Gal Friday & Peekaboo Pointe - Twirl-Off

 
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 tassels for even a short time is not an easy task, and these performers twirl multiple tassels (including assels!) for five minutes with very few breaks in the action. Sure, some of the assels get popped midway through, but all I remembered about this years later was how much sheer fun it was to watch, assel malfuntion or no assel malfunction.

Sometimes I overthink this stuff, and sometimes I just give in to the joy. This act is pure joy.

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