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There\u2019s a second in <\/span>Once Upon a Time in a Place Called NOWhere<\/span><\/i> when a performer stares out into the viewers and says, \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with you.\u201d It lands like a thud and a balm\u2014concurrently disarming and comforting. This is one instance of the vulnerability obvious in Keyes Wiley\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s nervous tics and gestures\u2014crossed legs, darting glances\u2014turning us into choreographic materials. It\u2019s humorous, somewhat awkward, and piercingly susceptible. Our voyeurism flips right into a surreal mirror recreation.<\/span><\/p>\n Set throughout a fictional recreation night time gone cosmic, <\/span>NOWhere<\/span><\/i> doesn\u2019t 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\u2019re 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\u2014at 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The night pulses with a dreamy rhythm\u2014equal components <\/span>Twilight Zone<\/span><\/i> and household reunion\u2014the place the home turns into uncanny and the stakes are positively excessive. Wiley mentions in this system notes: <\/span>\u201cThe NoGoodDoers will take to action preparing, questioning and playing games in an attempt to save the world.<\/span><\/i>\u201d Here, Connect Four and Jenga aren\u2019t simply board video games, however metaphors for belief, vulnerability, and collective survival.<\/span><\/p>\n The ensemble\u2014Ryan Rose Rubythroat Vinson-Jacobs, Lore Aschoff, Will Courtney, Emma Lawes, Olivia Anderson, dani tirrell, Nia-Amina Minor, and Wiley\u2014strikes 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, \u201cWill you be on my team? You can say no.\u201d 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\u2019s not about successful\u2014it\u2019s about staying related.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Solo moments are equally as highly effective. Minor\u2019s 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\u2014the 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 \u201cwinning\u201d 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\u2019t reply questions\u2014it asks them in motion, in rhythm, in rupture.<\/span><\/p>\n 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\u2019s \u201cPastime Paradise\u201d. The line from the Lauryn Hill track <\/span>Lost Ones<\/span><\/i> \u201cIt\u2019s funny how money change a situation\u201d drifts repeatedly by way of the air like a visiting distant reminiscence. Wiley\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s most shifting about <\/span>NOWhere<\/span><\/i> 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 \u201creal\u201d form: the late-night recreation nights, the foolish fights, the improvised chaos of figuring all of it out collectively. This isn\u2019t utopia although\u2014it\u2019s a gaggle of individuals with all their numerous skills and flaws and character variations. As Wiley writes in this system, <\/span>NOWhere<\/span><\/i> started as a solo imagining a greater Afrofuture, nevertheless it grew to become a collective journey. That flip from \u201cme\u201d to \u201cwe\u201d 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Watching efficiency artists I\u2019ve 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\u2019 piece <\/span>Everlasting Stranger <\/span><\/i>in 2021)\u2014seeing their progress, their signature kinds, their creative evolution\u2014is 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\u2019s choreographic voice continues to deepen, rooted in spontaneity, tenderness, and a particular skill to merge the summary with the achingly actual.<\/span><\/p>\n 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: \u201ckeep the balloon off the floor\u201d. 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?<\/span><\/p>\n Once Upon a Time in a Place Called NOWhere<\/span><\/i> is a beneficiant and quietly radical efficiency. It reminds us that group shouldn’t be a product, however a apply\u2014and generally, it begins with simply exhibiting up for recreation night time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Cast](\"https:\/\/seattledances.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/erin-oreilly-keyes-sat-2025-39-scaled.jpg\")
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