Goat Island (performance group)

Goat Island was a collaborative performance group based in Chicago, Illinois and founded in 1987. They toured internationally and made nine performance works before disbanding. In 2006 they announced The Lastmaker (2007) would be the last work that they would create as a company, and the final performances were held at Swain Hall, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in February 2009.

As their final project, they created a film based on The Lastmaker, published under the title A Last, A Quartet a collection of films, which also contained previous films made by Goat Island.

In 2019, the Chicago Cultural Center hosted a cross disciplinary retrospective: goat island archive – we have discovered the performance by making it. The event included an exhibition, archives, a performance series, and symposia.

Members
Goat Island members have included:


 * Karen Christopher (1990-2009)
 * Joan Dickinson (1988-1990)
 * Matthew Goulish (1987-2009)
 * Lin Hixson (director, 1997-2009)
 * Mark Jeffery (1996-2009)
 * Greg McCain (1987-1995)
 * Timothy McCain (1987-1995)
 * Antonio Poppe (1995-1996)
 * Bryan Saner (1995-2009)
 * Charissa Tolentino (2008)
 * Litó Walkey (2002-2009)

Performances

 * 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)
 * When will the September roses bloom? Last night was only a comedy (2004)
 * The Lastmaker (2007)