Music, comedy and dysfunction: The enigmatic blue males land in Spain | Culture | EUROtoday

They are bald, blue, with out ears and mechanical actions. They do not converse, they do not even transfer their mouths. They play with meals, paint, water, and contact devices that they create – like an enormous battery made with PVC tubes. But what most bewildered by the blue males of Blue Man Group is their look as indecipherable as expressive and their capability to shock and shock with the every day lifetime of life. “We never think of them as aliens, rather as the best version of the human being,” says Matt Ramsey, inventive director of the group. They have been performing in phases of the world for greater than 30 years and have taken their present, a form of mixture of music, mimicry and absurd comedy, greater than 50 million folks. This March, the three blue bald that star within the present Born in New York in 1991 they land for the primary time in a Spanish stage: the Circus of the Sun in Meloneras, Gran Canaria, the place they are going to be at the very least till the tip of April.

The historical past of Blue Man Group started in a small theater of lower than 300 places in what is named the off-Broadway New Yorker. “The three founders (Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton) were trying to create something that did not exist and that was against the culture and the shows in the city. They were looking for a new way of expressing themselves, so they used painting, experienced and discovered the world,” Ramsey explains. The present quickly grew to become a New York icon and since then its firm has enlarged till it’s 70 blue males “Ramsey was one for years,” they journey, three in three, way more measurement situations in all elements of the world.

Although the present He has modified and tailored to the passage of time, with the incorporation of recent expertise, for instance, the essence stays unchanged: “The character is the same. How the blue man behaves, his curiosity, his desire to connect with people and objects as if it were the first time,” he explains. So a lot that, because the director says, “there was a time when people thought that blue men were the same three everywhere.” In addition to directing the present, Ramsey has lengthy been liable for coaching the brand new members of the corporate. He had stopped deciphering the character for years – besides occasional appearances – and the one blue that’s left on his face is that of his eyes, however he maintains that distinctive look whereas exemplifying the foundations in order that the blue man emerges: “The most important thing, of course, is that we do not speak and do not move our mouths. There can be no expression of the mouth down, you can only use the eyes and eyebrows. And the second rule is not to receive. Attention, you are to pay attention, you do not try to fascinate, you try to fascinate yourself.

Behind the butter paint – it requires half an hour of makeup and another of removal later – that resists intact about an hour and a half of show, there are musicians who learn to act or actors who learn to play. They achieve “if everything goes well in two months of training,” says Ramsey, and after a rigorous audition process that can take up to two years. What is necessary to train the main asset of a brand – admiled in 2015 by the Circo del Sol – that entered until 2022, according to the magazine Forbes90 million euros a year. In addition to the show, they have also made albums, television ads and even a book.

But for the Spanish public, all that phenomenon they represent is quite alien. The arrival of the group to the island is, in addition to a bet, an opportunity to return to the origin, and, if it goes well, they intend to land on the Peninsula. “The original production was done in a very small theater. It was very intimate and where you sat you could see all the subtleties well and feel the connection with the character. The same thing happens here, it feels very intimate and for that the blue man was designed,” says Ramsey. The public who visits them, as before they filled the pages of American newspapers, does not know, at least most, very good to what is going. “We do not know them, we have no idea what awaits us,” says a group of Canaries upon arrival. “Nothing, we know nothing,” says another. And only to some English tourist, of those usual on the island, sounds a bell: “We have heard them, it is a global group, you know? Well known.”

In the tent, the lights stain from blue to those who enter and some chubasqueros that rest in the first two rows predict what is coming. The screens on stage show messages in Spanish, English and German, warning the use of strobe lights and strong sounds. Describing what happens next is something that Ramsey has failed to do in the 25 years he has linked to the company. What is this about? “You have to see it. It is, I don’t know, as a performative art, a rock concert and a show of comedy It is very difficult to describe, it is very unique, it does not resemble anything, ”he replies.

Beyond a business trick, the issue in explaining it’s comprehensible. After the screens wake folks with folks with customized comedian messages – “today is Jennifer’s birthday. Put on, Jennifer. We all say all birthday, Jennifer! Musical skill with tubes or drums that splatter paint, always going through a constant interaction with the public and inexhaustible energy. “That is the enjoyable half,” explains Ramsey, “the general public is a part of the present. The characters depart the stage many occasions and generally go as much as folks. It is unpredictable. ”And the expressiveness of mute creatures and easy skulls is sufficient for the sui generis carp of Gran Canaria, between different premises and vacationers, perceive them and dialogue with them.“ There is a communication that is done with the body and does not need the spoken language, so this show works in any culture in which we represent it. Blue men just want to connect and love to experience new cultures. And here we can connect not only with the people of Spain, but with the one that comes to the Canary Islands around the world, ”says Ramsey.

When the present It ends, among the new spectators dare with what the inventive director is difficult, and with the nonetheless bluish retinas, they describe what they’ve seen. “Strange, different and very visual,” says somebody. “Buah. It’s like a mix of sensations: music, lights, colors. A show that wakes you all the senses, ”says another. And some other is just said:” What insanity, huh? “. All whereas folks already out of the tent, which after 90 minutes appear to have a friendship with them, pictures themselves with these energetic, perplexed beings and with a delirious ardour for making music and dysfunction.