Blue Man Group
The Blue Man Group is a group of actors and musicians who appear as three mute , blue-masked people with an accompanying band . Lists music , circus clownerie and performance where that audience is often involved. The show is currently being performed in New York , Boston , Chicago , Las Vegas , Orlando and Berlin . At the end of 2018 another team toured Europe.
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history
The Blue Man Group went from a group of young Performance forth Artists, the blue anmalten at a campaign in 1987 to a performance in Central Park of New York City to celebrate the decade. Three from the group, Matt Goldman , Phil Stanton and Chris Wink , two drummers and a software developer founded the Blue Man Group a year later . Initially, the group attracted attention in the off-off Broadway scene with rude happenings . After receiving the prestigious Obie Award from the city magazine The Village Voice in 1991 , they moved their show "Tubes" from the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club to the Astor Place Theater , where they still perform today.
In the following time the group showed performances in Boston ( Charles Playhouse , 1995), Chicago ( Briar Street Theater , 1997) and Las Vegas ( Luxor Hotel Theater , 2000 to 2005; afterwards Las Vegas Venetian Show ). In 2003, the Blue Man Group performed on the Complex Rock Tour shows in 70 cities across the United States to introduce their CD The Complex . The show had its European premiere and also its first appearance outside the USA in May 2004 in Berlin . This was followed in 2005 by a show at the Panasonic Theater in Toronto , a show at the New London Theater in London and their first festival appearance at the Chiemsee Reggae Summer , where they played their program, which was slightly changed especially for the occasion, in front of 7,000 listeners. On December 12, 2006, the third European show opened in the Fabriek Theater in Amsterdam . A show also opened in Tokyo in December 2007. In late 2006 and early 2007, the Blue Man Group toured the USA again with the “Megastar 2.0” tour.
The creators of the shows say their goal is to connect the viewers, who have so little to do with each other at the beginning of the show, so that they become one. Over 40 Blue Men and around 60 musicians are now available to fill all the shows . Due to the blue masking, individual artists can easily be replaced without the audience noticing any changes. This also makes it possible to work particularly economically compared to other large shows. Particularly successful numbers can be included in the shows of the various partial ensembles that are performed at different locations.
In January 2010 the organization comprised around 500 employees. By then, 17 million viewers had seen the Blue Man Group's shows.
In July 2017, the Canadian Cirque du Soleil announced that it would take over the parent company of the Blue Man Group in full. The entertainment company intends to market the Blue Man Group worldwide and diversify its live performance .
Working in Germany
In Germany, the Blue Men became known through their participation in several commercials (including for Intel ) before the group appeared in the Berlin Theater on Potsdamer Platz in 2004 . The last show took place in this theater on January 31, 2007. Since February 1, 2007, performances have been taking place in the smaller BlueMax Theater on the other side of Marlene-Dietrich-Platz. A former IMAX cinema was specially converted for this purpose. The program consists of parts of the shows in London and Amsterdam .
From March 11, 2007 to October 4, 2008, the show was also shown in the Metronom Theater in Oberhausen . In addition, the show ran from February 28, 2008 to October 12, 2008 in the Apollo musical theater in Stuttgart .
On November 6, 2010 the Blue Man Group joined Wetten, dass ..? in Hanover to advertise the current show in the BlueMax Theater in Berlin, on October 15, 2011 there was an appearance on the game show Schlag den Raab on ProSieben . The trio made another appearance on December 6, 2013 at the casting show The Voice of Germany .
International productions
- Switzerland: In Switzerland, the Blue Man Group played in two different locations. Only from October 25, 2008 to January 11, 2009 in the Musical Theater Basel . She then played from January 17, 2010 to May 2, 2010 at Theater 11 in Zurich . From January 21 to 26, 2020, they performed again at the Musical Theater Basel.
- Austria: From November 4, 2010 to January 2, 2011, the Blue Man Group made a guest appearance in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier .
- Sweden: From September 8th to October 24th 2010 the Blue Man Group played for the first time in Stockholm .
- Luxembourg: From October 31 to November 5, 2017, the Blue Man Group played in Luxembourg for the first time .
tape
The band consists of multi-instrumentalists , which means that all musicians can master several instruments. The music is played live. Exceptions are the pieces in which the musicians complete a choreography .
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Both the Berlin and Stuttgart bands consist of four musicians in each show:
- a drummer
- a percussionist
- a zither player
- a Chapmanstick -, bass - and talking drum player
The Oberhausen band consisted of six musicians in each show:
- a drummer
- three percussionists
- a zither player
- a chapmanstick, bass and talking drum player
The musicians are gradually taught all positions: The drummers learn all four positions and the string players all three stringed instruments.
Instruments
The accompanying band plays on common instruments, especially electric guitar , electric bass and drums . As an additional, consistently used string instrument, there is an electric zither that can be struck with a wide variety of aids. However, the three actors use unusual sound bodies such as rain pipes, smaller plastic pipes or modified drums . The following is a series of new types of percussion instruments, which are described in detail in the booklet of the first CD Audio from 1999 (see below) and illustrated with sketches:
Drumwall
The drum wall is a structured wall in which there are seven so-called "drum stations". Three of them are for the Blue Men. The other four are for the drummers.
Air poles
The Air Poles are a series of rods made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic that produce a sound that can be compared to swinging a long stick or wooden stick or a "swoosh". The fiberglass construction results in a lingering tone that creates a musically gloomy atmosphere, especially in the dark sections of the Blue Man Group's shows.
- A: The Angel Air Poles are Air Poles that are joined together by the handles. The result is a balanced Air Pole that can reach enormous speeds.
- B: The Wiper Air Poles are extremely long and flexible air poles that have to be held at the very end in order to play them. They are up to 5.4 meters long. The Wiper Air Poles develop a very slow tone.
- C: The Sword Air Poles are small and thin, which makes them easier to control than the other Air Poles. They develop the traditional "swoosh" tone.
Big drum
The diameter of this drum is up to two meters, the corresponding drum stick is correspondingly large. In the Berlin show, the diameter is 36 inches; this corresponds to 91.4 centimeters.
Cimbalom
The cimbalom is usually played with soft wooden hammers. The Blue Man Group uses normal drum sticks to create a more aggressive sound.
Drumbone
The drumbone ( case word from drum ( percussion ) and trombone ( trombone )) is a translation of the trombone to a percussion instrument . Compared to the PVC instrument, it is a tiny instrument. It consists of only four pipes, but they are not connected to form a unit. Two tubes each form an independently working instrument, as one is slipped over the other and can thus be moved. This increases or decreases the length of the pipe and affects the resulting sound. These two instruments can also be combined to form a unit, the actual drumbone. On the drumbone, a Blue Man plays with drumsticks and the other two move the tubes to create the tone variation.
PVC pipes
The PVC instrument is the Blue Man Group's most famous and largest instrument. Around 180 meters of PVC pipes are connected in it to form a six-meter-wide package that all three Blue Men can play at the same time. The height of the sound is determined by the length of a pipe connection. The pipes are arranged in three stations. Each Blue Man has its own group of tones, divided into low, medium and high octaves. There are 24 tubes in the low and middle octaves. In the high octave it's 28. The PVCs are played with foam rubber paddles that look like kitchen spatulas.
Tubulum or backpack tubulum
The tubulum ("tube-you-lum") is similar to the PVC instrument. It has low notes and is not played with paddles, but with normal drum sticks. The backpack tubulum is the same instrument but with fewer tones and you can strap it to your back like a backpack, which enables the Blue Man to walk around freely on stage like a guitarist with his electric guitar. In the Oberhausen show, the tubulum is only used in one scene, just like the backpack tubulum.
additional
- The Blue Man Group show is characterized by humorous comedy and the US vaudeville shows of the 20th century. Parallels to Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers are intentional. Matt Goldman, one of the founders of the Blue Man Group, is a fan of Wim Wenders ' film Der Himmel über Berlin , which is said to have contributed to the decision to launch the first show outside of North America in Berlin . The Berlin show therefore also includes a reference to the film.
- The art of well-known painters and sculptors (including Jackson Pollock , Jasper Johns , Constantin Brâncuși , Mark Rothko ) can be found in various show elements .
- It takes members an hour to prepare for the show. Hair covers made of latex ("rubber brow") are used. This and the rest of the face are covered with heavy, greasy, blue make-up. This makeup never dries, so the group maintains the “sticky” look of the blue heads throughout the show.
- A show lasts an hour and 30 minutes on average without interruption.
- At the end of many shows, the song Last Train to Trancentral by the British music group The KLF (1990) was played. There is currently a self-produced song called Ready? In Germany and on tour . Go! played in the final.
Discography
Albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
|
 US
|
|||
| 1999 | Audio | - | - |
US175  (1 week)US |
|
| 2003 | The Complex Rock Tour |
DE86 (1 week)DE |
- |
US60 (6 weeks) US |
|
| 2008 | How to be a Megastar Live! | - |
AT67 (1 week) AT |
- | |
More albums
- 2006: Live at the Venetian
- 2016: Three
Singles
| year | Title album |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|
 UK
|
|||
| 2003 | The Current |
UK93 (1 week) UK |
with Gavin Rossdale
|
Video albums
- 2003: The Complex Rock Tour: Live (DE:
× 2Double platinum ; US:× 4Quadruple platinum ) - 2008: How to be a Megastar Live!
Individual evidence
- ↑ EVENTIM https://www.eventim.de : Blue Man Group Tour. Retrieved on July 11, 2018 (German).
- ↑ Karsten J. Klee: Blue men conquer the world. C6 Magazine, July 21, 2005, accessed April 2, 2013 .
- ↑ Horst E. Wegener: Blue Man Group. In: Pavilion. The culture and leisure magazine in the southwest. Volume 24, 10/2008, pages 4.5 lead story
- ^ A b Siegmund Kopitzki: The Blue Man Group is coming to Zurich. A blue miracle. In: Südkurier from January 14, 2010
- ^ What is Blue Man Group? Blue Man Productions, Inc., 2008, accessed September 20, 2010 .
- ↑ http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/ct-blue-man-sold-cirque-soleil-20170706-column.html
- ↑ BLUE MAN GROUP / Show in Oberhausen - Metronom Theater Oberhausen. Stage Entertainment GmbH, 2006, archived from the original on March 21, 2007 ; Retrieved September 20, 2010 .
- ↑ a b Chart sources: DE AT UK US
- ↑ Awards: DE US
- ↑ Note: only available through iTunes
- ↑ 25 Years: NEW ALBUM "THREE" - Official Site of Blue Man Group. In: www.blueman.com. Retrieved April 22, 2016 .
Web links
- Official website: international (English) | Germany | Switzerland | Austria
- Blue Man Group at the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Blue Man Group at laut.de