BoyfriendRobotique are a queer avant garde performance troupe based between San Francisco and London. Though they have existed for less than five years they have exerted major influence on performance art appearing twice in the noted art's review PS I LOVE YOU magazine. They have appeared onstage across the America's Pacific Northwest, in London and Paris with plans for New York and the East Coast of America forthcoming. Their major contribution has been to bring performance art out of the elitism of galleries and away from the celebritification of night clubs, back into theatres.

Formation and Early Work

Founding members Jean-Paul Tartre and Simone de Boudoir (a.k.a La JohnJoseph) first met at UC Berkeley and were inspired to perform as an antidote to what they considered a very stagnant contemporary queer art scene. The first performance recorded was at UC Berkeley's annual "Big Queer Event" where Tartre and de Boudoir stormed the stage with six backing dancers to present a mix of voguing, stripping and posing. The three minute show saw the cross-dressed lead performers undress to reveal ambiguously bond bodies and then re-dress in each other's clothes. This performance made the cover of The Daily Cal and solidified the group's ambitions.

BoyfriendRobotique expanded to five members with the inclusion of Renee Deadheart, Manual Kunt and Michel? Fuck No! in 2005 to perform a 45 minute special in Berkeley, CA. This show was a vaudeville presentation of song, dance, poetry and prose juxtaposing the pretentions of the rareified art world with a shoddy cardboard aesthetic which derided itself. Fundamentally self-reflexive, the show was written to undermine every element of 'a good show'. Said de Boudoir; "In an age of the banal when all real talent is misunderstood or worse ignored in favour of the comfortable and the trite, the only way to suceed is to circumnavigate the medicore completely and present the worst show in the world." To this extend BoyfriendRobotique costumed themselves entirely in found clothing, ignoring every rule of professionalism and technical savvy, and contrived to make a show that would provoke and audience to tears. The show contained a scream-a-long version of the Disney classic You Can Learn A Lot Of Things From The Flowers and the insertion of a banana into Fuck No!'s backside by Kunt. With this show the group toured the West Coast of America culminating in their expulsion from Canada on the grounds of lewd behaviour. After this set back the group looked likely to disband and did not play another show for six months.

When they re-surfaced it was in Paris with a new line up comprising of de Boudoir, Rebekah Formica (a friend of both Tartre and de Boudoir) and the Duchess of Wesham. In Paris they were part of Fashion Week and performed at the legendary gay dance hall, Le Tango, debuting an entirely new show which was their first of two play like works. Red Heads of History Solve A Murder Mystery told the fictional story of Margaret Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth the first and Angela Lansbury caught up in the killing of Roderick P. Bruce, and transferred to London after its run in Paris. In London the cast expanded again to incorporate Anna-ky Panky, Harpischord Holdsworth, Nell Grinn and Carte Blanche, with celebrity cameos from stars of London's club/performance scene such as Xavior, Ms Timbalina, Hazel Bankworth and Lawrence Gullo. When Red Heads ran its course the group debuted I'm The Famous One In THIS Relationship in which they spoofed the bird flu health crisis by evoking a widespread panic over Liza Minnelli influenza.

Return to California

After a hiatus of over a year BoyfriendRobotique returned to performing in California. Tartre, de Boudoir, Kunt and Fuck No! (now performing under the name Ginger St. Beau) from the earlier line up joined with Rebekah Formica to present new work. The group began working with Bay Area artist Stevie Hanley on stage designs and also hired the former Stevie Nicks crew member Nickory Hamilton as their stage manager. Complete and excited about their reformation, BoyfriendRobotique appeared at the opening of The Market of Vain Desires (August 2006), a series of salons hosted by Rumi Missabu of Les Cockettes. The new material presented had moved on from the play like works shown in Europe and back to the original vaudeville like shows of the first American tour, only now the group had matured. The cardboard and the chaos remained but the intention was to now create images of real beauty from amongst the horror.

Influences

As their names suggest, Tartre and de Boudoir were inspired early on by the phenomenological writers Simone de Beavoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Their first shows were based on concepts and performances of gender as discussed by the mid-Century existentialists, fused with an outre combination of costumes and a bawdy sense of humour which led the cultural commentator Jeffrey Allan Balls to label the group, "the sprawling aesthetic of trash". Dadaism is also a strong influence on the group, they site situationalism as a key reference point alongside early American performance artists such as Carolee Schneeman. The infamous San Francisco "gender fuck" troupe Les Cockettes are another obvious influence on BoyfriendRobotique, with both sets of performers embracing a simultaneous love of cardboard and high glamour. Also of note is the troupe's mixed and highly aesthetic religious background; Catholicism and Judaism has heavily influenced their theatrics. The group are noted for their use of found materials in their shows, incorporating everything from reclaimed chandeliers to recycled underwear. This fits with their ecological and environmental mission statement and their love of the near past.

Members

The line up changes with some frequency, however there follows a complete list of performers who have appeared with BoyfriendRobotique thus far:

Simone de Boudoir (a.k.a La JohnJoseph)
Jean-Paul Tartre
Michel? Fuck No! (a.k.a Ginger St. Beau)
Manual Kunt
Renee Deadheart
Rebekah Formica
The Duchess of Wesham
The Duke of Wesham
Bermudez
Anna-ky Panky (a.k.a Anarchy Panky)
Harpsichord Holdsworth
Carte Blanche (a.k.a Celebrity Blonde)
Ms Timbalina
Lawrence Gullo
Nell Grinn
Xavior
Hazel Bankworth