ATLRetro

Feathers and fringe and rhinestones, oh my! Founded and presented by Syrens of the South Productions, The Fourth Annual Southern Fried Burlesque Festival brings the best performers from all over the world to Atlanta Thurs. March 20-Sun. March 23 for a weekend full of burlesque classes, panels and performances  at the Wyndham Atlanta Galleria.

This year, the festival kicks off with the Just Hatched Newcomers Showcase Thursday night highlighting newer performers like Melody Magpie, May Hemmer, Duchess Dakini, as well as local Atlanta performers Roula Roulette, Nina Charrise, and some student group performances from classes at The Atlanta School of Burlesque.

Friday Night brings The Free Range Burlesque International Showcase, featuring performances by Burlesque Legend Penny Starr Sr. and her granddaughter Penny Starr Jr., and headlined by Queen of Burlesque 2008, Angie Pontani, and King of Burlesque 2013 Ray Gunn, as well as other amazing performers from all over the world!

Saturday night, get ready for the main event: The Southern Fried Burlesque Pageant has performers competing for Best Group, Variety, and the Southern Fried Burlesque King and Queen!  The Pageant will also include a farewell performance by the 3rd Southern Fried Burlesque Queen, Lola Le Soleil!

After the awards ceremony Saturday night, let your hair down at the Southern Scorcher Showcase with performers from all over the Southeast, like Robotica and the Professor, Dee Flowered, Violet Vixxxen, and headlined by Ursula Undress!

The Southern Fried Burlesque Festival also features lectures, events and classes Friday through Sunday for all interest and skill levels. Whether you are a history buff, into crafting costumes, want to learn the basics, or finetune your performance, this festival will have activities for all levels and aspects of burlesque. Learn entirely from seasoned burlesque performers, teachers, and legends, and leave the festival with all the tools you need to be the next Burlesque Aficionado! Don’t worry guys – all genders are welcome to attend classes!

Burlesque is the art of the striptease, with a focus on the tease.  Performers occasionally strip to pasties, but there is no nudity in any festival productions. This festival is dedicated to the preservation of an art form that has become an international movement.

For advance tickets to Fourth Annual Southern Fried Burlesque Festival events or the whole weekend, click here. 

Stars both of the Burlesque Revival and of classic tease arrive in Atlanta this week for the third annual Southern Fried Burlesque Festival Thurs. March 21-24 at  the Wyndham Atlanta Galleria. Bras off to Syrens of the South Productions, and in particular Katherine “Lashe” Neslund, with assistance from Ursula Undress, who had a dazzling dream to start a festival in Atlanta.As a lover of classic burlesque but appreciative of the creativity that revival performers show, ATLRetro has to say that the big evening shows at the first two SFBFs were among the best in Atlanta. We loved the chance to see some of the nation’s and Southeast’s best, including legends that sizzled stages in the ’60s and ’70s, without traveling to New York, the West Coast or the Burlesque Hall of Fame. Aspiring performers can take classes taught by these talents on topics ranging from costuming to performance to the history of the art form, as well as shop from a host of vendors selling everything from pasties to vintage items.

Just a quick glance at the line-up suggests this year will be just as good performance-wise, if not even better. First, we have to admit that we’re pretty excited to see Portland, Oregon’s Russell Bruner, reigning King of Burlesque, after getting a peek at him during our own Kool Kat Kitty Love‘s first Sultry Sunday of the year back in January. Male exotic dancers may be notoriously boring, but dressed in a pin-stripe seersucker suit, top hat and debonair moustache, let’s just say Russell wasn’t just sexy but sassy–really capturing the spirit of the tease in ways that most male dancers simply don’t. Of course, that underlines the essential difference between burlesque, or in this case “boylesque,” and striptease/exotic dance. Burlesque comes from vaudeville and variety and is all about having fun–which, well, they say gals love a guy with a sense of humor.

Russell Bruner

OK, yeah, that was a lot of getting hot and bothered about Russell. SFBF 2013 also features a bevy of lovely ladies. Friday night’s all-star Free Range Burlesque will be headlined by Miss Exotic World 2010 Roxi D’lite, who also stars in BURLESQUE ASSASSINS, a Canadian comedy/action indie feature film which will have its Atlanta debut at SFBF. Set in a 1950s Burlesque theatre, it stars top burlesque performers from around the world and and follows a trio of sexy super-spies as they seduce their way within killing distance of a trio of villainy hell bent on global Cold War domination. How can one not want to see a movie whose description provocatively teases: “WITNESS the fatal fan dance of Koko La Douce! BEHOLD the brutal boa striptease of Bombshell Belle! SEE Bourbon Sue, a bad girl with a taste for booze, boys and Rock & Roll. Experience the carnage and the cleavage as the enemies of The Burlesque Assassins discover that when it comes to these women, LOOKS CAN KILL!” Catch the trailer here.

Known for having the “mouth of a sailor” and the “voice of an angel,” Cora Vette will be on hand as pageant mistress of ceremonies on Saturday night. She performed for more than one million guests over three years as Tanya in MAMMA MIA! at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. She now runs a burlesque company called Black Box Burlesque and also has a troupe of male burlesque performers called Cora Vette’s Hot Rods. In fact, she may be one of burlesque’s most diverse talents, having also written two burlesque musicals, the critically acclaimed Victorian comic burlesque operetta, LEADVILLE OR BUST! and a pot opera called REEFER MANIA: DENVER’S GONE TO POT.

Cora Vette.

Notorious for her costumes, 2012 Southern Fried Burlesque Queen, Denver’s Orchid Mei, returns. She gracefully combines traditional Chinese dance with influences from classic burlesque femme fatales and has performed with the Dresden Dolls. Also back are last year’s best group, New Orleans’ Slow Burn Burlesque! Atlanta’s own lovely Talloolah Love and Knoxville’s Kisa Von Teasa will be featured performers at the Southern Scorcher showcase, hosted by Minette Magnifique‘s Baroness vonSchmalhausen which also includes Fonda Lingue, Ursula Undress and many more talented performers  from all over the Southeast!

late night Saturday. SFBF’s legends this year are Canada’s Judith Stein and Detroit’s Toni Elling, who will both be performing Friday. And that’s not even counting Atlanta’s New Orleans Jon, who emcees on Friday; all the way from Stockholm, Sweden, Adoria Amoria – if you had any doubt that the revival had reached Scandinavia; Knoxville’s Sweet Little Psycho Kisa Von Teasa, and many more.

Here’s a quick rundown of SFBF daily highlights:

Thursday March 21

SFBF kicks off with a happy hour mixer, which also will double as the monthly meet-up of the Atlanta Burlesque & Cabaret Club from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., then get a sneak peek at burlesque’s future stars at the Just Hatched Newcomers Showcase and watch the Atlanta premiere of BURLESQUE ASSASSINS at 10 pm.

Friday March 22

The festival teases into full gear with classes and vendors during the daytime, the Free Range International Showcase headlined by Roxi D’lite and featuring performances by local and national stars at 9 p.m. and an after-party at 11:30 p.m with music by Till Someone Loses An Eye featuring Kool Kat Aileen Loy and Good Golly Svengali.

Judith Stein.

Saturday March 23

Take classes and shop the vendors’ market during the daytime, then see some of the south’s and nation’s finest compete in the Southern Fried Burlesque Pageant, at 8 p.m. It’s hosted by Cora Vette with farewell performances by last year’s winners Orchid Mei and New Orleans’ Slow Burn Burlesque. Then close out the night with the Southern Scorcher Showcase at 11:30 p.m. featuring Talloolah Love, Kisa Von Teasa, Fonda Lingue, Ursula Undress and many more talented performers  from all over the Southeast!

Sunday March 24

Get your final shopping done and catch up with the performers before they leave town.

To purchase advance tickets and peruse the full class and event schedule with performer bios, visit www.southernfriedburlesquefest.com/. And for the latest updates and extras, be sure to friend SFBF on Facebook and follow on Twitter. 

All photographs are courtesy of Southern Fried Burlesque Festival and the performers pictured.

Southern Fried Burlesque Fest; Thursday, March 8–Sunday, March 11, 2012; Courtyard Marriot and Conference Centre, 130 Clairemont Ave, Decatur, Georgia 30030; Weekend passes and show tickets available online and at the door. For more info, click here.

The Second Annual Southern Fried Burlesque Festival again is bringing the best performers from all over the world to Atlanta for a weekend full of sparkle, sizzle and spectacle!

Thursday night, the festival kicks off with Just Hatched, performances by new and promising performers (doors at 7 p.m.; show at 7:30 p.m.) Then at 9 p.m. Burlesque Legend Satan’s Angel takes the stage for “Have Tassels Will Travel,“ a One-Woman Improvisational play about the life and times of the star nicknamed “The Devils Own Mistress,” the Queen and originator of fire tassel twirling.  She has performed this act for over 40 years, lighting her tassels approximately 25,000 times all over the world.  The show chronicles Angel’s career from how she began stripping in 1961 in San Francisco, to a peek at how hers was no ordinary life. From following Bob Hope and the USO in Vietnam, appearing on the Gypsy Rose Lee television show, dating Clint Eastwood, Bobby Darin, Hedy Lamarr, and Janis Joplin, defying the convention of The Folies Bergéré in Paris, working with Ann Corio, Harold Minsky, Barry Ashton and running with The Rat Pack in Vegas, and two near death experiences.

Satan's Angel.

Friday Night brings The Free Range Burlesque International Showcase, featuring performances by Burlesque Legends Satan’s Angel, Shannon Doah and Gabriela Maze; neo-burlesque star such as Perle Noire, and headlined by Miss Exotic World 2002, Kitten De Ville (this week’s Kool Kat) as well as other amazing performers from all over the world! Last year’s Free Range was one of the best burlesque shows ever to grace an Atlanta stage, so in ATLRetro’s humble opinion, this show is not to be missed.

Saturday Night is the main event: The Southern Fried Burlesque Pageant has performers competing for Best Duet, Group, Variety and the Southern Fried Burlesque King and Queen!  The Pageant will also include a farewell performance by the first-ever Southern Fried Burlesque Queen, Siren Santina!  After the awards ceremony, let your hair down at the Southern Scorcher Showcase with performers from all over the Southeast, a special performance by Sadie Hawkins from Blast-Off! Burlesque, and headlined by Atlanta native, The Lady Ms. Vagina Jenkins!

Perle Noire.

Be sure to stop by Sunday, however, for a Burlesque Legends Panel at 1 p.m., with neoburlesque star Kitten DeVille and classic performers Satan’s Angel and Shannon Doah.

From Friday to Sunday, you can also sign up for lectures and classes for all skill and interest levels. Whether you are a history buff, into crafting costumes, want to learn the basics, or fine tune your performance, this festival will have activities for all levels and aspects of burlesque. Learn entirely from seasoned burlesque performers, teachers, and legends, and leave the festival with all the tools you need to be the next Burlesque Aficionado! Don’t worry guys – all genders are welcome to attend classes!

As lovely and talented festival producers Katherine Lashe and Ursula Undress of Syrens of the South remind us, Burlesque is the art of the striptease, with a focus on the tease.  Performers occasionally strip to pasties, but there is no nudity in any festival productions. This festival is dedicated to the preservation of an art form that has become an international movement.