There’s a second in Once Upon a Time in a Place Called NOWhere when a performer stares out into the viewers and says, “There’s nothing wrong with you.” It lands like a thud and a balm—concurrently disarming and comforting. This is one instance of the vulnerability obvious in Keyes Wiley’s latest work with The NoGoodDoers, a deeply shifting providing that blurs the road between efficiency and presence, stage and front room, creative and on a regular basis life. The seven performers begin the piece by getting into and making a horseshoe across the stage’s perimeter, very near and dealing with the viewers. At first they’re merely taking a look at us, then they start to imitate the viewers’s nervous tics and gestures—crossed legs, darting glances—turning us into choreographic materials. It’s humorous, somewhat awkward, and piercingly susceptible. Our voyeurism flips right into a surreal mirror recreation.
Set throughout a fictional recreation night time gone cosmic, NOWhere doesn’t a lot inform a narrative because it invitations you to really feel your means by way of an expertise. The home set consists of a velvety forest inexperienced sofa, a giant picket desk, and purple eating room chairs. They’re all set on prime of a giant, mild gray space rug that makes the lounge pop in opposition to the black Marley flooring and uncovered partitions of the mainstage Theatre at twelfth Avenue Arts. This cozy set appears to be peppered with private objects: well-read books on somewhat bookshelf, a cute embroidered mushroom accent pillow, leafy home vegetation in baskets, and ornamental scarves all brighten up the area. The performers movement seamlessly from enjoying Rock, Paper, Scissors to full bodied solos earlier than melting into the following group dance or recreation. The lovely lighting design from Meg Fox and scenic design assist and stage administration from Maria Manness assist the motion movement easily. This recreation night time morphs into one thing otherworldly—at one level the lounge space rug flutters and rises up the upstage wall of the theater as if possessed. A keffiyeh draped throughout the sofa all through the complete piece turns into a quiet political whisper.
The night pulses with a dreamy rhythm—equal components Twilight Zone and household reunion—the place the home turns into uncanny and the stakes are positively excessive. Wiley mentions in this system notes: “The NoGoodDoers will take to action preparing, questioning and playing games in an attempt to save the world.” Here, Connect Four and Jenga aren’t simply board video games, however metaphors for belief, vulnerability, and collective survival.
The ensemble—Ryan Rose Rubythroat Vinson-Jacobs, Lore Aschoff, Will Courtney, Emma Lawes, Olivia Anderson, dani tirrell, Nia-Amina Minor, and Wiley—strikes with placing intimacy and quiet energy. There is a fragile second when the performers gracefully kind a line to achieve collaborator Aschoff. Aschoff has been spinning by way of the gang like a star that has strayed from their constellation asking numerous folks, “Will you be on my team? You can say no.” A sluggish dance unfolds in gestures of care and communion because the ensemble pulls Aschoff again into the household orbit, not with urgency however with methodical reverence. It’s not about successful—it’s about staying related.
Solo moments are equally as highly effective. Minor’s again alone captivates in its motion as she begins a solo after one of many many group video games. She initially faces away from the viewers. The lighting shifts highlighting the various shifting muscle tissues of her dancing shoulders. She turns to face us however she shields her eyes like a curtain of refusal or tenderness. Anderson, after shedding a heated recreation of Rock, Paper, Scissors, repeats the movement of elevating her hand as if getting ready to backhand or slap somebody, however the hit by no means lands. This almost-slap turns into a meditation on restraint—the place does deferred, violent vitality go if not out into the world? Into the physique? Into the area? Lawes additionally finds herself caught up in a solo that appears to develop from the exuberance of “winning” a recreation. She slices the air along with her elbows and ends in a deep lunge that miraculously turns into a swish excessive kick earlier than you possibly can ask how she bought there. This work doesn’t reply questions—it asks them in motion, in rhythm, in rupture.
The soundscore is as emotionally layered because the dancing. Courtney and Minor lip sync to an epic household reunion-style line dance-esque model of Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise”. The line from the Lauryn Hill track Lost Ones “It’s funny how money change a situation” drifts repeatedly by way of the air like a visiting distant reminiscence. Wiley’s sound design delivers a soundtrack that isn’t content material to easily be consumed, however as an alternative invitations shut listening and presence from the viewers and the performers alike.
What’s most shifting about NOWhere is the way it holds area for the messy, mundane, and miraculous components of constructing actual group. Not the anticipated structured variations of group constructing we have interaction in for jobs and networking, however the “real” form: the late-night recreation nights, the foolish fights, the improvised chaos of figuring all of it out collectively. This isn’t utopia although—it’s a gaggle of individuals with all their numerous skills and flaws and character variations. As Wiley writes in this system, NOWhere started as a solo imagining a greater Afrofuture, nevertheless it grew to become a collective journey. That flip from “me” to “we” pulses by way of each scene. Towards the top of the piece tirrell and Wiley dance collectively upstage, virtually outdoors the time signature of the remainder of the piece, as if this dance shouldn’t be for viewing however has emerged as a response to the connection constructing that has taken place all through the night.
Watching efficiency artists I’ve adopted and collaborated with for over a decade (Courtney is a longtime collaborator of mine from interdisciplinary challenge Gender Tender and Minor and I danced collectively in choreographer Will Rawls’ piece Everlasting Stranger in 2021)—seeing their progress, their signature kinds, their creative evolution—is a part of the present of this efficiency. Instead of wallowing in nostalgia, Wiley has created an area for the viewers to witness and have a good time the highly effective vulnerability and skillful presence of this very earnest group of performers. Wiley’s choreographic voice continues to deepen, rooted in spontaneity, tenderness, and a particular skill to merge the summary with the achingly actual.
The efficiency ends not with a bang, however a mix: the viewers and performers soften right into a shared recreation of Jenga. During this second an enormous opaque white balloon seems from backstage and the viewers begins to play a recreation that wants no instruction: “keep the balloon off the floor”. We are all so engrossed within the recreation, we hardly discover because the solid members appear to magically disappear, leaving one after the other. No bows, simply being. I left the theater questioning about my numerous communities: What video games are we enjoying with one another and why? Whose guidelines are we enjoying by? And how may we modify the enjoying subject for the higher, collectively?
Once Upon a Time in a Place Called NOWhere is a beneficiant and quietly radical efficiency. It reminds us that group shouldn’t be a product, however a apply—and generally, it begins with simply exhibiting up for recreation night time.
Once Upon a Time in a Place Called NOWhere by Keyes Wiley + The NoGoodDoers ran March 27 – April 5, 2025. Reviewed March 27, 2025. Presented by Velocity Dance Center at twelfth AVE Arts: https://velocitydancecenter.org/events/once-upon-a-time/