| It might have been that I wasn’t paying attention, but it seems that there are a lot more corsets around. And a lot more black electrical tape and chocolate-syrup fights on nightclub stages, come to think of it.
It appears that burlesque dancing is the new Pilates and rock clubs, lacrosse teams and theatre festivals are all rushing to stock their stages with stiletto heels and diminishing wardrobes. Fortunately for those of us who crave authenticity in all things esthetic, Calgary just happens to be home to an already established troupe that is mortified by electrical tape and ready to educate the masses before whipping them into a black-leather frenzy.
"There are a lot of people out there that want to be stars and get onstage, and if they’ve got no talent, they can just take their clothes off," I’m told by Madame FancyPuss (not the name on her birth certificate), one of the founding members of the Kabuki Guns Burlesque, Calgary’s entry into the nu-burlesque fray. "It doesn’t take any talent to take your clothes off. To do it with choreography and class, that takes talent."
The Kabuki Guns (Betsy Rockets, Pricilla Priss, L’il Ruby Chaos, Cherry Whip and Madame FancyPuss) have the market cornered on choreography and class. For those whose idea of burlesque dancing doesn’t extend past Betty Page and black nylons, or worse yet, the Suicide Girls, you’re fortunate enough to live in a city with the genuine article. The increasingly popular troupe has an ever-changing act which has been known to include luau couture, geishas, riding crops, spinning flaming pasties (I’m not kidding) and two snakes named Atlas and Phaedra.
Chaos is the troupe expert on "actual burlesque," having danced for more years than most of her audiences have been allowed to drink, toured Canada and the States repeatedly and seen the art form she loves grow into an almost household name, with a helpful push from the neo-swing movement of the ’90s, and a certain notorious Marilyn Manson ex, Dita von Tease, taking fetish dancing into the pages of Playboy.
"Everything that is underground is going to surface, shove its leg in there occasionally, and then it’s going to go back underground, where it started," Chaos says. "But I think that it’s a word that got thrown out there – a word that got more popular. Whether people are doing actual burlesque remains to be seen."
To keep the Kabuki Guns Burlesque rooted in the past, and keep the audience’s minds on culture, she intersperses a burlesque history into every performance.
"In the late 1800s, the main course of entertainment of the time was theatre. But not everyone could afford theatre," she says. "But just because you don’t have money doesn’t mean you don’t need entertainment, so these people formed their own theatre groups. They made costumes out of whatever was available, they got together in little troupes and they did shows in supper clubs and church basements and anywhere they could get a show. It was farce and satire aimed at the issues of the day. The dancing-girl act came in the intermission. As time progressed and people got a little more relaxed with their sexuality, the costumes got smaller and smaller and probably by about the ’40s, the strip-tease was born."
If striptease was more about mystery and sex, it ended up pushing the original burlesque act underground, as audiences inevitably preferred the easy and senseless to the sensual. Burlesque made its start in Calgary when FancyPuss, who had worked as a belly dancer with musicians around the city for 12 years, gave into musicians bemoaning the lack of hometown burlesque every time Ray Condo came to town. FancyPuss was then approached by the not-yet Miss Priss, who had just seen (get ready for the small world portion) Ruby Chaos, and knew she’d found the edge that all those years of ballet and jazz lessons never provided.
The Kabuki Guns Burlesque continue to support and usually upstage rock ’n’ roll bands, and now with their sometime disc jockey, King Honey Kruller (who Chaos calls the world’s best burlesque DJ, albeit a somewhat loose cannon), have become the headlining act. They have a tennis open planned and have even performed at Dutton’s Lounge in the Saddledome for the Calgary Roughnecks all-star game wrap-up party.
"The corporate shows are fun," says Priss, "It’s fun to be in front of an older audience. They really enjoy it." |
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