Burlesque Appreciation Month 2022

"Mickey Mousing"is a technique used in film and television, especially early cartoons, in which music is timed directly to the action on screen, and where sound effects can lend a powerful underscore to exaggerate specific actions. Let's say a cartoon wolf in a zoot suit is walking down the street to some swingin' beats, twirling a stylish walking stick in time to a jazzy tempo. Then a sexy lady crosses the street in front of him, his eyes telescope out of his skull, and a distinctive foghorn "Ah-ooo-GAH" emanates from somewhere unseen. That's all Mickey Mousing. The wild, wild Freya West utilizes this concept beautifully in her typewriter act, with shimmies and shakes perfectly considered and synchronized to mimic the actions of the machines most of us were forced to utilize for a semester of high school home economics classes. The number is spry, it's whimsical, and all-around it's a breath of fresh air in a show. The service bell delightfully ...

  I've stated more than once in these mini-essays that my taste tends to run to neo burlesque. It's just the way I'm wired. But sometimes a classic act comes along and absolutely entrances me.  Since I'm writing about it, Sydni Devereaux's "Gold Beads" routine is obviously one of them. I'll once again note the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend stage itself. The Orleans Casino showroom is where I saw this act, and that stage is HUGE, easily the biggest platform on which I've seen burlesque. I've heard performers discuss how it can swallow up even the most seasoned dancers who aren't used to its dimensions.  I don't believe it's possible for a stage to minimize Sydni's charisma, especially with an act this shiny and radiant. Sydni has loads of stage presence, and in "Gold Beads" she knows when to take her time and when to move.  She sells moments of both motion and pause with ease. And THAT COSTUME.  It's simple in conc...

Lady Lola LeStrange - Best Debut 2019 from Burlesque Hall of Fame on Vimeo . Here's another example of a mostly classic number, and I love it for a lot of reasons, mainly because of the performer bringing it to the stage. Every burlesque fan has a list of performers who could sit quietly on the stage for five minutes and we'd eat it up, and Lola LeStrange is part of that subset for me. The first time I saw Lola perform was in an improvisational burlesque show elimination-style competition where the performers may have known a couple of general themes, but had no idea what their specific music might be, couldn't repeat costumes from round to round, and might even have to team up to perform a duet in the event of a tie. It's fun for an audience and a decided challenge for a performer. Lola MURDERED IT DEAD and basically won in the semifinals. I was smitten immediately. Lola's costume in "Cheesecake"is a striking pink and blue. I rarely have strong notes o...

  If you want a showstopper, ask Lola LeSoleil to perform one of her numbers where she enters from the audience. It's kind of her trademark. "Foxy Leia" is probably her most-requested act, and you can see why.  She displays innate patience and confidence, knowing she can hold an audience's attention even if she's not on the stage to start the act. There's a sense of mystery, even confusion, as "Who's That Lady" begins and there's no performer to be seen. Eyes begin to track her, people tap each other on the shoulder and gesture to a point somewhere behind them and the whole room turns to follow as she finishes that deliberate entrance. Then she saunters onstage and the Hendrix starts and it doesn't matter if Princess Leia Organa is white, black, Asian, Gungan or even Wookie. It only matters that she's the baddest woman in the room, which Lola herself is with great frequency. I met Lola in line for a burlesque show before she was ever ...

Even though burlesque is an art undergoing constant reinterpretation in its modern era, it will never escape its roots from what is considered its "classic" age. And though she was more of a pin-up model than a burlesque performer, Bettie Page's appearances in iconic burlesque reels in her heyday make her a perpetually looming presence over the entire community.  Black Mariah's "Bettie In A Box" tribute number is just a helluva lot of fun, and revisits some costumes and poses from some of Bettie's best-known photographs and films.  First is a nurse, then a devil girl, then a fetish queen brandishing a riding crop. The different looks are all entertaining and certainly prime an audience to wonder what's next, and how many costume changes/kink activators they might be able to witness, but one moment takes this act from "Cool!"to "Holy shit!" with a quickness. When Mariah burns herself out of that devil girl corset, I lit up like the...

Jeez Loueez from Burlesque Hall of Fame on Vimeo . There are performers who need all day to visualize and run through their act in their head before they manifest it on stage. There are performers who rigidly choreograph every breath and bead of sweat they'll be bringing to an audience. I'm not saying Jeezy ISN'T one of those performers, but there's a special subset of burlesque dancers who a producer could call ten minutes before a show, beg them to come out because someone cancelled, tell them their music has already been locked because of the show's theme, and they'd still manage to be the most memorable performer that night under those terrible conditions. The Honey Badger of Burlesque is on that short list. There is a very specific reason I love this act. It's a classic number with some Jeezy spice sprinkled on it, which is charming and cool any way you slice it. Also,that multi-hued boa is amazing. She's competing for Miss Exotic World, which is...

Faye Havoc & Donna Boss Rogers - WINNER, Most Comedic - 29th from Burlesque Hall of Fame on Vimeo . Where do I start with A Pantomime Horse? I'll begin with the end. The end of this thing is so memorably, twistedly absurd that it almost makes you forget what led up to it, which is itself so absurd that saying something could overpower its absurdity would have been scoffed at 3 minutes before it actually happened. This act is scored by "Goodbye Horses" by Q. Lazzarus, a song so indelibly linked to a moment in cinema that I would argue few know of it outside the context of Buffalo Bill's dance.  When the titular horse prances onstage, I kept waiting for something completely different than I was seeing to occur, and in anticipating, two things happened. One: I didn't quite register how smooth and well-considered the horse trainers, Faye Havoc and Donna Boss Rogers, choreographed and executed moves with the implicit question, "What would burlesque performe...

Imogen Kelly - 2019 Icons & All-Stars Showcase from Burlesque Hall of Fame on Vimeo . I've been attending burlesque shows for a few minutes now, and, admittedly, I get certain notions in my head and make generalizations from time to time. When I attended BHoF Weekend 2019, that thing was "costumes don't really matter so much, it's just about THE PERFORMANCE!"  While I'd still rather see a dynamite act with an OK costume than a mindblowing costume with little action to support it, sometimes, the costume is so inherent to the act that they cannot be separated. Simply put, I've never seen more thought and consideration go into a costume than in Imogen Kelly's tribute to the disappearing Great Barrier Reef in her native Australia. Of course, it requires a profound amount of skill to conceive, construct, and then manipulate this Russian Doll of a costume throughout its many incarnations, which is why the costume and the act are in many ways one and t...

A city that has something in the water and continually produces sublime burlesque talent is Vancouver, British Columbia.  Though Lola Frost has relocated, this act is still full of the sheer energy and sensuality I've come to rely on from those with Vancouver roots. "Cleo and Mummy" is another act I first encountered during my initial trip to Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend in 2012, and I admittedly have a special enthusiasm for many of the numbers I witnessed in those shows.  Lola and Cherry are a well-matched, well-rehearsed pair and clearly display loads of chemistry and trust when dancing together.  There is dynamic power exchange, an ebb and flow, driving the action in this number. Both performers claim moments for their characters individually, especially Lola in the act's intro, but this is very much about the duo. This act needs a big stage to properly hold it. There's so much energetic movement from Lola and Cherry, and those twisty moments of torque-fil...

I have attempted to move away from verbiage indicating that something is "the best" or "my favorite," because I have lived long enough to know that perspectives can change, tastes can evolve, and it's weird to compare one piece of performance art against another piece of performance art, even though we do it all the time. But internal edicts are made to be broken, so I'll state that this act by Knoxville, Tennessee's Salome Cabaret burlesque troupe is MY FAVORITE BURLESQUE GROUP ACT.  I've seen it in different venues in different states with different combinations of performers, sometimes in its original incarnation with only four dancers, sometimes with an expanded roster of eight. Most everyone in the troupe has learned at least part of Pure Imagination's choreography at some point and have at the very least rehearsed it extensively. They could probably run one with sixteen or twenty people if they could find a stage big enough to hold it. Why ...

Laurie Hagen - 2019 Icons & All-Stars Showcase from Burlesque Hall of Fame on Vimeo . If there were a Rotten Tomatoes for burlesque acts, Laurie Hagen's Reverse Strip might be closer to achieving a 100% positive rating than any other single contemporary number.  I've spoken to several performers, not just fans, PERFORMERS, who mark this as their favorite act. I've seen it twice in person, and I may have been even more thrilled the second time I saw it because I knew how good it was going to be. There was no surprise, just sheer excitement that I was witnessing a master at work. A reverse strip is somewhat common in burlesque, and it's exactly what it seems. Instead of starting an act with clothing on and removing it throughout the course of the number, the performer of a reverse strip instead begins with their clothing off and puts it on during the act. Pretty simple, really, and most often there's a story or character bit which motivates this opposite action...

  A lot of performers pride themselves on being a little bit country and a little bit rock n' roll, with influences equally split between classic burlesque and the neo burlesque movement. A thoughtful performer can walk the tightrope between the two, mixing and matching to achieve their desired result. Ruby Joule is chief among them. Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957) was an Italian heiress and patron who not only fostered the arts around her, but chose to live her life, and spend her fortune, toward the principle that she herself was a dynamic canvas, and she lived her entire life attempting to live up to that edict. I've seen several burlesque acts utilizing the "art comes alive" trope, but Casati is an especially apropos subject for this sort of musing. Ruby doesn't often travel with this act, because the signature frame is too big to easily transport, so you'll most likely need to see The Gem You'd Love To Polish in her home state of Texas to enjoy it. ...

First off, I should begin by stating that I'm not a viewer of Doctor Who. Nothing against it, I suspect I'd enjoy it, but my compulsions as a completist would have me starting a watch with the origins of the show in 1963, and ain't nobody got time for that. That said, the iconography of the show and its ability to continually and periodically reinvent its main character with new lead actors is something with which I'm quite familiar as a geek, in general.  Everyone has a favorite incarnation of the Doctor, and every actor cast in the role has a different interpretation, lending color and shape to the ongoing narrative and disallowing the show from growing too stale at any given time. So what if you could have a bunch of versions of the Doctor on stage one after the other? I imagine a Doctor Who fan would love that very much, and the reactions in this video prove that point. Utilizing some quick change trickery common in stage magic and some thoughtful costuming on top, ...

  If you've read many of these mini-essays so far, you can likely tell that my preferences for acts skew to those that have a storytelling element or some high-concept character work. It's thrilling to watch a perfomer stunting, but for me, a truly successful burlesque act requires that arc, no matter how simple it might be. I believe the concept for this act is "We're Gal Friday and Peekaboo Pointe, two of the greatest burlesque performers in New York City and, therefore the world, and we can expertly twirl any damn thing we put on our bodies, in any position our bodies may be in, so let's have a duel doing just that!"  I could be paraphrasing, but I suspect that's exactly the quote. I happened to be present for the performance captured in the accompanying video, and it can't do justice to the sheer electricity this number brought to the room.  I continue to be amazed at the skill and stamina Gal and Peekaboo exhibit here, because flawlessly twirling ...

Roxi D'Lite Moonlight Cyrenade from Roxi D'Lite on Vimeo . Just a note before I get into the meat of this mini-essay. The video presented above will give you a taste of this amazing act, but because of YouTube "Mature Content" regulations and file size limits on this blog account, I have to direct you here to see a version of it from top to bottom. Now that that's out of the way , I've never been less than thrilled watching Roxi D'Lite perform, and when she broke out a Cyr Wheel on stage I was THE MOST thrilled. It was actually the first time I recall ever seeing a Cyr Wheel in the first place, and I've since seen it more frequently on burlesque stages as sideshow and fringe art practitioners become more common there. So this number was an educational gateway for me on top of everything else. If a burlesque act is a totality of various elements, costume, music, movement, pose, playing to a crowd and building drama to an apex, Roxi's routines ar...

Zilly Lilly - 2019 Movers Shakers & Innovators Showcase from Burlesque Hall of Fame on Vimeo .  Most fairy tales are stories ostensibly geared to children but which contain themes and ideas that adults can unpack all day. The psychosexual content of "Beauty and the Beast" is perhaps the most obvious example, and Zilly Lilly unites the iconography of the ever-popular Disney interpretation with the more-overt Freudian subtext of the Moliere version and brings it home with the most delightful cover of "Closer" you're ever likely to hear. Zilly Lilly is so expressive and joyful that you are immediately sold on Disney Belle(tm) as she skips onstage to "Something There." It's a lovely deception...maybe this will be be a demure striptease on the modest side of things.  Then the instantly-identifiable opening notes of every stripper's favorite Nine Inch Nails song hit, and you know that demure this will not be. The masterstroke here is the vocal...

  I love Redbone. I've seen her in as many festivals around the country as any other performer in the game, and she simply never disappoints or phones it in. This bit of sheer silliness begins as a classic slow burn to some Bootsy Collins, and Redbone sells it as such. You know you're going to get a reveal, because it's right there center stage, but she doesn't have a tell that this is going to be a comedy piece centered around a lyrical disambiguation and a giant carton of everyone's favorite chocolateish beverage.  That misdirection is as good as anything David Copperfield has ever conjured. Redbone is such a good dancer her smoothness on stage is another fantastic bit of "Look over there!" because that assured strutting devolves into a nasty cyclone of bouncing, crushing and throating at the end of the act.  It's just delightful how this lovely, controlled piece of work goes off the rails and becomes a sloppy mess in the best possible way. I stated ...

  My first Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender was 2012, and I admittedly have a nostalgic soft spot for acts I saw for the first time at that life-changing event.  This was one of those acts. I barely knew anyone that first year and am not always the most bold, social person, regardless, but I felt compelled to track down Kitty in the post-show scrum and tell her how much I enjoyed it.  I believe it was the first time I had seen a burlesque number in which the dancer went en pointe .  I don't know why that surprised and delighted me, but it did. And that trash can prop! I was convinced that it was cleverly designed with some sort of seat attached inside and carefully outfitted with counterweights, and the cost to ship it from London, where Kitty is based, had to be prohibitive.  But no, she bought the trash can/wheelie bin at a Home Depot near The Orleans Casino, threw glue and glitter on it, and just climbed in with a banana peel to await her "Pink Panther" music...

Bunny Wigglebottom "Motivational Stripper" performed at The 2018 Savannah Burlesque Festival from Bunny Wigglebottom on Vimeo . I'm likely biased on this one, but I've been fortunate enough to see it every time Bunny has performed it, and it's the kind of act that other performers in the show leave the dressing room to see. When she did it at the Toronto Burlesque Festival, I had a partial view backstage, and it seemed like half the cast of that night's show were gathered to watch this absolutely absurd fantasia. When she did it at Atlanta's City Winery, the show's host left backstage and came out into the audience to see it. It's just stupid in the best way, and the music absolutely works, from the bombastic beats of "Check It Out" which approximate Matt Foley's manic, herky-jerky motion to the song that was required by a Barney The Chippendale Dancer tribute, "Working For The Weekend."  The audience members that have se...