Faggedy Randy at Sony Hall for the New York Burlesque Festival 2.10.21

Faggedy Randy at Sony Hall for the New York Burlesque Festival 2.10.21

Faggedy Randy at Sony Hall for the New York Burlesque Festival 2.10.21

Dirty Martini at Sony Hall for the New York Burlesque Festival 2.10.21

Dirty Martini at Sony Hall for the New York Burlesque Festival 2.10.21

Dirty Martini at Sony Hall for the New York Burlesque Festival 2.10.21

3/3 • What’s one piece of advice you can give to young or aspiring Burlesquers?

“I think the best advice that I can give is work. It’s a fun job but it’s still a job. Again like I said before, think 360. What can you do to make your brand, promote your brand, be true to your brand? And really, you are a performer. In burlesque, you have to think of things like your lights, your music, you want your levels right. What light do you look good in? What’s the room you’re playing in? You have to think about all of these things because ultimately the performance is for the audience, and that’s something you have to focus on and think about. It’s not just getting on stage for 3 minutes and being in a pretty costume, it’s the full sensory theatrical experience.”

• Angie Pontani at Sony Hall for the New York Burlesque Festival 2.10.21

2/3 • What is the most difficult part about burlesque?
“You really have to think outside the box to make a full living with it. You can’t just do shows— I mean, maybe some people can, but it’s really exhausting. You have to live on the road and tour constantly, so you have to think about other ways that you can monetize and promote your brand and kind-of be a full 360. It’s one of the reasons I produce my own shows, I produce this festival, I teach classes and different things like that. Burlesque is amazing, but I’m an entertainer, it’s not just about burlesque.”

• I know you just mentioned it, but how do you feel you contribute best to the burlesque community?
“Well, I was the co-founder of this festival which was the first yearly/annual festival, its one of the biggest festivals in the world. It really shined a light on New York in the early days and then brought together an international community. This event typically has 25-30 people from around the world in addition to 85-90 people from across the state, so I think that’s really good. In my own work as an independent performer, I did a lot of touring across the country when not a lot of people were touring, so I know that I brought first-exposure to the Neo-Burlesque, to a lot of places that hadn’t really seen it before.”

• Angie Pontani at Sony Hall for the New York Burlesque Festival 2.10.21

1/3 • How long have you been performing burlesque?

“I’ve been doing burlesque for over twenty years, probably about 25 years. I started when I was 17 years old and I was waitressing in a little coffee shop in the city. One of the guys who I worked with said I should come and audition for this show. I was a dancer, singer, in theatre. The show was a total underground burlesque show. Beautifully choreographed and written, and just an amazing show. I got into that show and that was it. I was with that show for a couple of years, and then I started doing my own thing in Coney Island and ba-boom, here we are.”

• Angie Pontani at Sony Hall for the New York Burlesque Festival 2.10.21

2/2 • Can you tell me a story that you’ve experienced performing burlesque, being on stage or behind stage, or just one moment that was memorable?
“Well, okay, so… I mean, is this going to be damning? Like, if I’m like ‘there’s a lot of debauchery behind stage?” Haha, no, I won’t tell that one. I mean, I just love the moments where you fucking forget something and you make it work. You know? Like, forgetting a costume piece and then you crowd-source, and then you’re like ‘does anyone have one of these? Or a fucking belt?’ And then you end up putting it together because the people got your back.”

• Jack Barrow at the Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

1/2 • What is your favorite part about performing?
“My favorite part about performing burlesque is that I have complete control over all aspects of it. I don’t have to answer to a casting director who wants to put me in a typecast or in a box or anything. I can be as queer as I fucking want. I can gender-bend all I want. And I come up with all of my concepts, costumes, choreography, everything.”

• How do you feel you best contribute to the burlesque/boylesque community?
“I feel like I contribute a lot of spark and energy to the community. I also love to do community building stuff, which is why I produce shows so that we can bring our fellow burlesquers together to showcase their talents and show the world what we’ve got.”

• Jack Barrow at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

2/2 • What is special about your performance art?
“Since I’ve been a dancer for so long, I try to bring elements of dance training and different types of dance into my performance. I guess I’ve been slacking off a little bit in my dance classes, but I usually try to take different types of dance classes throughout the year and use that to explore different forms of movement and expression. So by using those dances in my act, I’m living up to my Tiny Dancer name.”

• Tiny D at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

1/2 • Where did you get your name from?
“Oh! So I did a workshop many, many years ago with this performance artist. In the workshop we had to come up with our stage name, our ‘alter ego’ name. My good friend used to call me Tiny Dancer from the Elton John song, so when I was coming up with my name, I kept thinking “Do I want a nickname, or a saying that my friends call me?” And that was the only thing I could think of, because she always called me that. So I was like, I’ll just be Tiny D! And then I just stayed with it.”

• What is the best part about being part of a burlesque community?

“Being able to share. Especially when I was first starting out, I didn’t know anything about how to construct costumes or anything like that. So being able to share insight, and saying ’this place you can get the best deal on rhinestones’ or ‘I have this great technique of making a tearaway bra.’ Before COVID hit, we’d do a lot more in-person meet up’s, or we would costume and crash together. So for me, the community is really about learning from each other, which I find really helpful.”

• Tiny D at the Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

1/2 • What helps you express yourself best? Whether it’s in your art or outside of burlesque? How would you like to leave your mark in the world?

“I mean, it’s definitely through my arts and crafts. I pride myself of being pretty creative, which so many people are anyway in the burlesque world too. I don’t think I have a big life statement or political statement to make, that kind of thing. But I feel that people should be living and doing everything that makes them happy. I spent a few years a long time ago not really dancing and I realized one day that I wasn’t happy. So I went back to dancing, and now I make all my costumes and create my acts and try to think about how to combine all of my different skills together into a performance. I guess that’s the expression. Do everything, don’t hold yourself back, just go ahead and do it.”

• How you contribute best to the burlesque community?

“I still feel like a newbie. Even though I’ve been performing for twenty years, but burlesque is only four and a half. I guess just bringing honesty through my creative ideas. I’ve never felt compelled to copy other things or even in the sense of doing nerd-lesque, for example, where you copy a cartoon character or something. I feel like ideas come and they’re not always original but they’re somehow mine and special. I guess that’s the contribution. Can I put this out there? Will people like it? Or maybe they won’t like it.”

••• Whiskey Jules at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

2/2 • How did you begin performing burlesque?

“I started because my friends who own a restaurant in my neighborhood had opened their third restaurant about five years ago. They featured a stage, they had Latin dance, a fancy Mexican restaurant. They had bands on the weekend and burlesque night on Wednesday’s. So I would go and watch. I had been watching burlesque for many years before that anyway, I have a lot of friends in the circus so there was that cross-over. Finally one day the owner was like, “Do you want to do it?” And I was like, “No I don’t do that.” And then he talked me into it. My best friend was singing in a band that night, so it gave me a week or so of planning. I did a test-run, and that’s how I started. It was such a thrill. So now it’s four and a half years later.”

• Whiskey Jules at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

1/3 • How were you first introduced to burlesque?

“I was first introduced to burlesque around 11 years old by my mother who was watching the Josephine Baker story movie on HBO. I think somewhere around that time I had also learned of Gypsy Rose Lee, I believe Natalie Wood played her in a movie.”

• How did you get into burlesque?

“I got into burlesque after having taken pole dancing classes back in 2007. I did that for a year but had to stop because it was expensive. I had just gone back to school to finish getting my college degree in Communication Arts. Once I was finally done with school in 2011, I’d just broken up with my ex-boyfriend of 7 years, so I was in need of getting my mojo back and creative stimulation and exercise. I wasn’t a big fan of the gym, but always loved taking an in-person dance classes, so when I saw a Groupon for something called “Burlesque Bikini Bootcamp” I tried it out. Even though it was a cute class, it failed in comparison to the amazing pole dance studio that I had become accustomed to. I started working the front desk at the pole dance studio and was able to take classes again which was very helpful in healing. But because I took the Burlesque Bikini boot camp class, the teachers had me on their mailing list and I received an email of their upcoming class schedule in addition to when they would be performing. I went to that show they mentioned, and seeing the performer Hazel Honeysuckle for the first time and her performance that night was life changing.”

• Trinity Starlight at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

2/3 • Do you remember your first burlesque show?

“My first burlesque show is a bit of a blur because we’re talking a decade ago. But one of the shows that I do remember was in 2012 on Thanksgiving Eve at a beloved former bar “R Bar” (RIP since 2014) where burlesque shows used to happen frequently at.”

• What is something about your art that you would like people to know?

“My art will always be original to me and art is always going to happen, but what I want to do is help change the narrative that we have to be starving artists. Starting now and moving forward into the future its important that all artists must always be seen as thriving artists and make just as much money as any famous recording artist/performer or non-creative working professional. We’re providing much needed creativity in the world that big corporations tend to try to water down or replicate and manufacture copies of the same generic popular thing with a very archaic and outdated agenda with the sole purpose to only make profit from the masses. I’m an artist that has stopped looking for a place at the table to only get scraps and just be satisfied and grateful for that.”

• Trinity Starlight at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

1/2 • How did you begin performing burlesque?

“I had a terrible breakup and I wanted self-confidence, I got tired of sitting on my couch day in and day out. I wanted a little bit of fun, and the moment I took off my bra I never looked back.”

• What is one of the biggest challenges that you’ve experienced being a burlesquer?

“Being a thick, Black, burlesque entertainer, and not only just Black— Indigenous and Queer. Like, that’s a lot! Black burlesque started and ended with Josephine Baker and that’s not the case.”

• What do you love most about your art?

“That I get to express it. I think people need to understand, I may be living in New York now but I’m from South East DC where all the drug documentaries about crack was made. And like, yeah— Black burlesque is here to stay and we will go through anything to make our art happen.”

• Gigi Holliday at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

2/2 • As a burlesquer of color, what are some things that need to change in the burlesque community?

“Wow, well, stop making us tokens. Also understand that 90’s R&B and Hip-Hop is our love languages. That’s how we put out love into our art. Yes, a big band is great but think about the music that my Black parents danced to. Earth, Wind & Fire, Isley Brothers, Gladys Knight. I think that’s just it, like, Black burlesque is here to stay and it isn’t going anywhere.”

• What is a piece of advice you can give to young Black burlesquers wanting to be in theatre and in the burlesque community? What is something you can tell them?

“Fuck everyone and just do your own fucking shit! It’s not a fucking game. Like, they’re going to steal from you regardless so be the fucking blueprint. Have your citations, and say “No, you stole from me.” That’s just it, just do the thing. As a Black burlesque performer, just do the thing.”


• Gigi Holliday at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

Veronica Viper at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

“Similar challenges that any marginalized person would face. The higher paying gigs are harder to get, and the fancier quote on quote venues are only hiring a certain type of person and if you aren’t that type of person, you’re not getting in— there’s still some of that. But at the same time, this is the same community that allows me to be the beautiful and powerful person that I’ve become with their support. So, you know, it’s the world. There’s good and bad everywhere.
For me, its a chance to be 100% myself without abandonment. I say, show your work to your friends, workshop things, be able to take criticism, and always have a narrative. That goes for everything, for your art to your life, and if you stay true to that, if you stay true to yourself, it will lead you in the right direction.”

• Veronica Viper at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

Veronica Viper at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

1/2 “I got into burlesque because I was kind of bored. I worked a night job and I was a classical Indian dancer for a long time. I had been looking for a different kind of dance and expression. And so I looked around for burlesque and I found one that fit my schedule. That was the New York School of Burlesque, and that was five years ago.

I think that ultimately an artist’s job is to provoke. Whatever discipline you do, doesn’t have to be burlesque. In burlesque, yes we titillate, that’s pretty much the same as provocation. It has to provoke you to feel, to think, something different. And so the job of a burlesque performer, the job for any performer really, is to create this synergistic energy among the audience, the performer and whatever higher message— maybe that higher message is just entertainment or feeling, maybe its a political message, whatever it is. it creates this back and forth between the audience and the performer.”

• Lady Mabuhay at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21

2/2 “The most surprising thing that I did not expect but I guess I should have was that now as someone in her 40’s, there are certain limitations with my body that I have to deal with in terms of movement. I’m not as flexible as I used to be so I have to warm up for an hour or two beforehand. There are certain movements that I have to modify. Yes, I am very aware of the changes. There were certain things that I could not do that I had to work with.

I think that the ultimate thing is that we all want connection especially while we’re still in the pandemic, right? We’re striving for that and we’re starving for that. I think that if we can find a way to use whatever it is that we’re doing, whether it’s burlesque or performance or your art or maybe its your job or maybe its your role as something else, I think its important to find a way to connect to other people and relate to each other.”

• Lady Mabuhay at The Bell House for the New York Burlesque Festival 30.9.21