MARK JEFFERY GOAT ISLAND

The Lastmaker (2007-2009)

In October 2007, we premiered our ninth and final piece, The Lastmaker. The piece takes its inspiration from the historical trajectory of the Hagia Sophia: church/mosque/museum, considered here as movements encountered on different planes. Situated between an audience seated at opposite sides of a square stage, the performance begins with an architectural dance, in detailed triadic rounds. The performers diverge and reconverge, in accordance with hybrid mathematics, to a regular beat with irregular measures. An archive of the restless ghosts of varied pasts emerges in the piece's second half, a high-energy concert of three-minute acts that include a female impersonation of Lenny Bruce's last routine, a performer singing a pop spiritual and accompanying himself on the saw, reenactments of Saint Francis's farewell instructions, the last minute of J. S. Bach's Art of the Fugue, and a gentle dialogue between an aging poet and a young assistant on composing a poem that says goodbye. Impending battle, the clash of knights in armor, haunts the margins of the piece. Ascension - a poem, a song, a cloud - make up its epilogue.
The Lastmaker recapitulates the concerns of 20 years of Goat Island, in what we hope will be a fitting conclusion to our contribution - a journey, within a restrained structure, from the intellectual to the emotional, with lasting resonance.

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