“RECTANGLES”
A Groundbreaking Art-Pop Clown Musical Takes Center Stage
“Rectangles” is my original solo performance-art clown musical. For 45 minutes I eat, digest, and then poop out blocks while singing songs comparing this activity to real personal struggles I face as a people-pleaser. It’s akin to if Bjork got real silly and stepped into Pee-wee’s Playhouse to vent to her bestie about her mental and medical problems through analogy-filled songs. I paint myself as the mutating jester of the room, creating an absurd and depthful narrative around these simple shapes. I gobble them up – red, yellow, and blue blocks. They quickly consume the stage, grow my belly, and cause me dramatized distress. In this punk-rock opera I belt out an otherworldly scream of a show that is as comical as it is profound. The gross body-horror through-line melts into songs hopping between many genres – from avant-garde lullabies and Lynch-ian synth ballads to punk feminist anthems and lascivious rap rhymes. In between the musical numbers I have neurodivergent rambling narrations that lead us along my mental state as well as tell a tale about my very real butt surgery that parallels my pain.
As I dance across the stage I drop blocks into the audiences hands, at their feet and into their mouths if they’re lucky, looking into their eyes, daring them to take the objects that I continue to bite down on and throw around the stage. I bring out a ragged and intense block puppet to tell us how they feel and then at the end a fluffy whimsical butthole puppet to finally poop the blocks out for me. Behind me, an atmospheric art video is projected of blocks being tumbled and turned. I fall and roll atop a bright foam mat, framing my space in surreal color.
I’ve been workshopping and performing this show over the last 3 years, evolving it bit by bit and letting it live and breath in a variety of diverse DIY music scene settings. From packed backyards and underground art warehouses to music venues and bicycle co-ops, this show has moved many to ponder the meaning of this shape. This writing process has allowed it to inherently foster a genuine rock-show energy since that’s where the show’s grow up – smashed up against punk shows, noise acts and experimental music on a lineup. I’ve gotten to become incredibly comfortable speaking genuinely as myself within it. It’s a place where I get to experiment with feeling powerful, sexy, and sad as well as manically silly.
I delight in performing within this massive juxtaposition that I set up in this show – between simple childlike shapes and visuals and my messy punk energy and robust adult voice. I jump back and forth between these two modes in many different ways and temperaments and find that they serve to highlight each other as well as reflect the deeper message in my show of being done with smallness and that the path to bigness is messy.
WHO IS MADDIE?
I’m a multidisciplinary artist, from visual art to puppeteering to songwriting. I bring my skills together to make absurd creations. Over the course of my professional career, I have fabricated miniature sets for commercials and shows including Apple’s “Share Your Gifts” short film, a Goldfish commercial, several Disney commercials, DropoutTV’s “D20”, and a HotWheels stop motion youtube series. In addition to my fabrication career, I’ve worked as a child hand model/puppeteer – most notably for the series “Barbie Live in the Dreamhouse”. My most recent career is doll styling at Mattel – styling hair, outfits and poses for such brands as Barbie, Masters of the Universe, WWE, Polly Pocket and beyond!
I’ve worked as a production designer on several short films including Neil Young’s “My Pledge” music video, Ember Knights “Uni the Space Elf”, and Derek QX’s “12,000 Parrots”. I’ve designed and fabricated props for “The Ember Knight Show” featured on Adult Swim Smalls, and collaborated with Vera Drew to design and fabricate a miniature set for “Hot Topics” as well as a puppet for her film “The People’s Joker”. Previously to focusing on Rectangles I’ve been part of several bands including Smiling Beth and Ember and His Orchestra.
It’s been my lifelong dream to focus on music and explain who I am on stage, and Rectangles has become my coming out show as a solo artist. I’ve spent a lot of time being the person polishing someone else’s dreams and I’ve loved it and learned a lot from it and with all that knowledge I’m now coming into my own and focusing on making Rectangles as devastating as ever.
HYPER FOR RECTANGLES
Learn More at linktr.ee/MaddieMutations
