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Founded by Bette Bourne and
Paul Shaw
The Bloolips were a troupe of anarchic gender bending actors, performing
hilarious spoofs on sexuality and society. They were outrageously camp,
appearing on stage in costumes that had audiences screaming with laughter,
usually made of recycled junk (my favorite was a dress made entirely of
rubber gloves). They were subversive, warm and fuzzy at the same time.
They were mostly gay men, but appealed to all sexes, genders, and orientations.
Hardcore lesbians were known to swoon when watching company member Lavinnia
Coop perform. Each performer brought his own unique style and charm to
the work.
The London-based group was more than gaudy costumes made of junk, The
Bloolips used "androgyny as a vantage point totally outside straight
society" allowing them to comment and criticize not just gender roles
but the arms race, American electoral politics, political repression,
rampant consumerism and the parade of western culture... and thats just
what I can asses from two works: Lust in Space and Get-Hur.
The music in each production, which seems banal and stylistically
cookie-cutter fashioned at first, is transformed by powerful lyrics.
As members of many underground transvetite performance groups seem to
cross polinate frequently, it is no surprise that the Bloolips, whose
memebrs have been part of the Hot Peaches, made a joint endeavor with
the Split Britches Company in reenvisioning Tennessee William's A Streetcar
Named Desire as Belle Reprieve.
On Belle Reprieve and cross dressing, Bourne says:
"Who would not want to play Blanche? Yet I was always very keen to
play her as a man in drag, and not try to be a woman. When I was living
in drag it was very clear that I was a man - I wasn't passing as a woman.
(Although I have played women in two different plays in the last few
years - which I thoroughly enjoyed.) It was very important for me to
be myself , in other words a man in a frock - a new idea about a man.
I think men look great in frocks, and I don't really see that we have
to impersonate women necessarily, so in that sense I'm not really a
Drag Queen. Although I've done drag parts and absolutely adored it."
This was one Bloolips last productions. The group unofficially dissolved
in the early nineties, though individual members (especially Bossy Bette
Bourne and Lavinia Co-Op) continue careers as avante-garde performers.
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