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Blue Man Group

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Blue Man Group
Formation1980s
TypeTheatre group
Location
  • New York City
Websitehttp://www.blueman.com

Blue Man Group (Blue Man, BMG) is a creative organization founded by Phil Stanton, Chris Wink, and Matt Goldman; it is centered on a trio of mute performers, called Blue Men, who present themselves in blue grease paint, latex bald caps, and black clothing. Blue Man Group's theatrical acts incorporate rock music (with an emphasis on percussion), odd props, audience participation, sophisticated lighting, and large amounts of paper. It is also noted for having a "poncho section" of the audience; in the front rows, audience members are provided with plastic ponchos in order to protect them from various foods, substances, paints, and so on, which get thrown, ejected, or sprayed from the stage. The shows are family-oriented, humorous, energetic and often employ thought-provoking satire on modern life. Most of the humor breaks the fourth wall, for example, interrupting the show to ridicule latecomers in the audience.

Early history

Friends Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton (collectively referred to by the fan community as CMP or ChrisMattPhil) conceived the idea during the 1980s while in New York City. They began appearing on the streets in Blue Man regalia, performing for passersby and staging unusual events such as The Funeral For the 80s, and doing short bits as part of the underground cabarets of Tom Murrin, The Alien Comic, in "The CLUB" at La MaMa Experimental Theater Club. Two of the three performers attended Rogers CAPA Middle school, which is in Pittsburgh.

Meryl Vladimer, the Artistic Director of The CLUB, saw their work and commissioned Blue Man Group to create a full-length show. The resulting piece, TUBES, took off after Vladimer persuaded The New York Times critic Stephen Holden to review it. Blue Man Group's popularity continued to snowball, eventually winning CMP an Obie Award and a Lucille Lortel Award, which led producers to take the show to off-Broadway. TUBES opened in 1991 at the Astor Place Theatre. This show, and frequent appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, enabled CMP and Blue Man Group team to open similar productions and expand their concepts into other kinds of performances.

Theatrical productions

List of theatrical productions

Current theatrical productions

Previous theatrical productions

Future productions

Character

The Blue Man can be considered a type of homologue; i.e., a creature approximating a real male human being. The strongest and most obvious Blue Man characteristic is his static appearance, namely, the earless, bright blue head and face and nondescript, utilitarian clothing. In action, the Blue Man does not speak and his face is usually expressionless, although suggestions of curiosity, surprise, wonder, chagrin, etc. are sometimes visible (though only in the eyes and eyebrows). The Blue Man does not communicate through speech or broad body language or gestures; rather, he communicates through intense eye contact and simple gestures. He acts impulsively and primarily as a group of three, "checking in" with the other two when making decisions and before moving to their next action. The Blue Man's outwardly apparent motivations are often presented in mild caricature in order to make a humorous and/or ironic point to the audience. Additionally, the Blue Man is inscrutably motivated to drum. They even have their own hand gesture, called the "Blue Man Salute." These characteristics provide a character free of stereotypes or race and allow all members of the audience to identify with them equally.

Themes

There are a number of different themes found in various Blue Man performances. These themes include:[2]

  • Science and technology, especially the topics of fractals, human sight, DNA, and the Internet.
  • Information overload and information pollution, such as when the audience is asked to choose one of three simultaneous streams of information to read.
  • Innocence, as when the Blue Men appear to be surprised and perplexed by common artifacts of modern society or by audience reactions.
  • Self-conscious and naïve imitation of cultural norms, such as attempting to stage an elegant dinner for an audience member with Twinkies; or following the Rock Concert Instruction Manual with the expectation that following a series of instructions is all it takes to put on a rock concert.
  • The Outsider. Blue Men always appear as a group of three. This is because not only are Blue Men viewed as outsiders to the rest of the world, but three is the smallest group possible where one member could be viewed as an outsider by the other two. Many of the Blue Man skits involve one of the three Blue Men performing in a manner inconsistent with the other two.
  • Rooftops, or otherwise climbing to the top. There are a number of references, both in visual pieces and in lyrics from the COMPLEX tour, that have a common theme of getting to the roof. This theme is a metaphor for the advice CMP were given by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers's PBS program The Power of Myth and represents "Following your bliss."[citation needed]
  • The Rock Concert Instruction Manual, a satire of how to gain fame and fortune by becoming a rock star used by Blue Man Group in the Complex Rock Tour and the How to Be a MegaStar Tour 2.0. Parts of the manual are also used in Blue Man Group's theatrical shows.

Music and tours

In 1999, the group released their first audio recording, appropriately called Audio. Although it contained some of the music from their stage productions, it was less of a soundtrack and more a collection of full-length instrumentals that featured new instruments.

In 2002, the group participated in Moby's Area2 tour, giving a more rock-oriented performance than in the theatrical shows. Songs developed during this tour appeared on 2003's album The Complex.

Unlike Audio, The Complex featured a variety of vocalists and guests including Tracy Bonham, Dave Matthews, Gavin Rossdale, and Venus Hum's singer Annette Strean. The record spawned its own 2003 tour, the first headlined by Blue Man Group. The tour cleverly deconstructed the traditional rock concert experience into its often clichéd parts and was chronicled in a 2004 DVD release. The tour featured Tracy Bonham and Venus Hum as supporting acts.

Blue Man Group launched its second tour, The "How to Be a Megastar Tour 2.0", on September 26, 2006. The tour added some new material to material from the original Complex Rock Tour, and had Tracy Bonham as an opening act and vocalist. DJ/VJ Mike Relm is the opening act for the second leg of this tour, which ended April 22, 2007 in Wilkes-Barre, PA. This third leg of the tour began in May 2007 and will include performances in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey, Mexico; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero, Brazil; and Santiago, Chile. Leg four will include more U.S. and Canada dates.

HowToBeAMegaStar.com.

Appearances and other work

Advertising

  • When Blue Man Group was still solely in New York, they ran a variety of fake advertisements in The Village Voice.
  • The group achieved widespread visibility when they appeared in an Intel advertising campaign for Pentium 3 and Pentium 4 CPUs as well as Centrino technology.
  • In June 2006, Swatch launched a new range of colored watches with BMG as the faces of the advertising campaign. A limited edition Blue Man Group watch was also released, featuring all 3 men throwing paint to each other on the strap.
  • BMG is currently appearing in local TV ads for the LA Dodgers baseball team broadcasts.
  • In 2005, the group collaborated with artist David LaChapelle and produced several new images for upcoming ad campaigns, including their show "bluephoria" at the Venetian in Las Vegas. These images are radically different from any of the group's previous advertising and can be seen on the official webpage.

TV guest appearances

Concert guest appearances

Movies

Other

  • Blue Man Group appears in an informational video played continuously at security checkpoints in McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada.
  • In 2004, the piece "Piano Smasher" was used in the soundtrack for the video game R-Type Final. [1]
  • Blue Man Group have released two different musical instruments for kids, manufactured by Toy Quest, based on existing Blue Man creations: "Blue Man Group Percussion Tubes" and "Blue Man Group Keyboard Experience".[3]

Musical instruments

As the shows evolved, Blue Man Group developed a set of custom musical instruments, many designed from the observation that common materials, such as PVC pipes, make interesting noises when struck.

PVC
The PVC is an instrument made out of 2" PVC pipe. The pipes are cut to exact lengths and the Blue Man plays the instrument by striking one of the open ends with a closed-cell foam rubber paddle. PVCs are somewhat based on the bamboo instruments used in Gamelan joged bumbung & Gamelan jegog ensembles. In the live shows, three separate PVC instruments are used, one for low, mid, and high octaves. This instrument also comes in a "backpack" variety for portability, which comes optionally equipped with confetti/streamer shooters. The "floor" PVC units are generally painted with phosphorescent dye invisible under normal lighting conditions, but of visibly different colors under ultraviolet light. During a performance, levels of such are generally adjusted to give the PVC the appearance of changing from white to colorful. Along with the tubulum and drumbone, PVCs can be classified as plosive aerophones.
Tubulum
Similar in concept to the PVC, the Tubulum [ˈtub.juˌlʌm] uses 4" PVC pipe and has cardboard or rubber "reeds" on the end that are struck with drumsticks. This gives the Tubulum a more "updated" sound than the PVC; in fact, the synthesizer-like sound quality of the instrument inspired Blue Man Group's cover of "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer. The Tubulum is designed for playing bass notes, so the tubes must be sufficiently long to generate the low sounds. Because of the unavoidably large size of this instrument, the performance venues for the theatrical shows in New York, Boston, and Chicago are not physically large enough to contain it. A more compact instrument was used on the Complex Rock Tour and in the video for "I Feel Love"; the tubes twist around for extra length, below the frame that holds the tube "heads". Backpack tubulums, with the same streamer-launching abilities of the backpack PVC, are used in the Las Vegas, Berlin & Toronto shows. Another variation of the Tubulum is the Paddle Tubulum, which allows the Blue Man to play bass notes with the ease of paddles, as on a PVC; this instrument was used on The Complex and the Complex Rock Tour.
Airpoles
Airpoles are hollow fiberglass boat antennae of various lengths. The instrument is sharply swung to create a "swoosh" sound. These instruments come in three varieties. Sword airpoles are short and held on the end like a sword. Wiper airpoles are longer versions of sword airpoles. Angel airpoles are very long and are held in the middle so that both ends move in unison to create syncopated rhythm. This is supposedly one of the most difficult Blue Man instruments to learn, as it requires very precise muscle control that can take a long time to develop. Unlike most of the other instruments listed here, airpoles were not, strictly speaking, "invented"; they were discovered when one of the founders of the group swung a boat antenna through the air while experimenting to find new instruments.
Drumbone
The Drumbone is another instrument made from 4" diameter PVC; this one uses two movable sections to alter the pitch. One Blue Man plays the instrument with drumsticks, another moves the horizontal slide, and the third Blue Man moves the vertical slide. It is also capable of being taken apart into two separate instruments which harmonize with one another. Curiously, when dissassembled, the horizontal slide section is held verticaly, and the vertical slide section is held horizontally. The Drumbone is only used in the song of the same name, an audience favorite, due to the fact that all three Blue Men are needed to play it properly and are unable to play any other instruments during the song. Blue Man Group used a special Drumbone shaped like the number 4 for the Intel Pentium 4 commercials.
Drumulum
The Drumulum [ˈdrʌm.juˌlʌm] consists of a drum and a length PVC pipe (or "ulum") over the drum. The length of the tube, when in harmony with the pitch of the drum, creates the sound heard at the beginning of the hidden track "Mandelbrot 4" on The Complex.
Hammered Dulcimer and Cimbalom
Although they are not inventions of Blue Man Group, these instruments are played with drumsticks rather than the usual felt hammers. This gives the instrument a much more aggressive sound with a sharp attack. Because of the nature of Blue Man Group's music, only a few notes of each instrument tend to be used on any given performance; to minimize the odds of sour notes, multiple adjacent strings are generally tuned to the same note.
Chapman Stick
Used in the backup band, the Stick is most notably heard in the "Mandelbrot" series of songs (of which there are 4), "Synaesthetic", "Your Attention", and the main riff in "Utne Wire Man". In addition to "tapping" the instrument, the Stick player also "bows" the lowest two strings (with a .110 gauge bass string cut approx 10" long) in the "Mandelbrot" songs.
Zither
Blue Man Group uses a custom-built, 98-stringed electric zither. Along with the Chapman stick player & drummer(s), the zither player fills out the "basic" backup band for Blue Man Group. Sometimes, the zither is played with a glass slide on the left hand and fingerpicks on the right hand. From there the signal goes through a series of guitar pedals and then into an old "Orange" vintage guitar amp. When played through a delay effect and phaser, the zither is called the Pressaphonic, which supplies the main riff in "Rods & Cones".
Dogulum
This instrument is "played" by taking Chris Wink's dog and stroking him rhythmically until the dog enters a state of Zen-like complete contentment; the dog is then recorded, and the vibe is included on the album mix.
Piano Smasher
The Piano Smasher is a piano stripped down to its frame and stood up on its side. It is played by hitting the strings with a large soft mallet, resulting in a clangy, almost discordant sound. In live performances, this instrument is generally played with a MIDI system, using sensors behind the strings, as the instrument goes out of tune very quickly. Each Piano Smasher is tuned to only one note, as it would be otherwise impossible to get anything resembling a musical tone from the instrument.
Shaker Gong
A Shaker Gong is a matrix of ball bearings inside a steel casing, suspended from a frame by surgical tubing. It is struck with a mallet to produce a sharp, lingering sound vaguely reminiscent of a rattlesnake.
Gyro Shot
This was a failed instrument from the Audio sessions. It consisted of ball bearings inside spinning tubes. Although it looked futuristic, the only sound Blue Man Group managed to get from it was a weak rain stick-like sound.
Aronophonic
The Aronophonic was invented by Blue Man Group instrument technician Aron Sanchez in order to reinvent cymbals, shakers and other high frequency percussive instruments. It consists of multiple pieces of metal laid out on a rack so the drummers can hit them with drumsticks and allow the pieces of metal to stay together.
Electric Dog Toy
Blue Man Group took a dog toy that had a whale sound sampled in it and moved it in different ways near an electric guitar pickup. The result was a high-pitched squeal that can be heard at the end of "Drumbone".

Community

Blue Man Group has a large following comprising a diverse group of fans from all over the world. The community is centered on the message boards on the official website, as well as the official fan base, Blue Man Library. The BML also creates a weekly podcast called "Switchback," recognized by Blue Man Group as the official podcast of the Blue Man Group fan community. Blue Man Productions, the company responsible for Blue Man Group, has been extremely supportive of the fan community; Blue Man Group employees will often post messages exclusive to the fan base and participate in regularly scheduled chat sessions at Blue Man Library.

Controversy

Announcing their debut in Toronto, Ontario in 2005, Blue Man Group attracted considerable controversy for opting not to use unionized workers for their show, which many labor groups regarded as being highly unusual for a show of its size in Canada. Their June 20, 2005 premiere in Toronto was picketed by members of the Canadian Actors' Equity Association, the Toronto Musicians' Association, and two locals of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The Ontario Teacher's Union also joined in the boycott, which essentially eliminated any business from school trips and student matinees. The show closed after 18 months, staging its final show on January 7, 2007.

In Las Vegas in April 2006, Blue Man Group moved from the Luxor Hotel, where they had a union contract, to the Venetian Hotel, electing not to keep the contract. Employees who went from the Luxor venue to the Venetian started an organizing campaign with IATSE Local 720 in Las Vegas, claiming that without the union contract they would not receive a pension and could not provide adequate healthcare for themselves or their families.

On May 25, 2006, employees at the Blue Man Group Las Vegas voted to be represented by IATSE Local 720 in Las Vegas Nevada. The election was supervised by the National Labor Relations Board region 28 based in Phoenix Arizona. The winning election now permits the employees to start bargaining a contract with Blue Man Productions.

Since that time Blue Man Group has refused to go to the negotiating table. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sided with the Blue Man Group employees and represented them against their employer in full hearings before the Board in Washington DC. Since losing at all levels with the NLRB , Blue Man Group filed an appeal with the US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, DC (D.C. Cir. Nos. 06-1328 & 06-1341 NLRB v. Blue Man Vegas, LLC Board Case Nos. 28-CA-20868 and 28-RC-6440)[2]. The AFL-CIO has placed Blue Man Group on the national boycott list[3] for union members and their families. Unfair labor practices have also been filed with the NLRB Las Vegas office against Blue Man Group for violating federal law regarding their employees.

Discography

Videography

File:Thecomplextourlive2003.jpg

  • Inside the Tube (2006). A special one-hour documentary created and aired exclusively for PBS. Features interviews with CMP describing the Blue Men, and video clips from various theatrical performances.

Awards

Nominations

  • Grammy Nomination: Audio (1999)

Side projects

References

  1. ^ "Blue men pack up bags". Official London Theatre Guide. Society of London Theatre. 2007-03-27. Retrieved 2007-05-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ PBS's INSIDE THE TUBES Blue Man special from 2006
  3. ^ "Blue Man Group instruments". Toy Quest. Retrieved 2007-06-03.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Blue Man Group.
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