This idea is most resonant when dancer Francesco Simeone makes his first appearance on stage. He is curled in the fetal position in a wooden box, which after a first movement, the other dancers carry out from behind a set piece. It takes a lot to get him on his feet—literally. The other four dancers pull him from the container but he remains folded over, vulnerable in a flesh-colored leotard and red kitten heels. The group carries him through a sequence of lifts and falls, Simeone somersaulting over the backs of those who hold him up. Later in the piece, another dancer casts away his heels—a welcome assist.

Most striking in Court Mesa’s choreography are the myriad of ways in which she brings dancers together to connect. These are not simple, easy lifts. Instead, the piece explores different modes of connection—how two dancers may move through a sequence with one person’s head rolling on another one’s leg; how a huddle of dancers can form a vehicle to propel another to where they need to be. It is through these connections that these individuals achieve transformation.

Where “The Breakable Us” is pensive and melancholic—albeit ultimately hopeful—“Goats” is full-on absurdist. The scene is a set within a set. The piece starts with the stage fully lit, devoid of a backdrop. Instead, the walls and backstage fixtures of the theater are visible and in the center of the stage is a contained area: a seamless backdrop of turf, creating a grass wall and floor, framed by visible stage lights. A stagehand with a lawnmower makes his way over the patch, and then they arrive: the seven goats. 

These goats, of course, are the dancers. Dressed in pale pink street clothes and white socks and sneakers, they are not as visually literal as Nijinsky’s faun, but in movement and demeanor, they are shockingly animalistic. They run, legs amok, with their arms straight out at their sides. They land on the floor, often in a tabletop pose or a cobra, both legs bent at right angles. Sometimes they shimmy in sudden attack of nerves. Often, they sniff and inspect their neighbors. They do not—cannot—leave the green once they have arrived.