The Blue Man Group

Blue Man Group is all about answering the question, "What would happen if...?" What would happen if you played pipes like instruments? What would happen if you drummed through lakes of paint? What would happen if you brought an audience member onstage and didn't speak a word but instead sat down to eat a Twinkie with a knife and fork with her?

The answers are: great music, a sight to behold and she would sit down right next to you and enjoy her Twinkie, knife and fork in hand -- and they all came to light at the Winspear Opera House this week in Dallas, Texas.

When the show was founded in the '80s it was the kind of avant garde, arsty shenanigans that raised eyebrows and surprised even the most worldly audiences. Not to devalue it in any way, but these days, it's more for the suburban set, like "baby's first rave," if you will.

So if you're a theater regular who is no stranger to the odd or the experimental when it comes to all things art, Blue Man Group might be pass�. But for people who don't have the pleasure of being immersed in all things wild and weird, this is just the show for bringing the strange into focus.

The show is three men, painted blue, who don't speak for the entire length of the peformance. They catch paint-filled balls in their mouths and with them create art; they play plastic pipes and with them create music; they bang on drums that aren't drums and with them create rhythm. They use their faces like the instruments that they are and they integrate video and sound and light and an onstage band in such a way to make them as much "cast members" as the men in blue themselves.

It is a romp, a frolic, a study in all things technology and people and connective and artistic.

Though their methods might not be as outlandish as they once were, their message is still a lovely one: We're all connected. We all long to be part of the tribe. There's nothing like laughing and dancing and playing and making art together to bring people together.

It's hard not to smile when the audience reads aloud from the scrolling text as instructed or tosses the massive air filled balls through the enormous hall or all stand to dance together. And it's impossible not to join in. Why be a wallflower be when there's a parade poised to otherwise pass you by?

You can feel people's bodies and minds remembering joy and connection and being silly for silly's sake. Funny how profound the least profound-seeming things can be these days in our over-rushed, over-isolated, over-stimulated world. The smile is sacred and it feels almost subversive to share in it.

We have seen and done and tried and tasted it all. So somehow, men with faces painted of the brightest blue making faces at our faces inspires a bit of wonder that we're missing, that we need, that, yes, we all long for.

Blue Man Group is the silly take on how silly we have gotten in a world that is too much with us. It's the perfect event for putting down your mobile phone, kicking up your dancing shoes and saying yes to laughing out loud and remembering what it is to be a part of this race that was intended to be human first, foremost and forever.

"Blue Man Group" runs through Jan. 4 at the Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora Street in Dallas. For tickets or information, call 214-880-0202 or visit http://www.attpac.org.