Stills from the Atlanta Cabaret and Burlesque Meeting

Meredith, aka The Chameleon Queen

                                 Pals, Meredith and Jon

Jon, styling from pompadour to his wingtips.

                                                The Chameleon Queen performs...

Moving Along

Things continue to move along!

Thursday Meredith invited us along to the monthly meeting of Burlesque performers. We got to talk to a few performers, including Lola LeSoleil, this year's queen of Southern Fried Burlesque Fest and a member of Musee. Hopefully we'll be able to film and interview and a routine with her in the upcoming weeks. However, the highlight of the night was getting to record our first performance of the project, a 1930's inspired tease by The Chameleon Queen.

Then, this weekend, we got three more interviews done. First, on Saturday, we sat down with Brittney, aka Sunny Midnight, at her apartment. She showed us some pasties, talked to us a little about her recent entry into the Musee family, and gave us some insight into the ways that race works within the world of modern burlesque. We got to film around her apartment, and Katherine got to squeal over her collection of Pop! Bobbleheads.

From there, after a quick coffee stop, we moved up to Roswell to interview Jon Pine, aka New Orleans Jon, at his mini-Playboy mansion house. He greeted us at the door holding a bloody mary, and gave us a MTV Cribs style tour of his house. Afterwards, in the sit down interview, he talked about his playboy persona, his views on life, his family, and his love for performance. Jon was a great and fun interviewee, and was incredibly entertaining and insightful.

Finally, on Sunday night we met with Meredith, the Chameleon Queen, at her home theater 7 Stages. In the dressing room she gushed to us about old performers, told us about her characters, and described the forming of Musee. We ended up talking until we had almost run out of space on two SD cards, and our interview ended up being almost two hours long. One highlight was when she slipped into one of her stage personas, Lotta Wood, and gave us a short interview in character. Overall, it was a really fun and insightful weekend.

Coming soon, we'll be taping Musee rehearsals and a few staged performances, and may still do one or two more sit down interviews. We're at least more than half done with the shooting now, and will soon start the long process of editing. Look out soon for more behind the scenes clips from this weekend's interviews!

The Uterus on the Shelf and Weekend Interview Madness

This weekend was filled with interviews! We got the chance to speak with Barrie, aka Tora Torrid, Allison, aka The Black Lotus, and Heather, aka Pinky Shear. Basically we spent the whole weekend driving around and getting things done. We had a fantastic time talking to everyone and getting to tour Pinky and Allison's work spaces, ending up with tons of amazing footage. All the women we've worked with so far have been fun, energetic, thoughtful, and a blast to work with.  We even managed to stumble onto some unexpected topics. Here's a clip from our interview with Allison about her crochet uterus and her women's rights activism:

Our expert, Lily Ann Rose

Finding a grand dam of burlesque living in Atlanta is proving difficult, but we have made contact with a burlesque legend who lives outside of Atlanta. Lily Ann Rose, a featured burlesque performer in the documentary Behind the Burly Q, is eager to chat with us. Lily has written a book about her experiences, Banned in Boston, and desires to inform a new generation about classic burlesque. Her daughter is seeking a producer to make the book into a movie.

Click here to find out more about Banned in Boston, Lily Ann Rose's book.

Lily and I have been in communication over the last few weeks and I'm looking forward to speaking with her. I'm still experimenting with the best way to record our phone conversation and am developing questions to ask her. I have a feeling I don't need many as Lily is eager to share her stories. 

Southern Fried Burlesque Fest

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!

Musee Videos and Old Routines

I thought I'd provide some video clips of the kind of work the troupe does. It was hard to track down anything, but I found a couple. 

At our meeting with Tora Torrid, we tossed around the idea of possibly recreating some of the troupe's old routines. This one was brought up, but not to be recreated.

One of our likely subjects is Sunny Midnight. This is her debut routine, two years ago at Southern Fried.

Our Meeting with Tora Torrid

     Katherine organized a meeting for us today with her friend Barrie, aka "Tora Torrid." We brainstormed some  production ideas and asked Barrie what she thought her burlesque troupe most wanted from our production skills. Barrie thinks that the burlesque community faces a perception problem from the general audience. She says she gets reactions that range from thinking burlesque is synonymous with stripping to those who see the performer as a one dimensional fantasy object. In both cases, there is a lack of understanding regarding the humans involved in the burlesque act. Barrie would like to collaborate on a project that focuses attention on the woman (or man) behind the burlesque performance and highlights the art, historic accuracy and authenticity with which her troupe performs.

     As we riffed, Katherine and I brainstormed some of our thoughts for the production component. We talked about filming a sequence of the application of makeup shot through a two way mirror, and then playing the sequence in reverse to accentuate the person underneath the makeup. We talked about filming some practiced burlesque acts as if the camera is the audience, taking some scenes from Chicago as inspiration perhaps. We also tossed around the idea of Katherine and I putting on make up (and possibly performing a short routine?) for the credit sequence. I also got wild and shared my idea for a burlesque act involving an old timer named Buttons whose act is usurped by a younger dancer named Snaps. There were mentions of velcro and zippers as well. :)

     The stage names of the troupe we may be working with include Frankie Sin, Chameleon Queen, Tupelo Honey, Sunny Midnight, and Peaches Galore and Tora Torrid. Barrie was remarkably candid and informative about burlesque in general and her troupe in particular and gave us a strong introduction to the understanding of the burlesque scene. She even allowed me to record the conversation, for possible use of a future podcast.

     Katherine emailed her friend Meredith last Wednesday and we are waiting to hear back from her to schedule a meeting this week. Her schedule is tight as she has some gigs this week, but we do have a rehearsal space in pocket where we can film.

P.S. I'm looking into interviewing some original burlesque dancers who appeared in the documentary "Behind the Burly Q" who now live in Jacksonville, Florida while I'm there for spring break next week. - Kelly