on the cover / By Jada Calypso Brotman

Burlesque!

Now it’s bustin’ out all over

(Jan. 26, 2012)  Holding what appears to be spider web over her green-streaked bouffant, Jackie Silva gazes around the room of women in various states of undress. “These belong to anyone?” she says loudly. “Mine!” calls Eva Hintermyer, stepping daintily in her 4-inch heels over piles of photographic cables and sequined brassieres. Right now, the small photo studio feels more like the backstage of a nightclub. Silva waves her mystery garment over towering hairdos, rhinestoned hair clips and the somewhat frantic lone male photographer who is do-si-do-ing round the varnished redwood floor. Sequins and satin glisten in the foggy afternoon light drifting in through the window; seagulls chatter outside, echoing the giggles and hoots of the women inside. Hintermyer, a blonde who dances under the name Nina Bettina and looks like she’d be right at home in a dirndl selling beer steins, meets Silva half-way. Apparently, the material in question is a pair of tights. It’s hard to tell what’s what in the midst of a burlesque troupe dressing for a photo shoot in the Jacoby Storehouse.

Women with stage names like Nina Bettina and Jamie Bondage are tossing corsets and comparing fishnets. They are primarily youngish, in their 20s and 30s, and although no one’s model-thin, everyone has a conventionally shaped figure, aided by mechanics and material. Even the women who have had children look cinched and trim once they’ve strapped on their corsets and tied on their heels. Sophie Salizzoni, better known as “Props McGee,” runs around adjusting zippers and crackin’ wise with one dancer’s 9-year-old daughter. The girl seems unawed by the bevies of breasts and mascara being wielded like magic wands. Breaths are sharply withdrawn as corset strings are tightened to seemingly unbearable points.

“Blowtorch Betty” (Taylor Lepew) PHOTO BY TERRENCE MCNALLY/ARCATA PHOTO STUDIOS

GALLERY >

[][][][]

Burlesque is such an evocative term. Tassels, rouged cheeks, rhinestones; pin curls, black eyeliner, winking and high-heels. Breasts and thighs. Thick, seductive, drum-heavy tunes with barely double-entendre names: “Honey Dripper,” “Big Ten-Inch Record,” “I Want My Fanny Brown” (excuse me?). Mainstream classics like “Suzy Q” and “Fever.”  Men in fedoras, cheap whiskey, an era when a good show could be found for 15 cents.

Beyond this threadbare and romantic image from the distant past, burlesque means, to a lot of people, a sort of confusedly classy stripping. For some, it evokes a sticky glass booth overlooking a stage with completely nude women. Most recently though, a sort of burlesque/Burning Man/bellydancing/fire-twirling craze seems to have spread across the nation in a surprising amalgam of freak shows, third-wave-feminism and slightly dubious eroticism. This craze from the first decade of the century took a bit longer to spread behind the Redwood Curtain. Now, though, “Burlesque!!!” is appearing magically where before there was naught. It’s on flyers at places as diverse as Nocturnum, the Arcata Playhouse and the casinos.

Three active burlesque troupes bump and grind upon Humboldt stages. The Blue Angels sprang up first, in March of 2009, with a traditional pin-up-style gang. Founded in fall of 2009 by Jessa Lee, who formed a troupe out of the Humboldt State Circus, the Angels laid the groundwork for the Beat Vixens, founded by Susie Kidd at the end of 2009. The Vixens, about half the size of the other two troupes with just four dancers, evolved out of a hip-hop group. Va Va Voom, the latest and biggest addition to the scene, formed in the beginning of 2011. The troupes perform around once a month, and their shows are usually packed with rowdy, cocktail-wielding fans. Along with these specialists, other dancers, including Megz Madrone, incorporate burlesque into their acts.

Watching burlesque performances is kind of a tongue-in-cheek experience. Are we, as politically correct people, mildly offended? Are we titillated? Are we annoyed at watching a bunch of show-offs? No matter. The dancers universally love it. It’s a party onstage that the audience is free to join via catcalls and whoops. The dancers find it empowering, liberating and — most of all — fun. The key observable difference between stripping and burlesque is theater. The dancers shimmy on stage not just in costume, but in character, complete with different names, different hair and different attitudes. They are showing off, just as any actor onstage gets to show off, and the fact that nudity is involved makes it all the more engaging, if they’re confident, or awkward, if they’re not. The dancers, just like a lot of artists, must be either brave or stupid.  Err on the side of brave.

[][][][]

1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE >SHARE