Yep, that's right: yours truly will be performing -- singing, folks, not stripping (!!!) -- at Bushwick Burlesque tonight, in a bar called Bizarre. The show starts at 9pm, there's a $7 suggested cover and it will be way, way too much fun.
I love this hot little gig. It makes me feel like I finally ran away and joined the circus.
Hosted by Fancy Feast and Scary Ben (with Dick Jones taking care of pick up!) the line-up includes:
DJ Johnny Horrible
Chris McDaniel Rosie 151 Apathy Angel Charlene Witti Repartee Cherry Typhoon (Japan/ Canada) Baron (Japan) Leena Vie (India) ...and yours truly!
Here's Pearl Noire, going for broke at a Bushwick Burlesque a few months ago...
Darlinda Just Darlinda & Scary Ben Present: BUSHWICK BURLESQUE: 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY!! SEPTEMBER 17, 2013 (Every third Tuesday) 12 Jefferson Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206 Doors at 8pm / Show at 9pm (NOTE NEW START TIME!) Tickets Free (Suggested Donation $7)
You read it correctly! We at Bushwick Burlesque are celebrating our 2
year anniversary! In September 2011 we had our very first Bushwick
Burlesque show and we haven't stopped! We've laughed, we've cringed,
we've felt funny "down there", and mostly we've been ENTERTAINED!!
That's right TWO YEARS of unabashed uncensored ULTIMATE Performance Art
and Debauchery!!
You won't want to miss this month's
celebratory line-up! September brings you many award winning
international performers on our bill, just to show you that Bushwick is
an international destination and guess what . . .it has been for TWO
YEARS!!
Our resident DJ,
DJ Johnny Horrible, and of course performing and hosting the show are
“The Perverse George and Gracie”; Scary Ben and Darlinda Just
Darlinda!!!
As always we offer superbly curated line-ups
designed to highlight the fine line of where absurdist art meets
entertainment, meant to confound, titillate, excite and bewilder, with
hopes of blowing you (our loving audience) away.
Come celebrate the ridiculous, risque, rowdy and raunchy night of BOOBS!! BOOZE!! BALLS!!
(of course we welcome your suggested donation of $7 or more to help us
support live art, artists and theater, right here in our
neighborhoods!!)
"Facebook is for for friends who are now strangers. Twitter is for strangers who should be your friends." - Unknown
i seriously love twitter. i have chatted up, argued creatively, exchanged ideas, learned from, virtually hung out with and (yes!) met more strangers than i care to admit. from the #kccm natural hair challenges to get fit incentives like #sexyshred, it is quite literally the gift that keeps on giving.
facebook, on the other hand, is something to avoid.
i picked up on a remark that burlesque emcee bastard keith made to someone in my timeline about strong, domineering women, realized that we knew a lot of the same performers on the neo-vaudeville scene and all of a sudden, we were off to the races. i was curious: was bastard keith any good at what he did? what did he do exactly, anyway? i had to see him in action. we made a date to meet properly over a drink -- but not before i suggested a duet we could do. we could perform togther... yikes! wait a minute. can he even sing? hmmm...
as luck would have it, this bastard was doing his thing every saturday at galapagos art space in a show called the floating kabarette. i pushed and shoved some things around in my schedule and made my way to DUMBO -- fashionably late but somehow right on time. the weather was lousy, the place was packed and sitting in rapturous silence. someone was swinging from the ceiling by what looked like long silk white handkerchiefs, dangling this way and that. i thought, oh boy -- the circus! more and more, downtown cabaret in new york city is turning into a one ring sideshow of epic proportions. just as every circus has a ringleader, every cabaret act has an emcee. the unfortunate truth is, everyone that calls themselves an emcee isn't necessarily a ringleader in the truest sense of what that word means. it takes a lot to pull it off: performance skills; the non-abrasive good humor of an old school catskills stand-up comedian; and of course, showmanship. narcissism -- not stage presence -- seems to be the factor that compels anyone to get onstage and do something, whether they can actually do anything or not.
this is the part where i tell you that bastard keith was, in a word, wonderful. as an emcee he was pitch-perfect -- a straight man with a straight face and a filthy mouth, wrapped up in an elegant, understated demeanor. he was understated and he was over the top. he was self-deprecating, he was cloying, he was hilarious. remarkably, he made what he did look effortless which is only a testament to its difficulty.
here's a bit of bastard keith in action as a host.
relaxed, self-assured and smooth, he glided onto the stage inbetween each act, soothed any feathers that may have been ruffled, upped the ante and kept the ball rolling. and as if all of that weren't enough, he really can sing.
here he is singing a little ellington along with some live music and a burlesque act.
the highlights?
juggler michael karas stripped all the way down to his adult sized superman undies while keeping all kinds of things up in the air and dancing. pretty hot stuff. here's a video of him winning over the audience and then some at the apollo theater in harlem.
i had heard of beautiful boylesque boy-toy go-go harder but i had never seen him in action. it was a one-off one time thing for st. patrick's day weekend -- he was a prancing, preening, glittering leprechaun. pretty hilarious stuff. here's him doing some colorful and interesting things to the van halen song hot for teacher.
oh, and yeah -- the audience.
the real element of surprise rested with the very nearly sold out house, who needed very little encouragement to bring the filth to the fore. (usually it's a sold out situation.) occasionally bastard keith would read missives that the audience had sent to him via twitter. (ah, twitter -- too, too perfect for audience participation in performance.) after going on here and there about strap ons and especially violent sex and such, he asked for a few nasty twits from his listeners. my personal favorite was from a lesbian, of course.
@SassiBoB@BastardKeith Fuck your wife. I am going to blast you in your gaping hole until you shit out of your dick.
good times.
somewhere in there, we met at the bar in the back over that drink. (for the record, he's way better looking in person -- and taller, too.) we talked about performance in new york city and mutual acquaintances like war veterans. when i heard him sing, something clicked and i started to put together ideas. who knows where this will end up. it's definitely the start of something explosively cool. and at the end of the day, isn't that really where you want to begin?
i can't believe that i know any black dancers that haven't seen josephine baker do her thing. watching her perform "the banana dance" changed my life. her work still has the power to make everyone in the room stop what they're doing and look at her, even if it's only via a grainy sepia-toned video. and no -- i've never heard any neo-burlesque performers mention her, except in passing.
actually, i've never seen any black neo-burlesque dancers perform. hm.
this has no sound, and it's fairly grainy but she's absolutely radiant. be sure to watch the facial expressions of the people sitting around her. that alone is worth the price of admission.
still learning how to use my digital camera. i know this one is blurry but i like the way it looks like an abstract painting. and it captures her mood. taking pictures all the time is changing the way i see the world. fortunately the burlesque dancers at the slipper room are wonderful guinea pigs. i want a new digital camera that's small and that can capture movement better than this one.
the photo above taken at the slipper room the other night. i was running around with renee and she brought kwame and terrence along. all of us, musical theater folk. all of them, still working in musicals -- renee got the color purple national tour, terrence is going to japan to do RENT in a few weeks and kwame is doing a revival of a musical that made eartha kitt famous in the 50's (i can't remember the name of it, for some reason) -- and me, with my first national commercial under my belt, transitioning away from musicals and plays and moving towards on-camera work. where would we be in a year? three years? five? as we laughed and had fun, a part of me could only wonder.
we had a screamingly good time. we sat right in front and took in a great show. for only five bucks, it's the best deal in town. i love the theatricality, the campiness, the storytelling, the style. it's always a treat to watch burlesque with dancers. they have such insight. and of course, there's so much respect for the craft -- because it's all movement. and besides, a lot of those burlesque girls used to be bun-heads. they know exactly what they're doing.
i went to the bodega down the street before the show started and my friend made me hot toddys all night long. and then on the break, we went outside to cool off and had popsicles, and then kwame and terrence skipped off to a gay bar.
our happy days are numbered. renee skips town in late december. we have to squeeze in as much fun as we possibly can.
here's a shot of one of my favorite neo-burlesque performers, delerium tremens, hard at work at the slipper room. i especially like the way she puts a new twist on her old school take on burlesque. you can't completely let go of the past with any of this. you have to build on it. i like her style. the betty paige hair, 40's make-up and classic body complete the effect, but the kicker is that sneer on her face that she gives the audience as she dances.
that hard look has a startling effect, somehow. there's something calculated about it, which adds even more dimension to what she's doing, because there's something contemptuous in it. i don't think she realizes the expression she's making. or maybe she does. either way, it's not what you'd expect from such a pretty girl. that's a part of the reveal in her dance, i suppose. and the allure.
this is what my friend looks at while he's slinging drinks but for some strange reason, he could care less. is it because he's been working there for so long? as one of the dancers told me, "if i want him to not look at me, i'll put on some pasties."
