adventures in burlesque

oly cow.  It's kind of hard to believe that Adventures in Oz is over again!  This was our second year doing the show and we were able to do two performances this year, one in Tacoma, one in Olympia, which was really fun!  After working for months on costuming and choreography, it was a little sad to only get to perform the show once last year, so it was awesome to be able to have two performances this time.  Last year I performed as one of the Poppy Girls, lulling Dorothy and her Oz friends into a sultry slumber through the power of seductive dance.  This year I decided to take the leap and do a full strip burlesque act, all the way down to pasties (ah!).  In last year's show we were supposed to have an Emerald City act, but the performer who was the Emerald City ended up dropping out a couple weeks before the show.  As we were gearing up for this year's show last fall I got super inspired by my green hair and thought I'd throw my hat in the ring to be the Emerald City this year.  I found two of my good friends to replace the Poppy roles that were vacated by myself and another gal who wasn't able to come back as a Poppy, and the show producers approved my act pitch!  Commence months of choreography, hours of costuming, and thousands of green rhinestones.
Since I would be playing the role of an entire city, I wanted my act to be huge and over the top, and when I thought of those things, my mind immediately went to Rococo/Marie Antoinette style.  Giant dresses, huge hair, over the top gestures, and royalty.  What better song to do the act to than "Royals" by Lorde?  My friend Ricky, a costume genius, helped by making my hip panniers which would go under my huge skirt to hold it up.  And I found an amazing wig maker on Etsy who crafted the most perfect Emerald City Rococo wig.  The rest of the costume was made by myself, and I felt a little bit like I was on a crazy episode of Project Runway, especially hand sewing that giant skirt out of an old 80's wedding dress I thrifted and dyed green, green satin sheets I thrifted, and green organza I bought on a 30 minute trip to Mood fabrics (okay, it wasn't Mood, it was Fabrics For Less in Renton... go with me here).

 

 


Rosie Cheex as Glenda The Good Witch
 

Last year's introduction to the burlesque scene as a Poppy in a non-stripping act was the perfect way to get into it without jumping straight into the deep end, though when I auditioned I was open to it.  This year, I felt like Adventures in Oz was the perfect place to do my debut burlesque act.  I knew everyone in the cast, and I felt the support of a show that I knew was amazing (though I also felt a ton of pressure to create an incredible act to live up to the show's standards!).  Truth be told, I had way more anxiety about remembering my choreography and having all my big costume pieces strip without snagging or getting stuck than the idea of being nearly naked on stage (isn't that supposed to be a nightmare?).  The funny part of it all is that I actually never felt naked or vulnerable on that stage, on the contrary, I felt powerful and clothed in strength.  I felt super proud of doing something that I'd dreamed of doing for years.  And even funnier: my mom and husband were in the audience sitting next to eachother!  They both loved the show and it was so amazing to have them both watch it again!


Ava D'Jor as the Cowardly Lion
 
 
Kitty Kisses as the Scare Crow, and our crew of Flying Monkeys

Beyond putting on a kickass show, I'm so happy to have gained a whole new group of friends who are badass and talented.  The past two year of doing Adventures in Oz has been so much fun and I can't wait to do more with this crazy group of performers.  Tacoma's burlesque scene is growing little by little and I'm so proud of the Gritty City Sirens for putting in crazy amounts of work to bring a show of this caliber to our city.
I'm not sure what Bettie Klondike's next act will be, but I can't wait to dive headfirst into more glitter and rhinestones with this crazy crew of performers!

Mae Zing in her Tornado Act



top 11 photos by me, other photos by Eric Vaughn, Cheri Rae, and Brenda Barnum

follow the yellow brick road

hose of you who are followers on Facebook might have seen my teaser post about this year's Adventures in Oz burlesque show.  We're in the thick of it now, with rehearsals and costume construction, and I'm getting super excited!  Last year I played a poppy (you can spy me in the promo video!), but this year I pitched an Emerald City act and I'll be performing a Rococo Emerald City on the big stage!  I probably jumped in the deep end a bit with this act, as it will be my first real burlesque performance and the costuming is insane (think all-green Marie Antoinette realness), and I'm no pro at choreography, but I'm super excited to take it on!  As per usual, I get a little bit of tunnel vision on this kind of thing, which means I've been wanting all of the green things in my life.  The idea to take on the role of the Emerald City actually came to me because of my green hair, and now I'm like ALLOFTHEGREENTHINGS.  I've been on the lookout for a green dress to wear post-show and this one struck my fancy.  Last year I got a dress covered in poppies after the Adventures in Oz show, which fulfilled all my poppy dreams.  I kind of love that they both have similar silhouettes and I also had an excuse to snag another floofy petticoat, because who doesn't need more floofy petticoats?  Right?

 
dress + petticoat + cardigan(similar)/courtesy of modcloth  shoes(similar)/courtesy of seychelles necklace/thrifted :: shades (similar)/courtesy of lulu's
One of the things I love about burlesque is that it gives me an avenue to explore other sides of myself.  I've always felt like I couldn't fit myself into one box, constantly wanting to bounce from box to box, trying them on, having fun with them, but never wanting to fully commit to any of them.  I'm definitely not a full time pin-up model, dancer, sultry minx, but it's nice to have a venue to explore that side of myself.  I also really enjoy being a part of the burlesque community in general.  There's such an empowered and outspoken group of people in the burlesque community fighting for the rights of marginalized people in such a subversive and bold way.  There's so much body positivity, acceptance of sexuality, whether gay, lesbian, transgender, straight, etc.  It was so cool to go to Burlycon this past October and meet burlesquers from around the globe.  So many different people from so many walks of life and backgrounds.  And so. much. glitter.

 

wizard of awesome

About a month ago, after months of hard work, the Adventures in Oz cast took the stage in front of a sold out crowd at the Temple Theater in Tacoma.  Holy cow, was it an incredible night.  After the first performance where the entire cast was on stage, we all watched the rest of the first act from the wings and I got choked up with pride as I watched every single performer knock it out of the park.  It was seriously one of the most fun nights of my life.  At the time we weren't sure we'd have any prospects of performing the show again, but we've heard back and will be performing the show again in Olympia on September 27th!  We're hoping to be able to perform it in Seattle as well at some point.  I'm so glad we get to perform again.  Everybody worked so hard it'd be a shame to have done only one performance.  Meanwhile, I'm dreaming up new solo acts.  I just went to the debut show at a new monthly cabaret dinner club and got to see some of my fellow Adventures in Oz ladies do amazing solo performances.  It's a little out of my comfort zone to do a solo performance, but I'm really excited about the prospect of doing one!  I have a couple concepts buzzing around in my head for fun routines...

 

I think the performance actually might be available in DVD form someday soon.  We had a film crew shoot the whole show and I saw the unedited version the other day, so if any of you guys want to know if/when that becomes available I'll keep my ears open for more info (here's a little trailer of the show in the meantime!). Being a fine arts student I grew up with a pretty negative opinion of all things rhinestone and glitter (the herpes of craft supplies).  I'll tell you what, though, I'm a huge fan of both now.  Bring on the sparkle.  The day of the show my whole body was covered in glitter.  My headpiece had glitter spray paint, my hair had glitter hair spray, my skin had body glitter, my eyelids had glitter, my lips had glitter, my leotard had glitter, and even my fishnets had glitter.  I don't think I've been around that much glitter in my whole life.  I don't even want to think about how much glitter I probably ingested that day.  It was awesome.  I'm pretty casual in my day-to-day life, so spending hours transforming into a glitterbomb fancy lady was amazing.  I'll probably still avoid glitter and rhinestones in my everyday life, but I'm excited for my next opportunity to spend hours glueing rhinestones to a costume. Another unintended effect of performing as a poppy in the show is that I'm now kind of obsessed with poppies.  I bought a bouquet at the farmer's market on Tuesday mostly because it had poppies in it, and I just got this dress because it was covered in poppies (it's called the "wizard of awesome dress," so I pretty much had to).  I need to get some poppies to plant in my garden too.  Poppies everywhere!

 



top photo by ebony morris :: all other photos/willow's photography +  heather schofner photography + gerry collen + lock & key photography