Pagan Place @ Triple Door

Perhaps one of the best Burlesque shows to grace the Triple Door yet revealed itself last night. Paula, the Swedish Housewife, produced the show, based loosely on a Midsummer Night’s theme. However, the strength of the individual acts surpassed any lack of continuity. It is burlesque after all.

If you had to pick two acts that stood out, I would have to nominate Nanda, a four man dance/acrobatics troupe whose act consisted of fight choreography, acrobatics, juggling, obligatory striptease and some acting. It was both innovative and original. Nanda is a Japanese expletive used to comment on something surprising or outlandish. That barely sums up this act. Nanda are an explosion of energy, masculinity, sensuality, and agility, who will continue to elicit short, sharp breaths from their audience for years to come.

Rounding off the show was local girl, Pantera. Most of the acts in burlesque try to disguise erogony as art, and succeed. Pantera achieved the opposite. Assisted by the type of metal pole more often seen in lap-dancing clubs, Pantera performed gravity-defying feats, with incredible agility, beauty and grace.

The other acts were more regular staples of Seattle’s burgeoning burlesque scene. Lily Verlaine performed the Cleopatra act but it was noted that her two muses, who I last saw a while back, have worked at their craft and improved immensely. Lily looked totally comfortable and confident working with them, and credit must be given to them for their hard work they have put in. It has brought them results.

Ernie von Schmaltz was there, he’s always worth seeing though he was a little less outlandish than normal. Just as well for him, or the bachelorette party in front of us would have got out of control! But this guy at his raunchiest is always worth visiting a show for. Indigo Blue kicked off the show but as a true pro chose not to steal it and the show was humorously hosted by Scotty the Blue Bunny who just about kept a noisy and ebullient crowd at bay, although there were a couple of drunks who took it upon themselves to decide for us all they wanted an act to end early. True they paid their money, but so did everybody else whose choice they attempted to remove.

Burlesque returns to the Triple Door on August 1st, with Alice, Through the Looking Glass, where Lily Verlaine, Bunny Monroe, Miss Indigo Blue, Waxie Moon, The Swedish Housewife, Babette La Fave, Patty O' Furniture and Jasper McCann take on the roles of Carroll’s famous characters.
By Steve Clare of examiner.com

This is Burlesque Rocks NY!

Photo by C. Patrick Wade

Recently I had the pleasure of seeing This is Burlesque at Corio, NY. This is my experience...

In the Dim and Intimate setting at Corio, all eyes are already on the stage, so far empty except for the framed red velvet curtain.

Then the girls emerge and allow patrons to have photos taken with them prior to the show.

The menu? There is food, but I'm not much interested in eating. The Cocktails however, caught my eye. Drinks such as Gypsy Rose Lee, Tempest Storm and Satan’s Angels. And, of course, Champagne.

The crowd is about 50/50 in the gender department and tonight the club is hosts a very enthusiastic bucks night and a far more enthusiastic hens night!

Miss Exotic World Angie Pontani is the first act to emerge on stage. Looking very much Burlesque Queen wearing an amazing steel boned fishtail corset dress she wowed the crowd to almost silence. (With exception to the hoot or odd whistle.) She teased her way free of the corset dress to reveal pasties to die for, pink Swarovski crystals.

Between acts a Lil Miss Lixx playing the cheeky maid comes on stage to fetch the discarded clothes and has to bend over… bending over quite a lot actually “oops!”.

Next, PeekaBoo Pointe who is touted as “The fastest twirler from East to West!” gets her gear off faster than any other Burlesque show I’ve been too and reveals her talent of seriously fast twirling!

The next act features Helen Pontani who performed a seduction in an amazing Feathered skirt and tap danced all the way to a the splits. What can I say? The girls got talent!

Melody Sweets was amazing. She has the voice as well as the looks and performs a fan dance while she singing. Melody is clearly talent and manages to capture the very essence of heyday burlesque.

We were lucky enough to be there for Lil' Miss Lixx's 1st performance. After downing a few shots for courage she danced her way through a cute act with Maracas’. The patrons are then all invited to come on stage for their own round of shots. Mmm free shots.

Angie Pontani, Coney Island’s “Miss Cyclone” does an amazing dance to French music with ballerina theme and performs the entire act classicly on her toes.

At this point I've had a few drinks and I'm sure I'm enjoying myself too much and not taking notes on all of the performances, such as a can-can number and a finale featuring all of the girls, it's just too easy to get caught up in the fun :)

For a great night out in New York I highly recommend see This is Burlesque. You can order drinks from your table, they also have a well thought out menu with food available and in this amazing setting, adding its own touch of Glamour to the New York Burlesque Scene. So get in there Guys and Dolls, you’d be mad not to find out what all the fuss is about!

Checkout This is Burlesque
Web: http://www.thisisburlesque.com
Address: CORIO, 337 West Broadway at Grand Street, NYC (212) 966-3901

Here's a sneak peak of what you can expect:

Burlesque Hall of Fame Reunion Showcase

A sex-ified sextet of ladies in flapper-type, canary-yellow dresses and white go-go boots are spinning and stepping across The Orleans Showroom stage. Joining them, in what would be the first of many show-stopping moments over the next three or so hours, is a genuine legend in this forum: burlesque queen Viva La Fever. She gimme a fever, for sure. Viva coyly sneaks into the production, or pretends to, from the back of the stage. The audience goes wild. The dancers are the Devil-Ettes, which is why they also don yellow devil horns. Satan has never looked so frilly, or so silly.

Oh, yes: Viva La Fever is old enough to be your grandmother, or mother, or wife if you are in your mid-70s. That should be noted as she shakes her top and slaps those boots.

The chosen tune is the Elvis version of "Viva Las Vegas," and never were the words more appropriate than during the Burlesque Hall of Fame Reunion Showcase: "Bright lights city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire." The boots give a dull "thud" across the stage. Viva shimmies her shoulders and wheels around so her back is to the audience and, you know, jiggles that tush a little. Give 'em what they came for.

Afterward, the World Famous *BOB* (that is how she handles her first name, with the asterisks), donning a packed-tight sequined gown and unreal blond wig, says, "Don't you just love fringe? It's cheaper than dance lessons. You can cough in fringe and look sexy." The crowd, most of whom are dressed as elaborately as those onstage, clad lavish gowns and wigs and 4-inch eyelashes -- that goes for the women, too -- knowingly shouts back "Yeaaaah!"

Observing twilight-years dancers who, let's be honest, conjure a new fear of fallout, should not be so very entertaining. But it is. It's a Friday night in Vegas, and women decades younger filled of phony parts are performing stripteases at fancy clubs all over the city. But no one thrills in the act like those who made celebrating the human form famous, and the epicenter of the archaic art form is in Vegas as the Burlesque Hall of Fame relocated here a couple of years ago. Maybe it is true, today, as Famous *BOB* said, that "the difference between striptease and burlesque is strippers make money." The term "burlesque" is itself showing stretch marks, remade to mean any sort of tawdry entertainment, but what should be salvaged is that it is funny. It is a wildly fun and fun-loving experience. How can you not laugh, in a perplexed sort of way, as Burlesque Hall of Fame trailblazer Dixie Evans described the original Exotic World Burlesque Museum, famously built into Jennie and Charlie Lee's goat shed on a patch of desert between Vegas and L.A.:

"We hired a few Mexicans, who built a little stage. The Mexicans were great! They worked for two meals and a six pack a day! That was the going rate for Mexicans!" Not exactly a union project, no, and apologies to anyone of that culture and heritage in the audience.

There was so much to appreciate. Candy Caramello, a giant in the industry by any definition, ambled out in a spectacular silky white bustier and matching fur cape. Goosing the applause, she said. "Don't be afraid to give me the clap. I've had everything else." And, of her furry accessory, "Don't worry, animal lovers, it's fake. I had to fake it five times to get it!" And, I'll just offer this punch line to a really ribald offering, "Really? You've been eating the mattress for the past 10 minutes!" April March, Betty Rowland, Catherine D'Lish, Daisy Delight, Dee Milo, Dirty Martini, Doc and Stumpy, Dusty Summers, Gina Bon Bon, Holiday O'Hara, Immodesty Blaize, Wild Cherry, Linda Doll, La Savona, Sheila Rae, Tiffany Carty, Tony Midnight and Michelle L'Amour were among those invited to take part. L'Amour's performance was particularly remarkable: After her strip-down, which climaxed with her pinned to a heart-shaped mattress facing the audience as hands appeared from the affect to rub her shapely form with oil, she dried off to get married to a person announced as "Frankie." Michelle had a tough time making it through the vows, which included, "Marriage is not fun. If you want fun, buy a (bleeping) pony!"

Announced to the audience was Tempest Storm, and during the first (there were two) intermission, I introduced myself. I remembered seeing her perform in Lake Tahoe, at Harrah's, many years ago. I was sitting near the stage, and she snapped her boa in front of my face, the feathers just inches from my nose. She was a veritable rock star last night, forced to fend off dozens of fans, but I did ask her how she liked "Peepshow," the next-generation adult-humor show, at Planet Hollywood. "I loved it," she said. "What production value they have!" Sure, but sometimes all you need is your great gown, your catty wit, your shapely form … and maybe a boa.
by John Katsilometes of casinocitytimes.com

Masumi Max Pin-up Photos

Enjoy a couple of hot photos from Masumi Max's pin-up inspired photo shoot for Bizarre magazine:







Wow!

Review: Gypsy The Art of the Tease

The past few months have seen the publication of a biography of Gypsy Rose Lee, Stripping Gypsy, by Noralee Frankel, plus this cultural examination by American theatre academic Rachel Shteir. A TV biopic, starring Sigourney Weaver, is in the works.

Odd, this flurry of activity around a 1930s striptease and burlesque performer who died nearly 40 years ago leaving almost nothing behind except a name that still resonates, even if we're no longer quite sure why.

Odd, that is, unless we appreciate just how 21st century Gypsy Rose Lee was in her attitudes.

She was a tenacious businesswoman and a mistress of illusion and reinvention 60 years before the phenomenon of Madonna, Shteir points out. As someone who became enormously famous for doing almost nothing, she anticipated the stars of reality television. "Sometimes you have no specific talent," she cheerfully admitted towards the end of her life. "I have a talent for life, for living. Oh, I could have been a second-rate actress. Instead I've channelled my mediocrity."

The 1962 musical Gypsy, in which she was played by Natalie Wood, was based on Gypsy Lee's mythologised and revisionist memoirs and told the story of a monstrous stage mother, memorably played by Rosalind Russell, virtually forcing her shy teenage daughter to strip for a living in tatty burlesque theatres.

In reality, claims Shteir, the girl was only too compliant in the enterprise. American vaudeville was a brutal world, and performers did whatever it took to claw their way up the ladder and establish a niche. George Burns, a near-contemporary, once said of his early days: "I did anything to stay in show business. If I had to be a single, I'd do a single. If I had to do a two-act, I'd do a two- act. If I had to work with a seal, I'd work with a seal. I wanted to stay in the business."

And streetwise Gypsy Rose, whose true gift was for survival, stayed in the business by stripping, the first such performer to become a household name. By all accounts it was very decorous, leaving much to the audience's fevered collective imagination, with an emphasis on suggestion, banter and charm rather than the exposure of flesh.

The only clip of her work that seems to have survived, from Stagedoor Canteen(1943) - you can find it on YouTube - shows a studiedly inoffensive version of an act that, even in its original form, was more tease than strip.

Still, for America in the 1930s, Gypsy Rose embodied what Camille Paglia referred to as "the sizzle of outlaw sexuality".

This smart and courageous woman single-handedly made striptease - once seen only in brothels and the lowest kind of theatrical dive - more or less respectable.

She made it possible for women to strip on television and in nightclubs without being arrested, yet you might well ask, as the author does, what kind of accomplishment is that?

By the time her physical allure began to fade she had already branded herself in the nation's consciousness and went on to host her own television show, a much-loved relic of an imagined naughtier age. She wrote novels and plays, and was said to enjoy reading Proust.

Rachel Shteir, burrowing industriously away through her subject's inventions, evasions and downright lies - one colleague said Gypsy Rose was "allergic to the truth" - cannot credibly claim her for feminism, "although to my mind she anticipates Gloria Steinem".

The book has a slightly apologetic and ambivalent edge and the somewhat scrappy text occasionally has the quality of notes for a work-in-progress.
By Stephen Dixon



More Gypsy Rose Lee Items

Comedy + Burlesque = Live Nude Comedy

Actress Shannon Elizabeth has thrown her hat into the stand-up comedy ring by way of hosting a novel comedy special: Live Nude Comedy will air on Showtime July 16. Unlike any comedy special built for mass consumption, Live Nude Comedy features some of the country’s biggest up and coming stand-ups as well as lots of sexy burlesque dancers.

Executive producer, actress and stand-up comedian Whitney Cummings thought it was an excellent opportunity to see comedians air out and do their edgier material in a well-produced special.

“I know so many amazing comics who can’t showcase their real voice because TV shows play it safe,” Cummings tells Punchline Magazine. “There’s so much censorship and Standards & Practices is a nightmare. But nothing was off limits on this show and it gave comics a chance to show off their edgier material and really let loose on taboo topics.”

Comedians featured on the special are: Ian Edwards, Steve Byrne, Sam Tripoli, K.T. Tatara, Harris Wittles, Mike Young, Tig Notaro, Chris D’Elia, Mike Faverman, Michael Kosta, Andy Dick and Cummings.

Buy why the burlesque dancers?

“We wanted a gritty, vaudeville feel; the burlesque dancers complement the stand-up by giving the audience time to breathe between comics. A lot of the burlesque is funny, instead of just sexy; it has a fun vibe instead of a dirty vibe.”

Comedy sketches featuring the likes of Josh Fadem and Michael Busch will open the show. “It just really feels like a celebration of comedy more than anything else,” says Cummings. Check out the show teaser below. Enjoy!

Burlesque Bio: Beatrix Von Bourbon

Beatrix Von Bourbon - The Captivating Rebel

Juxtaposing bad girl beauty with a sensitive soul, Beatrix Von Bourbon is an incomparable burlesque performer. A tattooed philosopher and crystal-encrusted dream-weaver, her acts have graced distinguished, international stages. Simultaneously vogue and timeless she is an award winning performer and pin-up model, sought-after by a wide range of clients (see Performance Experience).

"Star attraction" - News of The World

Beatrix plays with the burlesque genre, drawing inspiration from popular culture, classic love stories, contemporary technology and fairytale imagery to create inventive, modern entertainment. Her colourful acts drip with charisma and charm, leaving audiences thoughtful and refreshed.

Web-Pilot and Part-Time Producer

Extending her passion for the burlesque art form beyond the stage, Beatrix is the one-woman team behind ShakeItDoll.com. Est. October 2007, Shake It Doll provides up-to-date listings for UK burlesque events and classes alongside occasional interviews and features.

Following her familiarity with the UK burlesque scene, she introduced Reading to her own bi-monthly burlesque event, Hot Muffins, in February 2008. Now celebrating its one year anniversary, Hot Muffins continues to grow and develop, with a rapturous reception every time.

Her finger on the pulse of the UK burlesque circuit, Beatrix can offer a unique insight into the current trends and niches offered on the British burlesque scene.

Videos of Beatrix Von Bourbon in action:

Winter - Jan 09


Sex Spider - Jan 09