Rudi Goblen started breakdancing 19 years ago. Since then he has become a dancer, actor, performing artist, and writer, performing with Teo Castellanos' D-Projects and becoming a founding member of Octavio Campos' Camposition Hybrid Theater Works and Rosie Herrera's Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre.
A highly acclaimed b-boy, Goblen and his troupe Flipside Kings tour nationally and internationally. Goblen always seems to push his artistic boundaries, and in his latest one-man show, PET, he tries his hand at interactive theater.
Written and performed by Goblen and directed by Michael Yawney, PET debuts at the Miami Light Project's Light Box this Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. We caught up with Goblen to learn more.
New Times: What is PET?
Rudi Goblen: PET is an interactive one-man dance theater show. The main character is a cured love addict who runs a support group for serial monogamists --people who keep jumping into relationships. Now that he is cured [Goblen says with a laugh] he runs the support group and helps other people who are brokenhearted get through their world of suffering and trauma.
Where did the name come from?
PET came from the idea that in relationships everyone plays the pet at some time or another. Once I started writing it, I realized the support group was going to be called PET, so I turned it into an acronym: Preventing, Educating, and Teaching Center for the Broken Hearted.
What is the show's interactive element?
The show is set up as a support group, and the audience is the group. I'm not going to fully answer the question because I want to leave it as a surprise, but I can say there is a call and response element between the performer and the audience.
PET is your third one-man show. How is it a departure from your previous solo shows, Insanity Isn't and Fair Welling?
All the performative elements that were in Insanity Isn't and Fair Welling are still here, but presented in a new way. There are three dance solos in PET, so that's kind of new for me.
How do the dance solos figure into the show?
I play one character. You kind of go through the different phases of him -- the before him, the now him, and the future him. The dance solos are set up as flashbacks and flash forwards of the man himself. They show where he's at in his life.
What else would you like people to know about the show?
There's comedy, drama, suspense, text, dance and movement. I think it's layered with a lot of things. There's something for everybody.
Rudi Goblen's PET takes the stage on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at The Lightbox at Goldman Warehouse, 404 NW 26th St., Miami; tickets cost $25; miamilightproject.com.
--Mia Leonin, artburstmiami.com
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