This weekend was a busy one!

On Friday I had the honor of dancing a duet with my dear friend Maggie Maraschino to the live music of Walter Sikert & The Army of Broken Toys.  I've been going to Toys shows for years. Before I started doing burlesque I was dancing like a happy fool in the audience of their shows. It's pretty surreal to be dancing on their stage and it's really fucking fun. The energy at this weekends show was so full of love and watching the crowd sing along as I danced was something I'll never forget.

Maggie and I have been dancing together for almost the entirety of my burlesque career. She and Porcelain Dalya, (another light in my life), put me in one of their shows when I was a brand new performer and really took a chance on me. I'm happy to say that we've been performing together ever since. I was in a fucking AMAZING number choreographed by Maggie in the Glitter Bomb's production, Strip Hop Hooray:

This girl can dance! I know I mentioned in my last blog that dancing with a live band can be full of surprises. When the song was played slightly differently then we rehearsed, Maggie and I were able to improvise, work together, and add to our piece, without even speaking. Then we finished up the piece like this:

Guys, can we talk about how sexy these photos are? I can't even get over us. Because usually when we are rehearsing we look more like this:

I'm very fortunate in that I get to work alongside people I really admire. The second show I had this weekend was Bon Appetit's Pastie Punch Out. A professional burlesque competition with an all-star lineup that I'm humbled to say included me. I did my werewolf number which is my favorite number to perform. Because I've been performing it for a while I decided to overhaul my costume and invest a little bit more in the number that I've performed at the most gigs. I embellished and built myself a new bra and skirt and they worked perfectly. As always, the Bon Appetit show was a blast and I got to meet several performers I'd never met before. There was a strong Boston contingent at the competition: Allix Mortis, Femme Brulee, Jane Doe, Lolli Hoops, and the 2nd place winner of the competition, Brandy Wine! Along with the fabulous Boston performers were, Vanil Lafrappe, Vivienne LaFlamme (3rd Place), Fruit on the Bottom, Serendipity Galore (1st Place), Heather Whatever, and Velvet Kensington.  Every single performer brought their A-game and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen.  I laughed! I cried (only because Allix Mortis is so badass) and I got to hang out with a bunch of gorgeous, talented, women. 

Last but not least! 
This weekend I posed for Dr. Sketchy's Boston Presents: The Slaughterhouse Sweethearts. Hosted by Allix Mortis and filled with talented artists, this month's Dr. Sketchy's was a blast. I modeled alongside The Wizaard, The Slaughterhouse Sweetheart's only male member. We had a hard time holding a straight face while posing and shared lots of stories and laughs with the artists. Allix was a great host who moved things along and kept us talking while we posed. This was my third time posing for Dr. Sketchy's and I felt so comfortable. Holding a pose for 20 minutes can be hard but I've gotten much more at ease and have started to feel a real sense of calm while posing. 

Coming up this week I'll be performing at Punk Rockin' & Pastie Poppin' Lewd Luau and then will be taking a break (mostly) for the rest of the month to work on the upcoming Slaughterhouse Sweethearts show Revenge of the Robot Battle Nuns. This will be the 3rd year running of the show and I aim to do it proud as a new cast member. If you're going to see one of our shows this year then this is the one to see. Just make sure to bring a poncho, things are going to get messy. 

Be sure to check my event calendar for more upcoming shows! I'm going to be a busy girl in the coming months! 

This weekend I headed out to Western, MA to hang out and perform with some of my favorite people.  

I grew up in Western, MA and returning to do shows is usually a blast. Not only do I get to visit with family (who all come to the show!) but I get to perform at Bon Appetit Burlesque which is one of my favorite shows to be in. 

This weekend was a double whammy because I also posed at Dr. Sketchy Northampton's final show at their usual venue. The venue is being sold and this show was their farewell to The Elevens.  

Northampton has a thriving arts scene and is totally worth checking out, either as a patron, or as a performer.

The theme of this weekend's Dr. Sketchy's was murderesses!  That's right, ladies who kill. 

Guys, this is kind of my thing. 

I talked to Kyle & Cora, who run Dr. Sketchy's NoHo, and they were totally on board for making it creepy. For the first half I posed as Lizzie Borden. 

You know:

Lizzie Borden took an axe
and gave her mother 40 whacks 
when she saw what she had done
she gave her father 41

Lizzie's story is particularly interesting because she became one of the first female “celebrity” killers. She lived in Fall River, MA and chose to stay there after her trial despite her tarnished reputation.  

I have a Lizzie Borden burlesque routine called "Lizzie Boredom" where I pay tribute to the famed axe-woman. I believe that IF she killed her father and step mother then she did it because her life was horribly hard and tremendously boring. Poor Lizzie! She needed to spice things up! 

The second half was a series of poses based off of several murderesses:

• "Tillie" Klimek (1876–1936):  A woman said to have the psychic ability to predict people's deaths- until she was found out to be the person killing them. Her weapon of choice was arsenic and she's famous for poisoning her husband. As he died, she at his bedside knitting her mourning veil.
  
  
• Dana Sue Gray (1957): An American serial killer, currently in prison for offing 3 elderly women and stealing their credit cards to fund her shopping addiction.  I guess she wanted to make them PAY...
  
  
• Vera Renczi (1920's Romania):  A femme fatale who, according to the legend, murdered 35 men, including her own son. She was discovered with 35 coffins in her basement filled with the decomposing bodies of men with whom she had been romantically involved. When arrested, she told the police she liked to sit in an armchair among her "suitors."
  
  
• Anne Bonny (1702-1782): An Irish woman who became a famous Caribbean pirate.  Said to have dressed as a man until discovered. Word is she killed the man who outed her as a woman- by stabbing him through the heart.  

Aside from being startled by my own coat backstage (I screamed like a small child), I had such fun creeping out the artists at Dr. Sketchy's Northampton. I hope to be back once they start up at their new venue.

The next night I had the honor of performing with FruitontheBottom, Vivienne LaFlamme, Dolly Would, Victoria Van Layer, and my fellow Slaughterhouse Sweeheart, Allix Mortis, in Bon Appetit Burlesque's Magic Time Machine II. 

Bon Appetit is run by my favorite host,  Hors D'oeuvres whose burlesque message is simple: 
"Bon Appétit Burlesque is a woman-friendly, body-positive neo-burlesque show in Northampton, Massachusetts. From its early days in front of a handful of spectators, Bon Appétit Burlesque has grown into a standing-room-only show at The Deuce that features women (and sometimes men) of different ages, races, gender expressions, sexualities, and body types performing neo-burlesque and boylesque."

And boy does Hors deliver! I've performed in this show a handful of times and it continues to be a highlight in my performance schedule. It's so professionally run, the lineup is always diverse, and Hors's hosting is something to be seen.  Many gigs have performers changing in dank basements without a printed lineup in sight- not at Bon Appetit! From Ben working the door, to Captain Elastico (his assless banana costume was the talk of Christmas this year after my aunties came to the show) working the crowd, this show runs like a dream. I've been known to drive 2 hours to see the show even when I'm not in it.  I really recommend this show to performers and fans alike because it's a guaranteed fucking BLAST.

If you're a performer and reading this you should consider applying for the Pastie Punch Out. It's a Neo-burlesque competition run and hosted by Hors at Bon Appetite. I applied! Hopefully I'll see you there!  

On top of performing my Lizzie Borden number I debuted a re-worked version of a number that I did when I was first starting out. My friends Maggie Maraschino and Porcelain Dalya produced a show in 2013 and asked me to be part of it. It was a week to show time and knowing the theme was time travel I came up with a comedic bit about past life regression therapy and fused it with a Cleopatra number. 

Watching video of that number made me cringe a little.  I tried to look at that as a learning experience and worked to make it better.  I've reworked that number: changed the song, the costume, the choreography, and I'm really happy with the results. I'll be performing it next month in Boston! A big part of the learning process in Burlesque (for me, anyway) is adding, changing, and revamping to create a better piece.

I loved going back to my old stomping grounds and performing and creating art with the talented people there. While at my parents I unearthed this photo of me and a friend at a dance recital. I think I'm around age 11. Do you think much has changed? (Good Lord, I hope I have better hair at least!)