2010-07-18 Speak Easy Sunday

This past Sunday present the first Speak Easy Sunday at Friends on Ponce.  I have to admit I came out for a multitude of reasons; 1: to support a new venue willing to have burlesque performed in it's walls, 2: my amazing friends Talloolah Love and Fonda Lingue were both performing, and 3: NO COVER!  That's right kids, Friends on Ponce's claim to fame is that they never ever charge a cover!  Free entertainment, how can you go wrong with that?

So I wandered out on a school night at 9pm.  It was not overly attended, but I think that's because it was the first one and I didn't see a lot of advertising for it. Also, it rained and we all know that Atlanta shuts down the moment water falls from the sky.  Well, for all of you that stayed in for fear of melting you missed a great FREE show!  I just don't feel that I can emphasize enough the fact that it's a free show.

To get us in the mood Dr. Q was spinning some tunes that varied from swing, to 80s remixes and mash ups to things that just made my brain itch with confusion.  It was a fun mix of random music that got the energy going for the audience.  The first show started a little late with a great Drag King routine by Devin Liquor who was also the MC for the evening.  Devin has amazing facial expressions and passion for the art form, you forget it's lip syncing and just fall into the performance of it all.  Devin then introduced Fonda Lingue who performed a beautiful and elegant fan dance.  It's so obvious that Fonda has been taking and teaching ballet for the past (edited as to not imply age) years with the smoothness and grace of her performance.  The Mistress of Illusion definitely had the audience magically mesmerized!  After the grace of Fonda came the amazingly high energy dance routine of K.E.V.I.N.  Amazingly skilled at dance styles I haven't seen since late 80s early 90s hip hop videos back when MTV used to play music.  It was fascinating to watch.  The first show closed out with Talloolah Love doing her Lil Red Ridding Hood routine.  It goes from sweet to naughty, from picnic to pickax and back again!  It was nice to finally get to watch the whole routine as I've been trying to get a peak from back stage of it for almost a year now, lol.

The second show was just as amazing as the first show with the same line-up but different acts.  Devin did an amazingly hilarious James Brown followed by Fonda Lingue doing one of the funniest and most entertaining drag routines I've ever seen.  It was to Everybody's Girl from Steel Pier.  Shock of shocks, a musical I hadn't heard of, but the song was hilarious and knowing Fonda and watching her made it even more so.  After Fonda got everyone rolling in the floors K.E.V.I.N. came back out with another amazing dance routine.  Talloolah closed the show with her feeling good routine.  I don't care how many times I see her do that routine, it will never get old and never not be amazingly sexy.  I think the crawling on a pool table definitely added to the naughty thoughts of some of the audience members.  It also didn't hurt that this was also the only routine that went down to pasties during the evening.

There was supposed to be a twenty minute intermission between the 9pm and 10pm shows, but the second show didn't start until almost 11pm.  I have to admit, was I not committed to being there to show my support I would have left.  I think that if they can get the schedule to run closer to on time in the future that this will be a great way to end the weekend and enjoy a nice show before having to go back to work on Monday.  If it continues to run late I fear that the second show will end up not having much of an audience, but again, the first time you do one of these events they never run on time because people are late and get lost.  So I'll reserve judgement until they've gotten a few more under their belt.

Friends on Ponce really reminded me of being in a club house.  The bar is located in a little beach style shack on top of MJQ.  As I said, there is no cover, but they do make up for it in the drinks.  There were, however, Jello shots for only $1 made by the performers which helped off set the bar.  The slanted ceilings are over pool tables, exposed air conditioned pipes that are painted to look like dragons, and Christmas lights just to give you an idea.  Over all a very nice and relaxed environment and a fun way to spend a Sunday night!

Enjoy my photos from the show!

2010-07-17 Mechanical Masquerade

Syrens of the South held it's Mechanical Masquerade: A Steampunk Ball on July 17 at Bart Webb Studios.  Vendors included Venusian Airship Pirate Trading Co, Kyoto Song Designs and author Emilie P. Bush.

Dr. Q had an amazing selection of music playing through out the evening.  It induced much dancing and merriment!  Don't believe me about the dancing?  Well, as I was working at the bar I was able to whip out my handy dandy flip camera and sneak a peak at some of the activity on the dance floor!

Opening the performances of the evening was Tupelo Honey doing her Jack the Ripper Routine.  It was full of knives and naughtiness!  After her routine we had a reading from Chenda and the Airship Brofman (a Steampunk Novel)  by the author Emilie P. Bush who was dressed as a steampunk tooth fairy.  She was amazing and it was a really fun reading.  The performance by Kira Lang of Cross Cultural Dancing Co closed out the acts of the evening.  She shimmied and shook up the audience with the bounce of her hips!

At the end of the evening  there was the costume contest in which I think the guys entered out numbered the girls who had entered for the first time.  You can see photos tagged with Mechanical Masquerade on Flickr in the slideshow below the dance floor video!

2010-06-17 and 19 Blast Off Burlesque Future of Tomorrow

Blast Off Burlesque decided to go back to their roots with an all Sci-fi show.  I was honored to perform my Dr. Who routine as part of their Future of Tomorrow at 7 Stages in Atlanta, GA.  The preview show was Thursday, June 17th with the main event being two shows back to back on Saturday, June 19th.  The evenings included all of the amazing talent that Blast Off Burlesque has to offer in addition to special guests like Hoopsy Daisy doing a very provocative tribute to Clockwork Orange, Flight of Swallows doing an amazing live musical performance with aerial work in the tradition of Brazil complete with fabulous shoe hat, Ursula Undress showing the world her Pon Farr in a tribute to the original Star Trek series, and Regent St Charles as Tina Turner circa Thunderdome.

Blast Off Burlesque never ceases to amaze me with their creativity, teamwork and shear awesomeness!  With amazingly choreographed group numbers and duets to beautiful solo acts by the individual performers.  Some highlights include Ferris Hilton as Steven Hawkins, Melanie Magnifique did an awesome job as the Diva from The Fifth Element , Sadie Hawkins doing an amazing tribute to Donnie Darko (which is one of my personal favorites), as well as Barbalicious as Barbarella!  The end of the show had all of the members of Blast Off Burlesque come out as all of the planets to Monty Python's Galaxy Song, and yes, they included Pluto!  Local celebrity, journalist, radio DJ and rock star Jon Waterhouse did an amazing job as the show's MC and as The Sun!

I was only able to do backstage video during the preview show since we had to reset and such for the second show.  Below you'll find my video and a slideshow of pictures taken at the shows!

2010-06 Art-B-Que, Avondale Estates, GA

The 3rd Annual Art-B-Que was a smashing success.  The little festival that was started by Bart Webb Studios in the parking lot of the building his studio is in has grown to a three day event covering three streets, over 100 artists, over 30 bands with two stages, a kid zone for face painting and moon bounce, and performances by Turning Tricks, Hot Toddy's Flaming Cabaret, and Syrens of the South.   The event was June 11-13, 2010 in Avondale Estates, GA in the Rail Arts District.  For those that are unaware, Avondale Estates is a suburb of Atlanta, inside the perimeter, just past Decatur.  The Rail Arts District also hosts the RAD Studio Cruise every year as well, this is truly the up and coming artist community in the Atlanta area.

Friday was spent setting up the hundreds of artist and food vendors.  The volunteers did an amazing job keeping everything organized and smooth.  Everyone had an easy time finding their spaces and getting checked in.  Friday night kicked off at The Alcove Gallery which was a packed house.  It was a huge gallery opening with visual artists Leslie Ditto and Ben Williams and the headlining band Snagglepuss to kick off the event.

Saturday was the big day with bands playing all day at both the acoustic stage and the main stage.  I think more people hung out at the acoustic stage during the day since it was shady as it was 100 degrees during the day.  However, once night fell, everyone headed over to enjoy the amazing main stage performances which was closed out by some amazing baton work by Turning Tricks.  They had big hair and mad skills!  Afterwards everyone wandered to in front of Bart Webb Studios to see Hot Toddy's Flaming Cabaret!  Not only did they have some amazing acts such as fire fans, a bed of nails and some really cool feats they also had a flaming arch with skulls as well as a strong man test that shot flames out of the top if you were able to hit the hammer hard enough to send the ball to the top.  Ferris Hilton of Blastoff Burlesque spent a good deal of time making it shoot flames!  Then came Syrens of the South at Little Tree Studios.  Little'ole me MCed the event while there were performances by Cross Cultural Dance Company, Rosie Palms, Ruby Redmayne (f/k/a Suki Tawdry) and Betsey Stryper.  We were very sad to announce that this was Betsey Stryper's last performance with us as she is moving in August.  She will always be welcome to come and perform with us and we hope that she keeps performing in whatever city is lucky enough to get her.  We do need to give a special thank you to Johnny No Thumbs for running sound for us and Ferris Hilton who did pick-up for us.  We couldn't have done it with out either of them!

Sunday was more bands and people picking up the art wok they had been eyeing and spending all weekend talking themselves into buying. The event closed with Van Heineken playing an amazing set of Van Halen covers as well as some other great hits from the 80s.  For those that don't know, Van Heineken is fronted by Jon Waterhouse who is also a radio host, writer for the AJC, and MCs the big Blastoff Bulesque shows.  There is nothing this man can't do, he never ceases to amaze me with his versatility and mad skills.  Everything was broken down, the vendors were all gone, the volunteers were lucky to see an amazing sunset for their trouble of staying late and then everyone headed over to the James Joyce for dinner, drinks and some well deserved air conditioning after a long hot weekend.  With the way things are going for this little festival, I think it will just keep growing into bigger and better things each year.

2010-04-30 OutlantaCon

Sorry, I've been a slacker, but I promise to catch up with the videos and reviews.  Syrens of the South performed at OutlantaCon, Atlanta's LGBT gaming convention.  We performed at Geek-lesque show with me, Katherine Lashe, doing my Dr. Who number complete with Tardis.  Chad Sanborn also came out to Dr. Who before switching over to Tiny Bubbles.  Many of the gentlemen in the audience were more then happy to be Mr. Sanborn's assistant!  Stormy Knight did a Zatanna routine before Kisa von Teasa from Salome Cabaret came out and did an amazing Darth Vader routine that part of was captured on video by an audience member.  The finale was Atlanta['s Queen of Queer Burlesque, The Lady Miss Vagina Jenkins who bought the house down.  It was a lot of fun and they've already invited us to come back next year!



Syrens of the South also performed at Anachrocon the next night but I took the evening off.  The steampunk themed burlesque show was also extremely well received as we were there for the second year in a row.  Again, Syrens of the South was invited to come back next year so it looks like we'll keep sending out our brand of Geek-lesque all over the country side!

Southern Fried Burlesque Fest March 10-13, 2011

So there's a group of crazy people that thinks we need even more burlesque in Atlanta! I'm not talking about more troupes or more shows, I'm talking about bringing internationally acclaimed burlesque performers from around the world for a full weekend of Classes, Panels, Vendors, and Shows! That's where the 1st Annual Southern Fried Burlesque Fest comes in! On March 10-13, 2011 we're going to be invaded by more burlesque hotness then you can shake a stick at, not even a pointed stick! With special guests already booked including Miss Exotic World 2004 Dirty Martini, The Head Mistress of the New York School of Burlesque Jo Boobs and our own original firecracker Miss Torchy Taboo, this is going to be a weekend of pure awesomeness!

What's that? You want to be involved in the amazing event? Well, here's how!

Want to Volunteer? We're looking for people to help us spread the word about the event, help with the vendors, drive guests to and from the airport, work registration and sometimes just help us make buttons. If you're interested in helping out please email southernfriedburlesquefest@gmail.com.

If you would like to sponsor this amazing event please check out the Sponsor Form and pick a level of sponsorship that works best for you. We have sponsor levels for as little as $50, but wait, if you choose to become a sponsor by May 31st you can get your $500 or less sponsor package for only HALF PRICE! That's right, so that $50 sponsor level is only $25, $100 is only $50, $250 is only $125 and $500 is only $250! Save money and sponsor this amazing event by being an early adopter!

Vendors, Vendors Vendors! Come sell you wares for three days to all the glitterati of Atlanta and beyond! Vendor booths will be open to the public so from 9-6pm Fri-Sun it will be an open mall of shinny so anyone can come and buy your wares! And if you want to stay open during the amazing shows at night for extra time to sell, you can do that too! As our performance space seats almost 1,000 people you'll have plenty of chances to make a killing! As a special, if you buy your space by May 31st you can get your vendor booth for the weekend for only $100 instead of $150 on June 1st, SAVING YOU $50!

There's lots of ways to help make this event happen so please don't hesitate to contact us about volunteering, being a sponsor, being a vendor or if you have any questions at all! Thank you so much and we're really excited to help bring so much amazing talent to Atlanta and to show the world all the amazing talent Atlanta has to offer!

2010-04-22-25 Texas Burlesque Festival

On April 22 myself, Talloolah Love and Ursula Undress all headed to the airport to go to Austin for the 3rd  Texas Burlesque Festival.  When we go to the airport to check our luggage the baggage handler recognized us as burlesque performers even though we were completely out of drag.  We were pleasantly surprised and amused by this.  After taking care of all that we hopped on the plane.  I had performed at TXBF the previous year as well, but it was Talloolah and Ursula's fist time taking it off in their state of origin.  Yup, that's right, both Talloolah Love and Ursula Undress are originally from Texas, now you know!

We got in and had to go get ready for the Thursday night beginners showcase since Ursula Undess was performing her act she competed with at Viva Las Vegas.  Talloolah and I had a lot of fun getting to watch the show.  Ursula didn't win the audience choice chance to move up to the Saturday show, but she was in the final two so we were very proud of her.  Pyra Sutra did two really amazing acts as well as MC along with Miss Indigo Blue who did an amazing job!

Afterwards we went over to Elysium to hang out at the after party with Satan's Angel, Tiffany Carter and a big hunk of the other performers, many of which we had just seen in Chicago the weekend before.


Friday night was another showcase as well as performances by the headliners and legends.  The showcase was amazing and had two spectacular acrobatic acts including one half of Gravity Plays Favorites and Angi B. Lovely.  I do have very mixed feelings about the acrobatics, sometimes I feel like it should be a separate category for competitions, as who can compete with acrobatics and other times I do realize that there's not enough to actually warrant it's own category.  Bunny Pistol who I competed with back at Viva Las Vegas in 2008, as well as our girl Honey B Hind that we met at The Great Boston Burlesque Exposition back in 2007 which was Talloolah and I's very first festival.  Headliners included: Miss Indigo Blue who did an amazing tribute to Wild Cherry. Vivienne VaVoom (aka Michelle Baldwin) who literally wrote the book on classic burlesque and it showed! Torchy Taboo who we love and adore as she used to be an Atlanta girl! The legends that performed were Dusty Summers who did an amazing magic act, Tiffany Carter who did a beautiful slow sultry traditional classic routine and the crowd favorite Satan's Angel who does a down and dirty bad girl classic routine.

The whole evening was a lot of fun and we had a great time getting to watch the show and hang out.   Afterwards we scampered back to our lodgings as it was starting to really pour and have really strong winds and we didn't want to get caught out and about in a city we don't know very well trying to dive around in bad weather.


Saturday was a busy busy day for all of us.  We went to the amazing brunch given to all of the performers by our hosts of the Texas Burlesque Festival where we had a good discussion about competitions versus straight up festivals.  Afterwards we got to take a class from Satan's Angel.  We went over pasties, tassels, stockings, costuming, and general info that was useful whether you were a novice or a seasoned burlesque performer!  It was a whole lot of fun and it never ceases to amaze me how much I lean every time I get to speak to the legends and other performers.  Once the class was done we hauled hiney back to get ready as Talloolah and I needed to get ready to perform in the Saturday night competition.

Talloolah opened the show with her Feeling Good number and her act was amazing. She looked gorgeous and did an amazing job!  I was third with my Betty Crocker roiutine and my music stopped about 3/4 of the way through my routine.  I kept going and then I had a pastie fall off so I slapped my hand over my nipple and kept twirling the other one.  I am honestly starting to believe that this number is cursed and perhaps I should put Betty Crocker on a shelf  Renea'le Roux came in for the competition and did her Pink Poodle routine which was great!  None of us won anything but we had a geat time regardless.

There's been a lot of discussion about competitions lately and whether or not they're a good thing.  Honestly, I don't go to festivals to compete.  I do it so I can get to travel, meet interesting people and get to perform in interesting places.  If I were to win something that would be really cool, but I'm perfectly happy just getting to go.  I think competition is healthy and helps encourage people to strive to be better.  If someone wins something then it's a cool memory and looks nice on a press release that helps them, the shows they perform in and bring attention to their city.  We don't have a lot of titles in Atlanta and a lot of people don't know how much amazing burlesque we have here as a result.  I don't think people should get all jealous and cut throat about it, but titles help draw attention in press releases and the community.

Sunday we were sad to leave after such an amazing weekend but we were once again happy to go home.  We made a lot of new friends, got to hang out with a lot of old friends and have a great time over all.  I think we'll all be applying again next year and I loved that they added the Thursday night showcase as well as the class this year.  As per usual please feel free to check out all of my pictures from the festival on Flickr.  I wasn't allowed to take pictures at the shows since I didn't have a press pass, but you can see some cute back stage and my Ursula and Talloolah paparazzi photos!