Without a word to the spacy audience of rave-types gathered at the Dream Theater, a funky little venue in the Los Feliz section of L.A., Blue Girl slices into a tune on her electric blue violin, backed by a handful of musicians offstage and accompanying herself on some sort of high-tech sampling device. It becomes quickly apparent that she's not just another pretty pair of nay-nays -- her trippy electronica sounds intriguing. And from time to time, she bursts into some vocal warbling that's part Diamanda Galas, part Björk and part baby whale screechings.

The Burning Bushes, Blue Girl's troupe of fellow goddesses, whirl dervish-like about onstage, writhing in ecstasy as if engaged in some ancient bacchanalian rite. Each of the partially nude women has her own persona: an orange-tinted bellydancer named Hathor the Sex Goddess, a red-clad warrior called Kali-Ma the Destroyer who twirls fire and battles an opponent with broadswords. The pageant calls to mind a smaller, more erotic Cirque de Soleil, one that's gynocentric and proud of it.

Of course, this being L.A., there are more naked performance artists in the city than you can shake an M.F.A. degree at. But Blue Girl may be one of the few with the potential to garner fame on a national level without sticking a tuber up her butt, a la Karen Finley. Why, you ask? If you've seen one naked blue chick, you've seen 'em all, right? Well, at least this one has some talent. And being attractive doesn't hurt either.

Blue Girl does something most performance artists scoff at: entertain. The twentysomething Colorado native who keeps her actual name a mystery may have something significant to say about "awakening the goddess within," human evolution and all that jazz, but it's her ability to produce, direct and star in a performance art spectacle that sets her apart.

At the center of it all is this superheroine "Blue Girl," painted blue from head to toe. What's the deal with this character and what does she have to do with the actress who plays her? That's exactly what I want to find out from lunch with Blue Girl at a vegetarian-Indian joint called Paru's on Sunset Boulevard, a few blocks west of the Church of Scientology Headquarters and a few blocks east of the largest strip club in the city.

Blue Girl, or rather the actress who "channels" her, takes a break from her day job doing female voices for Comedy Central's "South Park." She races to the interview on a black motorcycle she says she engineered from the leftovers of a Harley and a Honda Rebel.

Wearing short shorts, combat boots and a skimpy halter top that reveals plenty of epidermis, only her blue hair hints at her alter ego. Soon Blue Girl's telling me all about her origins. Occasionally she pauses for a Shirley MacLaine moment, drawing the Blue One out of her shell to answer a question only she would know.

"I have no idea when Blue Girl takes over," she explains. "Like, right now I'm kind of her booking manager, organizing the show and planning dates, but I only find out about her performance afterwards."

Blue Girl is a "goddess from the 16th dimension," she tells me, who possesses her body and uses her natural talents to her own ends. Blue Girl's initial manifestation was at Burning Man in 1994. Since then, she's made appearances in Portland, Ore., and in various venues in L.A., like the Dream Theater, the Roxy and the El Rey, her fan base expanding with each performance. There's been so much interest lately that Blue Girl's had to get her own publicist. Could "The Tonight Show" be next? Maybe if she dons her blue jumpsuit, which she does occasionally when a club's liquor license excludes the possibility of nudity.

"Basically, everyone's born naked, right?" asks the diva. "I mean, somebody had to tell Blue Girl to put her clothes on. It would never even occur to her that someone would need to cover their nipples, and Blue Girl is totally against pasties. If you cover up her nipples, she might as well be fully clothed."

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