, Benjamin Levy and Rachael Lincoln. Joining Beth Custer (voice/clarinets), will be fellow musicians David James (guitar/voice), Jan Jackson (drums/voice), and Graham Connah (keyboards). The creative team for both Hometown and Grace include lighting designer David K.H. Elliott, scenic designers Joe Goode and Dan Sweeney, costume designer Wendy Sparks, and sound designer Kevin McKereghan and Yvette Jackson.

Founded in 1986, the Joe Goode Performance Group incorporated as a non-profit organization with the mission of providing a support structure for the artistic work of Joe Goode. Over the past 19 years, the multi-award winning company has performed annually in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has toured extensively throughout the United States. Abroad, Joe Goode's artistry has been acclaimed at dance venues and festivals in Europe, South America, Canada, Africa and the Middle East including the Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theater. In addition to a dynamic stage repertory, which includes the recently premiered commissioned play, the Body Familiar, at San Francisco's Magic Theatre, Joe Goode has been hailed for inventive installations at museums and galleries across the U.S.

Joe Goode Performance Group and the creation of Hometown has been generously funded by the Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, San Francisco Arts Commission, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Tides Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, James Irvine Foundation, Bernard Osher Foundation, Zellerbach Family Fund, Meet the Composer, San Francisco Foundation, Columbia Foundation and Altria Group, Inc., Joe Goode Performance Group New Work Fund Donors, and Goode Friends of the Joe Goode Performance Group.

Joe Goode Performance Group presents Hometown and Grace at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard Street, San Francisco. The performance schedule is Friday, June 10, 2005 at 8 p.m., followed by a post-performance discussion with the artists; Saturday, June 11 at 8 p.m.; Sunday, June 12 at 7 p.m.; Friday, June 17 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, June 18 at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, June 19 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20 - $38, and may be purchased by calling 415/978-2787 or online at www.ybca.org. For further information about the company, visit www.joegoode.org.

Press Contact: Jon Finck and Brenda Hughes, Encore Communications
                       415/438-9933 or mail@encore-sf.com