ATLRetro

As tickets go on sale for next year’s Southern Fried Burlesque Festival, Atlanta burlesque maven Talloolah Love looks back on an absolutely fabulous first year…

I have to give my eyes a rest, as I may develop rhinestone cataracts after seeing such an array of magnificent, world class acts as graced the stage March 10-13 for the first-ever Atlanta burlesque convention: The Southern Fried Burlesque Festival. Plenty of articles have been put out there about the two gals behind the event. Masterminds and inner puppeteers, Ursula Undress and Katherine Lashe, were certainly exercised to the extreme as they worked their little tail feathers off to put this show on, and boy, didn’t it show! The vendors room alone could have struck you blind for all the fabulous glitter, rhinestones and color. As someone who has been to many festivals all over the country, ATLRetro asked me to share my experience as a spectator with a sweet nod and smooch to everyone behind the event who volunteered and assisted in their own ways to make it all happen.

Lydia DeCarllo

I arrived Friday night, just before doors. The moment I came in, the fabulous Lydia DeCarllo, the international sensation from Vancouver, swept me up. Now that’s my kind of welcome wagon! We chatted about her trip in and about how she’s been since we last saw each other at the Texas Burlesque Festival. Derek Jackson, Atlanta photographer and avid burlesque advocate, arrived soon after along with world-famous Rick DeLaup, founder of the New Orleans Burlesque Festival. I took a quick jog over to the bar, as I am quite familiar with the Decatur Holiday Inn and Convention Center, which has been newly renovated and also is the home of TribalCon, a national bellydance convention I try to attend every year. The bar was literally dripping with burlesque stars, but the most fabulous in attendance at that moment as Ms. Torchy Taboo, Atlanta’s own burlesque Godfather. She held court there as only she can, a moment I so sorely missed out on because there was so little time to commiserate before the first big show began.

Talloolah Love and Derek Jackson

I took my seat in the VIP section with Rick and Derek and used my commemorative Jo Boobs pen to take notes on the festival’s first all-star show. My only disappointment was that when Derek invited me to sit VIP, my vision of it would be some kind of small gift bag or at the very least drink tickets for the conveniently located hotel bars in the ballroom. But not this year. Happily the bar’s prices were so reasonable it wasn’t as big of a deal as it could have been had the event been held in Atlanta. Still, if I were to critique the VIP experience for its price, a small gift of appreciation would have been nice and usually expected at most festivals.  All of this, though, was again mitigated by the national celebrities who came to chew the fat with us, like Atlanta’s own Mike Geier, the evening’s emcee, and Margaret Cho, along with the cast of DROP DEAD DIVA.

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Atlanta certainly has earned its place on the map of the Neo-Burlesque Revival with amazing performers and troupes. Now this steamy Southern city finally is getting its first bonafide burlesque festival, too. In case you’ve been too naughty to notice, Southern Fried Burlesque Fest dances into town next weekend, Thurs. March 10- Sun. March 13, 2011, at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Conference Center in Decatur. But co-founders Katherine Lashe and Ursula Undress (Syrens of the South Productions) kindly have agreed to pull back the curtains and strip down to some of the delicious details…

Katherine Lasche & Ursula Undress invite you to some Southern-fired fun at Atlanta's first burlesque festival.

1. Is there any story behind how you hatched the idea for Southern Fried Burlesque Fest and why Atlanta needs its own festival?

Katherine Lashe: Atlanta’s the biggest city in the Southeast and a hot bed for burlesque with guest performers coming in all the time so it seemed to make sense that we should have a festival to show off all of the amazing talent from all aspects of burlesque that the Southeast had to offer, in addition to showing the Southeast what the rest of the world has to offer as well.

Ursula Undress: I had heard some talk about how we needed to do something like it here at a few of the Atlanta Burlesque & Cabaret Meet-Ups and had been to a few other state-specific festivals. So I supported Katherine with wanting to move forward with one here and told her I would do whatever I could to help. We definitely have the talent in the city and surrounding areas—so it has become sort of a regional thing.

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