“The Rambler,” a dance performance piece by the Joe Goode Performance Group, has been a long time in the making.

For Joe Goode and the dancers, including four chosen University students, the project has taken a journey opposite to the style it portrays.

In September of last year, preparations began for the students who were chosen to perform in “The Rambler” after auditions. Constant practices since then have prepared the dancers but done nothing for their nerves.

Joe Goode, who leads an eponymous performance group, has been working with both professional dancers and select students in preparation for his piece “The Rambler,” about the “rambling spirit.” ELIZABETH WILSON/Staff

“This is a huge event for them,” said Lisa Fusillo, head of the dance department. “They are so excited. They have rehearsed very well and are very well-prepared, but of course, they are nervous because they want to be the best they can be.”

Performing with an elite group of professional dancers, and for an acclaimed director at the University and in Atlanta, the four dancers are honored to have the opportunity.

“This is a big deal,” said one dancer, Toi Brown. “To have it happen to me is so exciting. It’s exciting to think that people are going to pay to see me perform.”

But long before practice began, choreographer Joe Goode had been forming the concept of the show in his head. The American idea of a rambler, the free-spirited character often portrayed in movies, has always captivated Goode.

“It’s a piece about the concept of rambling and how we as Americans are very conditioned to admire the rambling spirit,” he said. “We think of it as very romantic. We don’t live our lives that way, but it is a very revered character.”

Goode doesn’t just portray that ideal free-spirit — he attempts to make the audience question the value of a freedom, asking, Is unrestrained freedom worth loneliness?

“It’s something I find very compelling because also the rambler is the truth-teller,” Goode said. “It is a very solitary character who is searching for the truth, but at the same time there are a lot of consequences for someone who doesn’t get attached to anyone. I want to look at the whole picture. I am not for or against it.”

This unusual theme is presented in an unusual way. The dancers in the Joe Goode Performance Group do more than just dance.

“It is dance theater,” Goode said. “There are songs and characters and a lot of movement and music. It’s not really a story so much as a lot of vignettes about people who are rambling and people who have been left behind.”

The students involved in the production have enjoyed the challenge of the many-faceted aspect of the performance.

“It’s not just a new movement style,” said student-dancer, Aerica Siegel. “He incorporates pretty much every art form you can think of — singers, theater, faces.”

For Goode, the difference between dance and dance theater is in the people it reaches.

“I like the fact that it’s really a theater that anybody can understand and it touches a lot of people,” he said. “I find that really appealing. I don’t want to speak to just the dance elite. That doesn’t satisfy me.”

JOE GOODE PERFORMANCE GROUP: “THE RAMBLER”

When: Feb. 4,5, 8 p.m.

Where: Fine Arts Theatre

Price: $5 (students), $34, $39