Meetings, Plans, and Bacon

Allison and Meredith, aka The Black Lotus and The Chameleon Queen

Woo! So many plans coming together at last!

Today I met up with two of our main contacts, Meredith, the artistic director of Musee, and her assistant director Allison at Java Lords in Little Five Points for coffee and conversation. Luckily, they seem to be just as excited about the documentary as I am! We were able to talk about a lot of scheduling and logistics things, as well as come up with some more definitive goals.

Something that came up a lot in our discussions was that we wanted to represent a multifaceted view of who these performers are. Besides just doing burlesque, they are also involved with other forms of vintage performance and charity work. Rather than simply forming a troupe, they've formed a family that wants to help the wider community in any way that they can. The group does benefits to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness, and individual members support various causes including LGBT rights and pit bull rescue. Among themselves, they help each other in every way they can, whether in performances or in the struggles of real life. Meredith calls this "active compassion": Not just raising money for people who need it, but also giving up time to helping out in a more hands on way. They are starting an initiative called BuBBLe to use burlesque groups to take care of those in their own communities who need assistance, as well as cooperating with charities.

Another thing that was emphasized for the documentary was showing the performers for who they are and bringing down stereotypes about Burlesque performers. Burlesque performers aren't aloof and above it all, nor are they raunchy and cheap. We want to show that the women who do this are regular, down to earth people, who enjoy performing. They were also interested in showing how burlesque can be accessible, and an art for the everyman. Tall, short, fat, thin, man, woman, straight, gay, trans? As Meredith said, "show me what you can do!"

So things are moving along! Meredith and Allison liked the previous idea of showing a transition between the burlesque character and the real woman. Allison mentioned a scene she had pictured of a burlesque performer walking offstage in all her glamour and glittery makeup, and then pulling on a pair of footie pajamas. Performers eating bacon and chili dogs in costume was also mentioned. We also talked about scheduling, and worked out several occasions for us to film performances, rehearsals, and interviews. There's a possibility that I might be filming a panel Meredith is doing about burlesque at Frolicon in two weeks.

Next step, get into contact with the rest of Musee to see who is interested in doing an interview and when!