Part queer courting ritual - Part disappearing act, Plue is a playful examination of queer visibility and intimacy.

"It’s like we move through our lives like little ghosts really. We are there, people can see us, but we don’t have the clear features of ourselves for everybody to see." - Plue interviewee, 2020.

Photography by Beliza Buzollo - @queergarden

Plue is a queer disappearing act, a mesmerisring new dance performance that invites people to reflect on and discuss the fluctuating degrees LGBTQIA+ people feel seen and pressured to camouflage.

Plue (2020-onward) was spurred on by Eli and Joe’s pandemic experience as a queer/non-binary couple living in rural Somerset. Isolated from their city-dwelling queer community, they were uncomfortable with how easily their queerness/transness was obscured in our new home. It seemed they camouflaged without wanting or trying to.

Plue inspects this queer- cloaking device. Eli and Joe are interested in the nuanced ways queer people signal and/or reveal their queerness to different people in different situations, how you can feel seen or invisible depending on who is in the room with you, and queerness’ mischievous propensity to expand beyond the parameters it’s given and spill out in to view.
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Joe + Eli

Eli Lewis // Artist Profile

Currently associate artist at The Place, Eli Lewis (they/them) is a queer, neurodivergent performance artist, who has been creating award-winning performance since 2017. Their practice is based in Somerset, collaborating with rural communities in the southwest. The work Eli makes playfully straddles minimalist dance, live art & installation, and happens in mid-scale dance theaters, art galleries, studios, village halls, community centers and online research hubs. Eli is interested in how people hold and process risk, occupying precarious spaces, and re-finding agency and playfulness within states of ‘not knowing’. They use innovative design elements and large pieces of precariously balanced set design to examine where precarity intersects with themes of queerness, ecology and collapse. 

Eli has a significant track record of support, funding and reputation. They received DanceXchange’s Choreography Award (2020) and Artsadmin’s BANNER Award (2017). Eli’s work TIMBER (2017-present) was commissioned by The Place and received ACE funding in 2021. TIMBER is a suspenseful balancing act about managing risk and re-finding agency within precarious situations. It premiered at The Place (2021) and had performances at Brighton Festival (2022). Eli’s first dance work, Orchard (2017-2019) playfully tests people’s attitudes toward risk and explores the sensitivity it takes to navigate delicate ecologies. Following ACE funding and a UK tour, Orchard was selected for Aerowaves Twenty19 and performed internationally at Baluarte Spain, MAC VAL France and BORA BORA Denmark (all 2019). Praise for Orchard includes- ‘Mesmerizing and nerve-wracking.’ Niel Norman, The Stage for Resolution Review, and ‘Orchard eases those who are willing into a state of deep reflection about the unforeseen implications of our choices’ Jordi Thunnissen, SpringBack Magazine. 

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Joe Garbett // Artist Profile

Joe Garbett (he/him) is a queer, neurodivergent choreographer, who has been making and touring dance internationally since 2013. Joe makes dance that queers everyday spaces and spills out onto the streets in cartoonish bursts of colour. As well as in mid-scale theaters, his performance work happens in public and unusual places like- rural village halls, town squares, school halls, town greens, community halls, pubs, clubs and car parks - bringing bursts of energetic dance directly to the public. Joe creates performance that playfully queers and transforms everyday interactions and space, encouraging people to look at the world with fresh eyes. His practice aims to bring communities together in play, silliness and creative exchange, and he is committed to making dance accessible and enjoyable to all.

Based in the southwest, Joe runs two dance companies, Joe Garbett Dance and aKa Dance Theatre, the latter of which has been resident company at Tacchi Morris Arts Centre, Taunton, since 2014. Joe has created eight ACE funded projects and has toured multiple works nationally. He has presented his work at The Royal Opera House (Get Lost) National Theatre, Shanghai Opera House, GDIF (all performances of Doubles) and Rural Touring Initiative venues (Doubles, Plue, Get Lost, A Real Fiction, Number 13). Joe’s work, Doubles, (2016 – present) a “gameful mashup of dance and table tennis” (Sanjoy Roy, 4 star review from The Guardian) had a 32 date national tour in 2019 and went on to tour China.

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Eli Lewis + Joe Garbett // Plue Collaboration Profile

Eli and Joe are a queer couple. Plue is their first collaboration. Having practices that occupy very different corners of the contemporary dance world, at first their collaboration seemed like an unlikely one - a queer little experiment born from necessity, at a pandemic time when people weren't allowed to touch/move/dance with anyone outside their household. Through Plue, Eli and Joe have managed to joyously splice together their very different ways of thinking, creating and moving to make Plue - a piece of queer, genre-defying performance that embraces and expands on the full complexity of both their practices. 

The practice Eli and Joe have come together to create is inclusive, care-centered and champions diversity. As queer kids who grew up in rural communities under section 28, they are committed to using Plue’s engagement to uplift rural queer communities & provide queer-led spaces that connect isolated queer people in creative exchange and queer/trans joy. 

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Production credits

Creators & Performers // Elinor Lewis & Joe Garbett

Costume Maker // Chloe Mead

Illusion Direction // Neil Kelso

Choreographic Support // Natifah White

Photographer & Videographer // Beliza Buzollo 

Producer // Alison Thomas

Supported by

Arts Council England, The Place, PDSW, South East Dance, Artsadmin, Fabric, Taunton Pride, Off The Record Bristol, Diversity Trust Alphabets Youth Project,  2BU, Somerset Lesbian Network and Qart.

Past public Performances

May 2022, Hatch Beauchamp Village Hall

Dec 2020, Livestreamed performance from Artsadmin