Joe Goode is happily, brazenly goofy. Yet there’s always a serious purpose to his works. Returning to Chicago after an absence of four years, his San Francisco-based company performs a piece he created in 2006 in honor of its 20th anniversary, Stay Together. Using the long-term relationship between an artist and his administrator, it looks at art, community, and long-term relationships in general. He also presents 1998’s Deeply There (Stories of a Neighborhood), about a small group of friends and neighbors at the deathbed of a man with AIDS. Mixing text, music, and movement, it offers Goode’s usual queasy blend of campy humor, sentimentality, matter-of-factness, and philosophizing. Honestly, you don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or snort in disgust. Disarming and ultimately good-hearted, Deeply There turns so many corners your head spins, but in the process you might stumble across some new thought or feeling. a Opens Thu 3/29, 8 PM. Through 3/31: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan, 312-344-8300, $22-$26. Postperformance discussion Thu 3/29; family-oriented matinee Sat 3/31, 3 PM (movement workshop at 2:15 PM), $10, $6 kids.
