UGLY Part 3: BLUE

This is the third and concluding part of the pop queer empathy trilogy UGLY, which will be first performed at ImPulsTanz. Raja Feather Kelly, choreographer, dancer and director of the company the feath3r theory is a huge fan of Andy Warhol and says about his own work: “I use performance and exhibition as means to promote empathy. My practice identifies opportunities where popular culture and human desire overlap, and amplifies them.” In BLUE, Kelly wants to take the exclusion (Black Queer Zoo) and the alienation (Hysteria) of African American subjectivity to a zone of empathy, i.e. ‘home’.

My Bluets:
Enter Dance Exit Enter Transcend 
Blue Transcends the soles geometry of human limits
Blue is when infinite possibility becomes tangible 
Time is what keeps the light form reaching us 

Mantra of the Bell:
I send my heart along with the sound of this bell, my the hearers awaken from their forgetfulness, and transcend the oath of anxiety and sorrow.
I listen, I listen 
This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home

Concept, Direction, and Performance
Raja Feather Kelly

Video and Projection
Laura Snow

Lighting Design
Tuce Yasak

Set Design
You-Shin Chen

Costume Design
Brandi Holt

Music
Raja Feather Kelly

Original Compositions
David Baldwin and Emily Wells.

Sound Mix
Christoph Mateka

BLUE was commissioned by the Vienna International Dance Festival, Impulstanz as a part of their 2021 Season.

This engagement is supported by Mid Atlantic Arts through USArtists International in partnership
with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Howard
Gilman Foundation.

This project is supported by the National Performance Network (NPN) Documentation & Storytelling Initiative with funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information, visit www.npnweb.org

Thank You, Hotel Sans Souci for helping to create Ugly Part 3.