SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 19, 2008—Joe Goode Performance Group (JGPG) today announced plans for the world premiere of Wonderboy, a new dance theater work created in collaboration with puppeteer Basil Twist, with music by singer/violinist Carla Kihlstedt and pianist/drummer Matthias Bossi, to be presented June 6–15 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre. The company's 22nd annual home season program will include excerpts from Goode's 1996 acclaimed work, Maverick Strain, a deconstruction of Arthur Miller's screenplay, The Misfits.

In this new collaboration with puppeteer Basil Twist, Goode integrates yet another art form into his innovative cross-disciplinary work. Wonderboy is an unexpected tale of a peculiar superhero isolated by his gift of sensitivity. Goode is one of a handful of choreographers committed to American dance theater. A fearless innovator, his integration of puppets with dancers will provide audiences with a unique creative experience.

Goode's attraction to the puppet world of Twist is the great humanity and sensitivity embodied in his puppets. They are magical, funny and unnerving. The operation of the puppet will become part of the dance. At times the puppeteering will be invisible, at times integrated with the dance. It will be a unique blend of disciplines, building on the acclaimed JGPG method of storytelling through text, song and dance. The work will appeal to wide variety of audience members.

Artists performing with JGPG this season are Felipe Barrueto-Cabello, Melecio Estrella, Jessica Swanson, Andrew Ward, Patricia West and Alexander Zendzian.

Originally from San Francisco, Basil Twist is a third-generation puppeteer. In 1998 he premiered Symphonie Fantastique at New York's HERE Arts Center. Symphonie Fantastique toured to San Francisco, Montreal, Washington DC, France, London, Munich and New York. This work received a 1999 Drama Desk Nomination and an OBIE Award. Twist was commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera and The Atlanta Opera to create a new Hansel & Gretel, which premiered in December of 2006 in Houston. Twist is the director of The Dream Music Puppetry Program at HERE Arts Center where he works to ensure development and presenting opportunities for other puppetry artists. He is the only American to graduate from École Supèriuere National des Arts de la Marionnette in France, a world-renown puppetry school.

Carla Kihlstedt is a founding member of Tin Hat Trio, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and 2 Foot Yard; and a more recent member of The Book of Knots. She has worked with Tom Waits, Satoko Fujii, Ben Goldberg, Carla Bozulich, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, and Fred Frith. Kihlstedt's commissions include music for Bang On a Can All-Stars, David Krakauer, and choreographers Jo Kreiter of Flyaway Productions and Shinichi Momo Koga of inkBoat.

Matthias Bossi is a drummer/orator for Rock-Against-Rock pioneers Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and was a member of NYC's seminal garbage-rock band, Skeleton Key. As a founder of The Book of Knots, a Brooklyn-based recording collective, he has had the pleasure of collaborating with Tom Waits, Mike Watt, Jon Langford, Carla Bozulich, and author Rick Moody.

Goode is a choreographer, writer, and director whose first concern as an artist is to provide a "deeply felt, profoundly human experience" in the theater. He is widely known as an innovator in the field of dance for his willingness to collide movement with spoken word, song, and visual imagery. His play Body Familiar, commissioned by the Magic Theatre in 2003, was met with critical acclaim. In 2006 he directed the opera Transformations for the San Francisco Opera Center.

Goode's performance-installation works have been commissioned by the Fowler Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles, Krannert Art Museum, the Capp Street Project, the M.H. de Young Museum, and presented at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. His dance theater work has been commissioned by Pennsylvania Ballet, Zenon Dance Company, and Dance Alloy Theater among others.

JGPG, formed in 1986, tours regularly throughout the U.S., and has toured internationally to Canada, Europe, South America, Africa, and the Middle East. Joe Goode is known as a master teacher; his summer workshops in "felt performance" attract participants from around the world, and the company's teaching residencies on tour are hugely popular. He is a member of the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley in the department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies.

In 2007 Joe Goode was awarded the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship; he has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the James Irvine Foundation. Goode and his work have been recognized with awards for excellence by the American Council on the Arts, the Business Arts Council/San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the "Heritage" award from the California Dance Educators Association, a New York Dance and Performance Award ("Bessie"), and Isadora Duncan Dance Awards ("Izzies").

Joe Goode Performance Group and Wonderboy have been generously funded by Grants for the Arts/The San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Jamieson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and San Francisco Foundation. The creation of Wonderboy is funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and additional funding provided by The Ford Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, JP Morgan Chase Foundation and MetLife Foundation.

Press Contact: Jon Finck and Brenda Hughes, Encore Communications 415.438.9933 mail@encore-sf.com