The Reviews Archive

Orthogonal To Everything Imagined

Angie Yeowell Blue always takes her audiences on journeys into unknown places. And almost always those journeys go to places those audiences never imagined existed – and afterward those same audiences just might wonder what they witnessed, to say nothing of where they have been. In her 2008 Boulder Fringe performances of “ballerina eight X,” in the McMahon Gallery of the Dairy Center for the Arts, Yeowell Blue does go some places different from her recent area solo performances, in that she adds other performers, expands her set to surround her audience, and adds a video and musical instruments. But she still does almost exactly the opposite of what her audience might expect. That unexpected all starts when audience enters the gallery, takes seats placed so they can see two women clad in vinyl jumpsuits and pastel wigs, standing seemingly waiting and bored next to a plastic lawn chair recliner, only to have the performance start directly behind them.

Yeowell Blue’s set seems chaotic in content and design – a chaos that belies the care she puts into every aspect of it in tech. In fact, the Tuesday August 19th performance was delayed 20 minutes while she got things exactly the way she wanted them. Performers become part of a set that includes a transparent plastic backdrop hung with tape recorders, any number of electronic paraphernalia throughout the space, microphones, cords and foot pedals, an electric guitar, an acoustic guitar, an eclectic percussion set anchored with a cement block, rugs, plates, the two women in vinyl, a drummer in a suit with large polka dots, pastel and blonde wigs, and Yeowell Blue in a white top, a transparent plastic skirt, and her short hair bleached startlingly blonde. She strums the electric guitar creating constant, repetitions of the same raucous sound as she sings one of many songs about her performance, life, and the world.

Yeowell Blue’s program notes say, “I didn’t have the space to do the show I planned to do. So I’m doing the show I don’t know how to do. ….. So if a foot gets painted blue, see it as sound if you like. …. Tapes and tape players are in your head. … “ She names Regan Halas as the ladies in vinyl, and Mark McCoin as the sometimes percussionist. She pays homage to CU Dance Faculty member Michelle Elsworth, even though she takes Elsworth’s images and imagination to new, “wilder,” and way different places. She makes no pretense of being a musician, despite a sweet voice when she wants it to be sweet, and at least a modicum of understanding about how guitars work.

Blue sings about filling her audience with a rabbit, about things that come up from the sky, up from underneath, a spy in a castle that sees unconnected and wonderfully bizarre things, grieving elephants, being Jesus’ daughter, your honey pie, inner intestines, sheep, and blue feathers. The ladies in vinyl and the sometimes percussionist assist her, attaching tubes, to her plastic skirt, move mics, play tapes, give her sustenance via an eye dropper, remove her boots, paint the soles of her feet blue through her stockings, remove her stockings, shave a patch of fabric on the back of her costume, and on and on and on. As her costume is revealed more and more to show her signature, fuzzy, black panties that almost double as thick pubic hair. A video comes up of her in a totally different costume and wig, both of which gradually disappear to reveal her naked body communing through the walls of a plastic box within which resides a naked man. The songs continue, sometimes in Blue’s sweet voice, sometimes in a deliberate monotone, as she plays both the electric and acoustic guitars – sometimes with sweet repetitive chords, more often with raucous strumming. The ladies in vinyl tell a story to allow a costume change. There are more songs. Playback devices attached to Blue’s costume are started, to reveal more songs. The songs stop. Blue removes the devices, crawls slowly through her audience as one remaining device spouts static. She lies down on the plastic lawn chair, lights dim, and only the static and one red light under her feet remain. The static sputters and fades, Angie Yeowell Blue says, “Thank you all for coming,” and a mystified audience walks out into the Dairy Lobby.

Angie Yeowell Blue has a stunning presence, and is quite beautiful. But, that seems only a sidebar to her performances. For me it is the unexpected. It is about sitting down with no idea of what will happen. It is about how she always takes me in totally different direction than I could ever imagine. She may be a bit like Diamanda Galas without the death wishes, a bit like Meredith Monk without the vocal range, but she is really Angie Yeowell Blue. Her art is clearly an acquired taste, but a taste worth trying. The schedule of the remaining showings of “ballerina eight X” are in the Boulder Fringe program, and on its website at www.boulderfringe.com.

Donald K. Atwood MFA, Ph.D. atwood@worlddancereviews.com

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