Burlesque
I had to admit, the dress that the host of Miss Indigo Blue’s Academy of Burlesque student recital was everything a little cocktail outfit should be. It was elegant, burnt sienna, cut extremely low in the front—almost to the navel—but short enough to invite the raising of eyebrows from the moderately prudish. The small but stylish dress was coupled with a dangerous pair of stiletto heels, sparkly red and blue costume earrings that matched the seemingly overgrown false red and blue eye lashes. Perfectly applied ruby-red lipstick adhered to the borders of a mouth that sat just below one of the most magnificent mustaches I have ever seen grown on the face of a man after President Chester A. Arthur.
Weeks earlier I had seen a posted invitation to the performance on the Facebook by an old friend from high school in my old hometown of Kittitas, Washington. I’m not particularly close with her. I rarely see her in person and when I do it is usually a large function back home. However, the miracle of the interwebs gives us a window into each other’s lives and as she has kept up with my creative endeavors, I have kept up with hers.
By day, she is a successful advertising director for a serious player agency in the Puget Sound. I’m going to be a bit vague on purpose with any details, but picture her as the Don Draper of Seattle advertising, minus the infidelity, mysterious persona, two kids and self-destructive behavior.
You know what? She’s not anything like Don Draper. Forget I said that. She’s funny and cool with a touch of geek and she is incredibly creative.
The performance she was inviting her friends to was to be her final recital from the classes she had been taking from the above mentioned academy of burlesque. Academy of burlesque schools being the beginning grooming ground for burlesque prep schools. From there, I would imagine there are Jesuit burlesque universities (generally considered better than state burlesque colleges). And finally burlesque grad school, where you’ll earn a Ph. D. in sexy dancing and then compete for tenure as a burlesque professor at one of those lesser state or community burlesque colleges in an area of the country that you don’t want to live.
I had never been to a burlesque performance before, but I had been aware that the trend was picking up steam in Seattle so I wasn’t clueless about the art, and it is art. It is. Really.
Burlesque is a less-is-more type of stripping. Less is taken off and the provocative way it is done was to illicit more of a taboo temptation then to get one’s reproductive system kicked into overdrive. There is more flirting and teasing. Burlesque uses music and theater combined with the slow, subtle shedding of clothes to inspire the imagination. The art of burlesque is what inspired Thomas Edison to invent the electric light, so that he may have had more illumination to see exposed flesh.
Luckily, the performance landed at a time when I happened to be in town. With Wendy and Zach being away, it’s nice to have activities to go do lest I find myself wandering my home in my underpants wondering what else I can put in pancakes to make them better (by the way, not raisins). This seemed like a fun little bit of theater to take in, but was it too risqué for me to attend as a lonely middle-aged man whose wife is out of town? Probably.
(That thing about Edison two paragraphs ago is totally made up.)
My friend deserved support and asked for people to come watch her perform. For years, she has been dressing up with friends in different old lady characters and going out on the town—In character—and wreaking comedy havoc on the Seattle bar scene. I’ve seen the pictures. The idea is unbelievably hilarious and I’ve always wanted to see it in person. If my friend could bring that kind of show to a solo burlesque performance, I was sure it would be entertaining. However, technically speaking I would be seeing a friend of mine seductively taking off her clothes while unchaperoned. I needed to think of a way to make it less awkward, so I invited my sister to come.
After inviting my sister, I rechecked the math on the awkward equation and found that I had added instead of subtracted. The result was that when I told people what I was going to do on Saturday night, my answer was this:
“My sister and I are going to watch a friend of ours from high school take off her clothes.”
There are only two other words that could make that sentence more awkward and those are “mother” and “grandmother”.
Well, it turns out I was also going to be seeing the show with the mother of my dancing friend. That’s right, I was officially in over my head. However, I remembered that this isn’t plain-old, run-of-the-mill, airport district nekid strippin’. This was theater, choreography, teasing, keep-the-pants-on-and-the-nipples-covered creative expression. I was supporting the arts. I was supporting a friend who had supported me.
For all the years I have been performing, speaking, writing, singing, playing drums and making music, I cannot tell you how many times I have invited someone to come watch and nobody shows up. Now there have been plenty of times when EVERYONE shows up. I perform enough that I simply cannot expect people to continuously take time out of their incredibly busy lives to show up to watch me play. But my friend doesn’t perform nearly as often as I do, so in order to keep the ratio fair, I was going to do everything I could to show up, smile, cheer loud and fill a seat for what I was sure to be a fantastic performance. I don’t just owe her audience time; I owe everyone audience time. Can I help it if there was to be nudity?
Now yes, I will absolutely attest that there was nudity and sexy dancing but I cannot say that I was particularly aroused. In fact, the only thing hard for me that night was finding a parking spot on Capitol Hill.
For those of you not familiar with Seattle, Capitol Hill is the bohemian hipster hangout of every art school drop-out and geeky odd-ball in the city. Everyone that lives there is cooler than you, survives on only coffee and single malt heroin and has at one time owned a pre-1970 Volvo. They hate you, themselves, and pretty much anything that isn’t on Capitol Hill, but they’ll keep it inside so that you can see their suffering bubble out in slow frustration. They beg for you to stare at them so that they can angrily confront you about why you’re looking at them. Next to Disneyland it is probably the happiest place on Earth.
Somehow I find a parking spot in a 30 block area with only 7 spaces available for nearly 6,000 cars. I hung the only effective Capitol Hill car-theft deterrent on my steering wheel hoping it would be enough to keep my car from getting stolen from the shady-chic neighborhood. It was an orange plaid polo shirt I purchased from Target specifically for this purpose.
The theater was small but had a large stage. It had an elaborate light rig and a decent sound system. I immediately knew that I wasn’t dressed for this place. For one thing, the shirt and cargo shorts were unlike any of the custom made/antique/fair-trade/underground boutique clothes by which I was surrounded by. My whole body felt like it was sticking out like a thumb that had been struck hard twice with a ball-peen hammer and not in a craving attention good way. So I guess I felt normal.
My sister had informed me that due to unforeseen circumstances she had to cancel, so this added to my creepiness. I sat patiently out of place, waiting for my friend’s character, Miss Splenda Sugarbottom, to take the stage.
I anxiously texted my wife, telling her about what I was seeing and letting her share in the excitement of what I was about to see.
“Enjoy! I am out for the night” she replied. I guess taking in a burlesque pre-show isn’t as exciting when you are two hours ahead and your only connection is through the crystal clear medium of text messaging. “OMG!!! U shud C his dress!” If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is the exchange rate for texting characters?
Splenda’s mother arrived just before curtain, and long enough for me to greet her with an awkward hello, and a look that I tried to convey that it didn’t have to be weird that I was about to watch her daughter disrobe. IT’S ART DAMMIT! This would have been so much easier if my sister would have shown up.
The lights dimmed, the curtain parted and the rather tall, lean, completely bald man wearing the scrumptious tiny dress, stepped out to the cat calls of adoring fans. His incredibly huge mustache demanded the audience’s respect, but the way he wore the dress thanked you for that respect. His name was Waxie Moon, and he was fabulous cubed.
Please understand; for years we have seen male comedians grabbing an easy laugh by costuming themselves in traditionally female garb. I have done it myself. It’s a big easy laugh when done right, and by that, I mean a man attempting to understand the complexities of what it is to be a modern woman, and failing miserably at it in front of people. Not making fun of women, not making fun of men who prefer to dress in traditionally female clothing, but men sucking at really understanding women from the most superficial representation.
Waxie Moon was NONE of these things. Waxie isn’t a man in women’s clothes. Those are Waxie’s clothes. Waxie is a man. Therefore, if those clothes are Waxie’s and Waxie is a man, then that dress he was rocking is a man’s dress. That is logic 101. Waxie Moon owned that dress mentally and physically and he used it to command that room in a fun and entertaining way all night long.
Waxie, as it turns out, is senior faculty at Miss Indigo Blue’s Academy of Burlesque. Although he did not state this to the recital’s audience, I would wager that he holds a PH.D. in “working it,” a dual major in “bump and grind,” as well as “the tease” and absolutely no minors allowed.
One could tell by how he spoke with the crowd and cherished each performance that he was the kind of mentor that sculpted his students from the inside out rather than the outside in. You could tell, because each student was unique and drew their scene and character from within themselves. They then developed their outfits and props from what they discovered in Waxie’s process. Holy cow, this would make an amazing movie! Nobody write it. It’s mine.
Each act came out and gave a meaningful and revealing performance, with none of the performers appearing nervous to be baring PG-13 parts of themselves to perfect strangers. IN FACT, every one of these performers appeared to be more empowered during and after their performances. These ladies were taking something back. I have no idea what it was, but they were there to collect said mystery thing and reclaim the ownership with a bill of sale and all future claims to property related to or derived from.
Intermission hit and Splenda still had not graced the stage with her unique scene. I casually spoke with Splenda’s mother and she told me that Splenda was coming up right after the break. Also, any awkwardness that I had perceived about watching a woman’s daughter take off her clothes appeared to be all in my imagination. Or was it?
The lights once again dimmed and Waxie Moon emerged once more from the curtain with more excitement and another surprisingly understated but glamorous outfit. This one was a scandalous red mini dress with a sheer red covering that reached down to the floor. How can this guy look better in dresses than I look in anything? I don’t know the answer to that, but I couldn’t see Waxie sporting my outfit, and why would he?
It was the moment I had been waiting for. Waxie gave a pitch perfect introduction and the stage opened up to a soft pink sunset glow of the incorrigible Miss Splenda Sugarbottom. She sashayed out onto the scene in a pink polka dot dress with matching head scarf and long pink silk gloves. The crowd roared their approval as she began her precisely timed routine, but there was nothing ROUTINE about it. This may have been the first time she had done this dance or the thousandth, you’d never know, because she was in absolute control up there.
As she executed the story and the teasing and the metamorphosis occurred, you could tell that Splenda was eating up every minute of the show. Her smile was so bright that at times, you would think it would burn right through your corneas if you looked at it straight on. She owned the stage, made her way around the elaborate props, told the story and made the crowd fall in love with the character of Splenda Sugarbottom.
I don’t know much about burlesque. I’m not an expert, but Splenda took the show up a notch. I didn’t think I was at a recital for a burlesque 101 class, which I was. I thought Splenda’s act could have played at any hall in town. It was that entertaining. She was beautiful, funny, technically proficient and positively electrifying.
Here’s a major spoiler about how her act finishes: Awesomely and with huge applause. I’m not going to give her act away. Get out there and catch one of her shows.
That night, I went home and wrote Splenda Sugarbottom a fan letter, telling her how amazing she was and how I would love to catch another show. I told Splenda that I wanted to bring my wife out and have her witness the craziness of Miss Indigo Blue’s Academy of Burlesque when she gets back in town. I really couldn’t stop gushing, because all of that positive energy that had been emanating off of my friend and the other performers had infected me with the excitement of a life worth living.
It became clear to me that Waxie Moon, hadn’t taken these ladies through the motions of some mere dirty dancing, stripper classes. This was Waxie’s way of teaching these ladies how a man can rock not one, but two fantastic dresses, and how you can take off your shirt for strangers and leave shame and self-doubt at the door. You can do all of these things and still maintain one of the greatest mustaches this side of the 19th Century. Miss Indigo Blue’s Academy of Burlesque is one big master class in confidence.
These performers came from all walks of life, but what really united them, was their willingness to take a leap outside that warm, cozy comfort zone and into the unknown of possibilities…positive or negative. They pushed themselves to grow and try something out that might re-ignite a fire that has been stifled inside of them. But the fires were burning bright that night on Capitol Hill and I think their light was extremely inspirational for everyone present, and that’s the Damm truth.