Booty Bouncing Burlesque

Last weekend, Jen and I went to Tassels Off Burlesque at Hell's Kitchen. It's been a long time since we caught a burlesque show.  Go back far enough, and you'll see my blog littered with them, including a burlesque-specific trip to Chicago with Jen and Kyle.  Amusingly, we saw some familiar acts, including Tila Von Twirl who we've seen both in Minneapolis and Chicago, Foxy Tan who is always amazing as both announcer and dancer, and...Gollum! Several others as well. I would posit that it's nice everyone is getting older along with us, but that seems unnecessarily mean. I hope they stay young forever. There were a few new ... faces ... in the show as well. It was fun, even if we're on the older end of the crowd now, and I've missed it after so long, including the covid gap.

I think one of my favorite acts was a dancer vaguely dressed in 70's era men's clothes who did a number to Everything I Own with a guitar case and other props.  Jen wanted to know why they were tassel twirling bags of bread and aggressively chewing on a loaf.  Check the link if you're unsure why.

That tall dancer closest in frame performed to a dance mix of the song Period Sex.  Darn funny.  

Others included: "Glitter Cakes, Texas Teacakes, juggler Derrick Jermaine Harper, Phoenix De La Rosa, Plum Ridiculous, Raja James, Trisha Spectacle, Pedi Bourgeois, and special guest hosts Tre Da Marc, and Sparkle Du Jour! Your bra flinging producers Musette the Mistress of Mischief, Kitson Sass and Pistol Prudence pinky swear a night to remember for one and all."  Derrick Jermaine Harper didn't disappoint all glittered up on his unicycle.

My understanding is they were raising funds for a glamping adventure in the Wisconsin wilderness.  Sort of the camping / learning thing I've seen folks like Actualol do, except he did it for board gaming, not burlesque [as far as I know].  That must be a bit of a surprise for anyone randomly traipsing about in the wilderness.

I see Black Hearts is coming to Hell's Kitchen on February 10.  Kyle, Ming, and I once caught their act near the U  of MN with Fat Leonard [he's not really fat].  The dancer doing the Portal-related game dance threw cake and booze at the audience members in the front, ala The Cake is a Lie.  They're a fun act.

 

IGH Burlesque

As an early Valentine's Day date night, my wife and I went to burlesque in Inver Grove Heights at Jersey's Bar and Grill.  We were dubious...we've done all our burlesque attending in downtown Minneapolis and Chicago (whoa...six years ago now) before, so the crowd is pretty diverse.  The crowd is not very diverse in Inver Grove Heights.  Except the MC, although his humor was the kind of self-deprecating humor you get when a minority is faced with a room full of Caucasians. He was funny anyway, and did a great job keeping the crowd engaged.  Still, after the belly dancers had cleared off and the burlesque had started, the crowd whooped it up and seemed to enjoy the whole show.  Although there was nothing like the unicorns and Hello Kitty/GI Joe stuff we used to see at BOMB.

Musette and cast just offstage.  It was a very small stage.  Considerably different than a big theater.  I don't think it was good for belly dancing and I was dubious about how it would work for burlesque, but it was pretty intimate.

We hadn't seen Sweet Pea in years.  She did a number of acts, including this one with multiple hula hoops.  Both she and Scarlette Revolver had hula hoop acts.  Sweet Pea managed to remove most of her outfit while spinning the hoops the whole time.  Impressive.


I mentioned this to Kyle.  Sweet Pea danced to Heart's What Above Love.  A truly horrible song in my opinion.  But a great performance.


It's Nadine Dubois!  We hadn't seen her since BOMB!  And my wife noted that while the guys had had Nadine as an MC, the women hadn't (we tended to go on different nights - avoided baby sitters), so she hadn't seen Nadine in even longer.  She sat with us for a while in between numbers.


Nadine singing.


Scarlette Revolver doing a triple hula hoop act.



The place was bigger than we expected.  Not anywhere near the size of the Ritz Theater, but all the tables were full and there were folks sitting in every available seat.



Here it gets weird.  Ready?  Gollum dancing with the one ring.  Reminded me of the burlesque event Kyle, Ming, Fat Leonard, and I went to at the Varsity where the Suicide Girls did burlesque with a sci fi theme.  First time I ever heard Super Massive Black Hole.  I was telling Eryn all about it the other day because I thought she find the idea of someone doing burlesque with a Portal theme amusing - particularly the cake throwing bits.  I was not incorrect.


It's not truly weird until you get to see a bit of video.


This was enjoyable - Baby Got Back done Taco style.


And the whole group.  Sans Elektra Cute who did some great numbers.

Busta Nutcracker

On Saturday Ming, Kyle, Matthew, and I went to see Busta Nutcracker, A Burlesque Parody at the Southern Theater, put on by the Wicked Wenches Cabaret, which does productions and burlesque classes.  Kyle and I had backed the production on Kickstarter and each received two tickets to the show as part of our sponsorship.

We had dinner at Vic's first, at Riverside.  I've never been there before when it wasn't full of frat boys and really annoying MBA types.  But apparently that's just in the spring and summer when the deck is open for drinking.  In the winter it's full of those of Malaysian heritage who don't realize their Groupon is no good on a Saturday, and Baked Alaska taste testers.

I enjoyed Busta Nutcracker much more than the Suicide Girls event we went to recently.  The theater is much more conducive to viewing than the standing room only at the Varsity, and the connected plot is just more fun, even if the dancing isn't quite the same quality.

Here's the stage.  It changed once or twice to host the various fairy dances - Clara and the Nutcracker's thrones replacing the bed.  Unlike in the productions I've seen in the past, Clara crawls all over that couch a bit more provocatively.  My father posted a message that my sister and niece were at the Nutcracker too!  When my sister asked I told her we were near the dancing pole on the right (just outside the frame on both sides of this photo), at which point she realized we were perhaps at a different Nutcracker.

There were some great parts.  I thoroughly enjoyed the part of the Nutcracker where the Nutcracker leads everyone in a tassel dance. Hilarious and energizing.  Hussy Hautepants was an excellent dancer with a 50's Vargas girl vibe.  And Dazzling Di'Vine, who's apparently from here in my hometown, made for an excellent German beer woman in a bit that featured dancing glasses of beer coming out from under the skirts of Mother Gin (it wasn't like that when my daughter did the same part as the beer for ballet).  I also liked Mz. Vixxxen's ballet (on pointe?) dance where she was a bit S&M and possessed Clara such that whatever she did with her hands Clara did with her legs.  A clever bit of burlesque.  The dance of the marijuana fairies by Oopsy Daisie was a bit strange, but they were obviously trying to keep the show light and fun.



The program...


Kyle and I both show up as Kickstarter contributors.  There was a good turnout.  They sold a lot more tickets than there were Kickstarter backers.  The Southern was packed.


The cast of Wicked Wenches.  They do an Oz and Disney themed production as well.  They may be our new alternative to Best of the Midwest Burlesque now that it's folded.


And a bit of the program explaining the first part of the plot.  You can see that Clara is forced to dance...repression is just inherent in the system.

Blackheart Burlesque

This should be a somewhat unique post.  It's about a burlesque show, but there won't be any photos.  If you need to see pictures, just go to Flickr or YouTube and you'll find what seems to be an infinite number.  It's been about 12 hours, so you should even be able to find some from the local show.  There were so many phones being held overhead that they were in the way.  The somewhat smelly short guy in front of me - almost a full header shorter - was actually in my way because he was holding a phone at full arms' length overhead.  I moved to get a better viewing angle multiple times, but the drunk woman in front of him kept spilling beer in his space and backing into him to dirty dance thinking he was her boyfriend (who was to her left).  That seems to be a common theme for me at standing-room-only events, because Erik and I were around for a guy getting booted at First Ave for doing something similar to another guy.  The only picture I wish I could have taken was when I was standing toward the back with Kyle and two cameras were being held aloft directly in front of a dancer's (taped) breasts.  That seemed to capture some of the problem with the venue (or at least the crowd).

Ming, Jet-Lag Leonard, Kyle, and I went to Nami (sushi, not the National Alliance on Mental Illness, although Ming and Green-Tea Leonard avoided the raw fish) for dinner first  Nice place and a good crowd after about 7:00 p.m.  It's been there for ten years, and I've never eaten there before.  I think I like Origami better, but with Kyle's Groupon, it was difficult to go wrong.  I'm disappointed I didn't try a roll instead as they had quite the selection, even if you don't count rolls with pineapple in them as an option (I like pineapple, I like pineapple on pizza, but pineapple in a sushi roll sounds dubious).

The show was at The Varsity, just two miles away.  Fortunately, we didn't make it in time for doors opening because the check-in process was slow and the line was pretty chilly.  I don't think we were really in the door until close to 8:40, forty minutes after opening.  I like the Varsity, but it wasn't a good venue for the show.  Per above, lots of hands in the way, standing room only, and the stage wasn't high enough, so dancers would literally disappear now and then.  One of the dancers, Nina, did a set where from where Kyle and I were standing it looked like she was just disappearing and then popping up now and then.  It sort of reminded me of Duck Hunt on the NES.  Squirrel Nut Zippers was good there, but they left room open in the middle for dancing.  And Josh Blue, which I saw on Netflix, not in person, had tables and looked comfortable.  Standing room only is one of the few things that can make my left hip ache.

Kyle observed that in those venues (Varsity, Mill City) we're often right next to the open space where people move forward and backward and left to right.  I don't think it's a coincidence.  We're just not willing to push to the front or stand crotch to butt with the person in front of us.  We end up with less beer on us that way as well.  Not that spilled beer would have been the most dire spill that evening.  I was wearing a bit of soy sauce on my white shirt from Nami.  And a guy on the Blue Line was waving around a can of V-8 that splashed all over the plastic divider between me and him near the door.  I gave an actual sigh of relief when I didn't end up with red droplets all over me.

The show was less like the Midwest Burlesk shows, which I really like, and more of a straight up dance show (yes, yes...more like going to a strip club).  The set up was significantly less involved and the clothes came off very quickly in favor of energetic, gyrating, dancing to heavy thumping movie.  There was a science fiction theme to it all which was enjoyable: Planet of the Apes, Doctor Who (Tom Baker scarf, but not really used to effect, and Doctor Who music made dance-able), Portal (gun and cake - Ming almost got hit), Star Wars (storm troopers), Fifth Element (at least Kyle and I both thought that's what they were going for), and others.  But I would have liked more of a focus on the science fiction set up than the energized bouncing.  Then again, I'm getting old.  The rest of the audience seemed to be having fun with the alcohol flying around the front of the stage off one dancer, the amateur dancing, and the rap music about bisexuality.  The rap was peculiar, although it was at least more in line with traditional burlesque where there are musical acts and comedy interspersed with the burlesque.

So I wouldn't do it again - but it was enjoyable from a "try something without knowing anything about it" perspective, which I go for once or twice a year.  I'm hoping for better things from the local funding of Busta Nutcracker.

Dr. Who vs. the Ghostbusters

This is for Kyle and his nephew. The 10 geekiest burlesque performances.  Not only is there a dance that involves Dr. Who and his scarf, but a dance involving Slimer and the Sta Puff Marshmallow "man".  Although Data and the Klingon are WAY more disturbing.

Enjoy some uncle/nephew bonding!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-10-geekiest-burlesque-performances-nsfw

Burlesque

I'm making up for missing 9 days of blogging. I'm going to use being ill as an excuse. And the holidays. And all sorts of other things. I have much to talk about. My friend Chris was in town on Thursday. He's the new VP of what amounts to R&D for Telerik (if I was hearing everything correctly). They do .NET controls (from my perspective - they may do other things as well) and are based in Eastern Europe. Very cool job. He, Cookie Queen, Kyle and I went to Brasa for dinner (delicious - glad the waiter talked us into smaller portions) and to the Nutcracker Burlesque show afterwards. The show was peculiar. The first half was fairly boring. It wasn't until the second half that we were treated to the dreidel burlesque dance, the native american skinning a bunny and dancing in his skin burlesque dance, etc. I had warned Chris before hand I hadn't been to this event, and my experience with Nutcracker derivatives was sketchy (search my blog for Nutbuster). But I had a good time once they started embracing burlesque. And the woman who played Clara did a great job. Sort of fetishy on my part I suspect, but I liked that when she was watching the dancers, she was always on her toes, even when sitting behind a table. Sexy. Weirder was that the band seemed to include someone I knew. But I wrote it off because his hair looked longer than I expected. Until I ran into him in the entryway. He's a manager at work. His wife worked for me until recently. Damn strange. In the end, everyone seemed to have fun.

If you don't believe me, here he is, enjoying himself.  Although two people, including my daughter, asked me if the person sitting on his lap was a woman or a man.

And Cookie Queen with one of the male dancers.  I wish he had worn his Superman pouch (I'm not sure if that's exactly the right word...very small underpants, however you paint it), because that was damn hilarious. I did not get my picture taken with Clara.  I just told her I appreciated her performance. She was either surprised (she'd been standing around for 15 minutes) or creeped out by the skeevy old guy who was the only person to tell her "good job".  In the end, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would given the first act.

Windy City Burlesque

Kyle, Pooteewheet, and I drove to Chicago last Friday to catch two evenings of the Second Annual Windy City Burlesque Fest.  While it might seem like I have an obsession with burlesque, my purpose was legion:

1.) See Michelle L'Amour, as she wasn't at Midwest Burlesk this year.

2.) Go to Chicago.

3.) See some acts we wouldn't see at Midwest Burlesk.

4.) Have some sushi.

5.) Decide whether a speed trip was feasible for future purposes (we drove back starting at 12:30 a.m.)

6.) Have some beer.

7.) Pick up some beer to bring back that isn't generally available in Minnesota.

Missions accomplished.  It is possible to drive back between 12:30 a.m. and 7:15 a.m., although sleeping in a Ford Fiesta is tricky and you really need a foam cushion cut to fit the seat to door gap if you don't want to wake up with no blood flow to your head.  Chicago is there.  Although Tsuki where we always went for sushi is not.  But all the staff moved to Ai and they still have bento boxes for kids and a great selection of sushi.  I had the tabiko flight (red, yellow, green, black, orange...black is best), a piece of cherry smoked duck on rice, an oyster shooter, a delicious rosemary walnut tuna roll that striped the tuna so every piece tasted different, and a bowl of green tea ice cream the profits of which were sent to Japanese relief funds.

Friday night was....

• beer + dinner
• beer
• burlesque + beer and whiskey
• beer + other

Dinner was at the Duke of Perth.  Good fish and chips, but "all you can eat" is sort of silly given the size of your first plate of fish.  Afterwards we went to John Barleycorn's for a beer while waiting for the show to start.  That's also where we went after the show, although by then we were drinking some Shamrock Shake thing composed of creme de menthe and Bailey's.  Ugh.  You know you've jumped the shark when bright green drinks hit the counter. I did get to tell Franny Fluffer Nutter, who was also there drinking, that we liked her act.  I learned that she does an RPG burlesque and a Twin Peaks burlesque in her native New York.  Those must be amusing.

The burlesque show was fun, although I didn't think it was as good as Midwest Burlesk.  Lula Houp-Garou stood out with her hula hoop act and a dance the second night that involved lying in a bed of glass.  The Stage Door Johnnies were their usual amusing selves with a sort of tin solider act.  Franny Fluffer Nutter was good - you can find her doing her baton twirling and blonde to redhead transition here, although video always lacks significantly compared to the live experience of burlesque.  The Flaming Dames with their ode to music were amusing.  Jeez Loueez brought a lot of energy to the stage with a dance to Prince's Sexy Motherfucker.  Steele Starling was blasphemous with his Catholic priest pole dance to Lacrimosa that ended in an upside down prayer.  And Ammunition...the host described her as an industrial factory wrapped in the body of a girl.  She came out with a couple of Home Depot lamps and a Tron-lightlike corset, and eventually proceeded to use a grinder like you'd expect to see a heavy metal band using grinders, to shoot sparks from their guitars.  But she didn't have a guitar, so she used her g-string.  There's a very short clip of it here...it was much more impressive in person, without the band, and the lights mostly off.

My least favorite act was probably Serenna Starr.  Her act was much more traditional strip (it involved a very large bowl of sudsy water) than burlesque, and it felt less fun because of that.  While it might seem strange to say you don't go to burlesque for nudity or raunchiness, it's the truth.  Even though Michelle L'Amour bills herself as the "most naked woman."  Unless the raunchiness is truly intended to be over the top fun (the Evil Hate Monkey for instance), it just doesn't belong in a burlesque show.

Midwest Burlesk 2011

Last night I went to the Midwest Burlesk 2011 after dinner at Nye's.  This is the third year I've gone.  The first year I talked Kyle into going, and then urged my wife to attend the next day with Sarah and Pete.  Last year, despite misaligning with Kyle, he added Matthew and his brother in law and my wife added my sister and Cookie Queen.  And this year we added Ming and my wife added a friend and a co-worker of mine.  I list this ever growing roster of attendees as supporting documentation for my yearly assertion that the festival is one of the best events in town and that it's not some sort of event (only) for oversexed 40-somethings.

The acts were, once again, hilarious, although according to my wife we missed out by not getting to see the little person, Viva LaMuerte, doing burlesk.  Pooteewheet said the act wasn't great as far as burlesque, but it was unique because of Viva.

We did see The Bon-Bons, Coco Dupree doing an act with a safe (great dancer), Ophelia Flame doing an office burlesque that involved a copier that transmitted to the big screen (nice beaver), Midnite Martini who could remove one stocking seductively with her opposite foot, Nadine Dubois the host singing I Feel Like a Natural Woman while the Stage Door Johnnies were behind her all Kali-like, Sizzle Dizzle from New York, Sweetpea in a rather fascinating gold pantsuit (don't think of a 70's pants suit...it was nothing like that), Minnie Tonka, and a few others, including a burlesque dancer dressed in a plastic trash bag doing a fan dance with fans made of refuse.  Burlesque as social commentary!

The male dancers - boylesque - ran away with the show, however.  I believe it was Jett Adore of the Stage Door Johnnies who did an act featuring an outfit with numerous strings which prompted host Nadine Dubois to remark, "Who'd have thought an ass corset could bring you to tears?  This is a great job!"

And then there was The Evil Hate Monkey.  He's actually a duet, Trixie Little and The Evil Hate Monkey, although he performed solo as well earlier, engaging in a series of ballet moves (real ones - on the toes, good form, et al) that brought to mind what the Nutbuster should have been like.  Trixie and the Hate Monkey were mesmerizing.  They opened to Total Eclipse of the Heart, and appeared in and out of the darkness, including disappearing from the stage and into the audience, and then moved into their act which included all sorts of acrobatics you'd normally expect to see at Cirque du Soleil, all while incrementally disrobing with plenty of humor.  I almost got beaned by the humor, his banana peel flying straight at my head (I ducked and let the person behind me catch it, although it would have been amusing to bring home for Pooteewheet).  I'm disappointed a can't buy Kyle his very own Hate Monkey t-shirt for his birthday (they exist, they're just sold out).

A great show!  Here's Trixie and the Evil Hate Monkey performing, although it was much better in person.

Midwest Burlesk 2010

I went to the Best of the Midwest Burlesk Festival 2010 at the Ritz tonight. Last year I went with Kyle, but this year I screwed it up and managed to purchase a ticket for the 7:00 p.m. show while Kyle and his brother went to the 10:00 p.m. show. I think I finally figured out what I did, and it involved the use of a bookmark and backspace key. All very stupid. But I'm almost glad I missed dinner at the Polish restaurant. I had breakfast at Junior's with Ming and lunch at Ghengis with the guys from work. I'm still not hungry (although I am drinking a 2010 Bigfoot Ale while I write and, as we all know, food is beer).

Midwest Burlesk was once again great, even by myself (Ming...I know they were sold out, but I think you could have scored a ticket at the door. There was an open seat next to me, although perhaps the only one in the house). It's just an incredible variety of bulesk (burlesque), and you're never bored.

Some of my favorite moments were:

• The opening act, Minne Tonka. She did a Mary Tyler Moore strip tease.
• The Stage Door Johnnies from Chicago. One of them did a strip tease involving washing himself and multiple layers of towels, like a Matryoshka doll. A favorite of the many women in the audience.
• Nadine DuBois singing "Coax Me" while being undressed by AJ the Bodyguard. She's hilarious in addition to being sexy. That was a serious green dress, by the way.
• Trigger (Ferguson). Oh my god. I expected this to be something I hated. It was less burlesk at first and more loud cross dressing act. But it went somewhere incredibly amusing after the opening monologue. The audience was roaring. And he's seriously athletic.
• Fanny Tastic. She did a bit as a flight attendant last year. This year she did an act with a bowler (hat). Great dancing. When she sort of grabbed at her bottom and legs with her fingers and pulled, you could hear a reaction from the audience. Incredibly sexy.
• Sweetpea dancing to "Dance Machine". She started out in a boots and a robot costume and took it off to reveal heels and skin. She started with a robot dance and moved into several other dance in what was so energetic it looked like serious work.
• Lola van Ella from St. Louis doing a 50s housewife schtick involving an apron, some frosting, and a spatula while singing "Bake me a cake". Nadine warned that she was renowned for her bottom, and her site calls her "the derriere beyond compare". The advertising was well deserved. The frosting ended up on her body, and the spatula ended up replacing her merkin. Very funny. Her website says I can book her for parties...hmm...Kyle, don't you turn 40(ish) this year?
• Michelle L'amour did the finale with a sort of Spanish dance. Not as exciting a finale as last year with all the hands popping out of the sofa, but a great dance. She does a lot with minimal props.
• And there were others - it didn't end there. Burgundy Brixx from Vancouver. The Chicago Starlets (from Michelle L'amour's school in Chicago). Kami Oh (I think). Ned the Magnificent. Ophelia Flame. Ray Gunn. Summer Clearance (I think it was her doing the fan dance). Switch the Boi. Vica the naughty ballerina. And more.

Pooteewheet is going with Cookie Queen and Lissy Jo tomorrow. I know she'll have fun.

My only complaint is that the beer selection wasn't as good as it was last year when there were Flat Earth beers to be had. Fortunately, Surdyk's was right down the road and between the Ritz and I-35.

Burlesk

Every once in a while I get it in my head to do something I wouldn't normally do, like attend Point Break the Play. This week I felt I was long overdue and I noticed in some of the local papers that the Midwest Burlesk show was playing Thursday through Sunday at the Ritz Theater, right next to the 331 (home of Liberally Drinking). It fit the bill, and I pinged Kyle to ask him if he'd go. He was game, so we decided to make it a full Thursday, and hit Origami for sushi, and then the show.

Sushi was great, and the highlight was trying Monkfish liver, which the menu touted as the foie gras of the sea. Fortunately, I can't picture anyone trying to force feed a monkfish, which is why I don't eat real foie gras. I wasn't sure what to expect and was pleasantly surprised. It was smooth, with a slight tang from the lemon and sauce, and had a light fish flavor that wasn't at all like eating a piece of fish fat. Just a light, sea flavor that you hear about on Food TV, but never really bump into if you're not a world traveler or living in Seattle. Delicious. And that machine with the two bottles sticking out of it. That's a sake warmer. I guess I should have known that, but I've always been a cold sake sort of guy.

On to the burlesque (burlesk). I realize that no matter how I explain this, there's likely to be a wide swath of people I know who think, "I don't care what he says. That must have been lame. He was drunk. Or an idiot. No. I know Scott. It was both." I'm not denying I'm an idiot. I'm not denying I was drinking. The Ritz Theater had a wide selection of wines and beer and I had some great Angry Planet Pale Ale from Flat Earth Brewing. But the show was wonderful. Truly spectacular. Seriously. Damn. Fun.

One of my early memories is staying in a hotel and how excited my parents were to discover that on pay television there was a burlesque show. Despite how young I was, they let me watch the show and told me about seeing live shows when they were younger. There was a guy singing about being the top banana, and later in the show a woman came on the screen to do her act. My mother was ecstatic that she was a tassel twirler, and when the woman gave evidence to how she could twirl in both directions at once, my mother was visibly and vocally happy about how professional she was because it took real talent to twirl appropriately. The Midwest Burlesk show gave me an idea of why having seen live shows when she was younger would have been such a memorable event.

My favorite acts of the night were:

Nadine Dubois - the emcee for the night. Funny. Sexy (I never thought I'd say that about someone in sparkly red lipstick). She sings. She does burlesque. She makes jokes about whiskey and cowbells. She was engaging from front to back and really pulled the show together.

The first act - I don't know who they were, but a strip tease done in snowmobile suits, furry hats, and other accoutrements. Hilarious.

Foxy Tann and the Wham Bam Thank You Ma'ams - great dance moves, afros and Hendrix's Foxy Lady. Some serious cheering from the audience.

Ned the Magnificent - not really a stripper. He was the comic entertainment. He did a superman schtick with a folding chair that was great.

Boylesque Hot Toddy - not quite equal time for the guys. But I point out this member of Belmont Burlesque of Chicago (who also had a great red head doing an act) because his act was so classically burlesque and done so well. The audience seemed to be about 60/40 women, so his act was well met. Four of the women from Belmont Burlesque came out with very large pillows and did a dance, then met in the middle of the stage and brought the pillows together in a 2x2 formation as Boylesque stripped behind the pillows. Left - lots of flesh, hat on head. Right - lots of flesh, hat on head. Front, with the fedora strategically placed.

Fanny Tastic - Fanny came out dressed in a very shiny flight attendant outfit, carrying a flight case, the sort your mother converted into a makeup case, or a storage container for old photos. She bent over and pulled out a belt and demonstrated how to prepare for your fight. Pulled out a can of coke and poo pooed it in favor of a bottle of Jack Daniels. Then did an amazingly athletic dance.

Michelle L'amour - I saw Michelle on television when she was doing her balloon dance on America's Got Talent. The Hoff and company ruined her gig which seemed silly when they made fun of her not-for-family-viewing antics, because she did the balloon dance during the burlesque show, floating away several pieces of clothing, and it was funny and sexy at the same time. But that wasn't the highlight. The highlight was her show-closing performance. Michelle had a large heart rolled out on the stage that looked like it was covered wth your grandmother's old, green couch. She did a great burlesque dance on stage that then moved to the heart, which had posts around the outside so she could do some acrobatics along the sides and top. Just when you thought she was done, more clothing came off, her champagne glass turned out to be full of baby oil instead, and hands shot out through the heart-couch to rub in the baby oil. Kyle put it well. He said it was like a fireworks display. You kept expecting the end, and she kept upping the stakes. This is the part where you think I'm crazy, or a perv, but you had to be there to see it to appreciate just what a show it was.

They're sold out for Friday and Saturday, but tickets are still available for Sunday (and Lily's Burlesque does regular shows at Bryant Lake and Michelle L'amour in Chicago) and it's definitely an event you can bring a date to (and many people did).