Who would be crazy enough to attempt an evening of singing Joni Mitchell songs in her own hometown? Especially when you consider that unmistakable voice and the near impossibility of reproducing it, along with her unique, dare one say difficult, vocal phrasing, and all those unresolved chords? Who?

Well, 11 women backed by a four-piece band at Greystone Theatre on the U of S Campus have not only attempted the daunting task in Joni Mitchell's Songs of a Prairie Girl, but have done a remarkable job of making Mitchell's music, art, and life get right up and dance before our eyes. And ears.

Against the backdrop of a huge, wooden picture frame on which will be projected images of Mitchell at various ages, along with many examples of her visual art, veteran Saskatoon singer Vesti Hanson strolls onto stage wearing a straw hat, smoking a cigarette, and reciting lines from A Case of You. Relax, anti-smoking types: it's a herbal cigarette and she smokes only one.

Hanson, mimicking a painter at work, is the contemporary Joni Mitchell -- middle-aged, her singing career largely behind her, engrossed in her painting, and in watching various aspects of her younger selves singing, dancing, and telling their stories around her. These younger selves are portrayed by the 10 young women who accompany Hanson onto stage. Of course, we do a quick inventory to see if any of them look like Joni, and there are a few points of comparison, but thankfully, mercifully, no one tries to BE Joni. We can thank director Jim Guedo for that.

These young women, mostly self-possessed and alive with the joy of singing good songs and being part of a grand show, bring to the Joni Mitchell story shavings and nuances of a remarkable life and of an exemplary career.

There's Janessa Johnsrude, in kick pleat skirt and long blond hair, bringing a bluesy edge to an early-20ish Joni, and Caitlin Vancoughnett in vaguely First Nations garb and long dark hair sounding a bit like Joan Baez as she hits some crystalline high notes. There's also stellar singer Jacklyn Green in her boots and poncho throwing in some marvellous vocal fills on Dreamland before blasting through Don Juan's Reckless Daughter with its breathtaking phrasing.

These are just three shadings of the kaleidoscopic Mitchell, augmented by the black beret artiste, the '50s juke box jiver, and the elegant woman in the evening gown, watched over by the mature Mitchell. Hanson, who plays a Mitchell observing all the turnings of her younger selves with a bemused and benevolent eye, saves her songs for the end: Facelift, Stay in Touch, and Come In From The Cold.

The band, led by Angie Tysseland, is good, the songs are great, and the performance is spirited, loving, and respectful without being reverential. Joni Mitchell's Songs of a Prairie Girl runs till Dec. 3 at the Emrys Jones Theatre.