"Canberra News, Views and Opinion"
| 11 February, 2010 8:00 pm | to | 20 February, 2010 8:00 pm |
[First Filed Feb 2, 2010]
Working at the Street there are a lot of exciting things going on but this one is SUPER DUPER exciting: the return of Finucane & Smith‘s The Burlesque Hour with a new show, appropriately (though perhaps not very inventingly) titled SHE’S BACK!
It’s a new show with some old favourite acts (like Dairy Queen, which involves A LOT OF MILK – first few rows will get wet) and new guest artistes (Jess Love, for instance, who is the Guinness World Record Holder for hula hooping. I can’t wait to see her in action!).
The artists are so, so interesting – Yumi Umiumare, for instance, is a butoh dancer and trained as a ballerina before working as a burlesque artist in Tokyo. Azaria Universe is a circus performer. Moira Finucane, the co-creator of the Burlesque Hour, is a mistress of Grand Guignol (a style of theatre characterised by grotesquerie and the macabre. ooh!). This ain’t undressing in a martini glass. This is ART, people.
Yes, yes, I am a publicist. But I’m also an arts writer and theatre maker, and talking to Moira Finucane about the show, I think I can safely put my money where my mouth is – it’s going to be flipping amazing.
Naomi
(Last picture by Jodie Hutchison)
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I saw the last show and expected it to be subversive and exciting – but I found it tame and mediocre. It lacked fire and energy. There was an interminable mimed “Total Eclipse of the Heart” – a supposed spoof, but by the umpteenth “turn around turn around” where yes, she turned around again and again and again, I was beyond bored. The “sprayed with milk” piece was hackneyed and dull – 1970s feminist trope anyone? No thanks, it would be sexier to leaf through a Judy Chicago programme and get off on retro platewear. I stayed till the end, but quite a few folk had walked out. The sort of “tango face” the troupe kept throughout is a strange device, perhaps originally an emotional protection from the days when burlesque dancers were treated as “fallen women”. These days, though, it just looks forced and pointless.
It has been a very long time since there was anything provocative about nudity and saucy underwear, so there’s nothing confronting, nothing to learn from. A mere promo short from the new film Precious offered me a more subversive message about proud bodies.
I rated the show – and it looks as though this year’s is pretty much a rehash of the same (how lazy) – four out of ten.
It has been a very long time since there was anything provocative about nudity and saucy underwear,
I seem to recall a year to the day this Friday a bit of a hoo-hah about burlesque at the Multicultural the spelled that particular event’s end. Although noone could quite work out just who it was that thought it was all a bit too risque.
Don’t let Hargreaves find out about it.
is it a drag show?
no it is not a drag show. Ms Abe Saffron and myself went to it last year and had a great time.
The only person who can pull off an awesome burlesque show that’s worth watching is Dita von Teese. Least she doesn’t look like a tranny.
grunge_hippy said :
My thoughts too..
If it’s not a drag show, do they actually get their kit off?
Could we please remove the picture from the front page of RA? Some may consider this NSFW, or even offensive.
Pommy bastard said :
Yes – if last year is anything to go by. However if all you’re after is a bit of nudity there would be cheaper options.
i dont think i would want to see any of those “women” naked. ugh. a few got hit with the ugly stick on the way out…
CoffeeGeek said :
And they are best removed from any community.
johnboy said :
Won’t somebody please think of the children!
offensive?
oh… please someone save us from this sleeze!!!!
i went along to this last year and thought it was reasonably entertaining… especially being given a plastic tablecloth to wear during the performance (the milk act) as we were seated directly by the stage….. however my friends i took along with me on our little theatre outing thought otherwise. they still bag me out about my theatre outing coordinator abilities :/
grunge_hippy said :
+1
Burlesque is meant to be sexy. They are not.
Sexy is in the eye of the beholder, I would have thought.
it’s simple if you don’t like it don’t watch it
Nothing new here. You can see this for free out the front of Cube nightclub on any given Saturday night.
Seriously, Johnboy, is this the sort of smut/trash RA is about? Frontpage? Featured?
It’s defnitely NSFW. You don’t even have to be a prude to find this offensive.
Being tagged as “Art” and “Entertainment” is ridiculous.
RA was my daily cup of coffee at work, but not while this remains. How many RAers would be comfortable to have your boss or colleague looking over your shoulder with this on the screen?
[Ed. Johnboy is not currently RA's editor & didnt make the call on this one.]
motleychick said :
If you actaully went and saw it you would probably have a different opinion.
colourful sydney racing identity said :
I highly doubt that. I don’t find them attractive so I wouldn’t enjoy it. I know that.
CoffeeGeek said :
Smut!?
You are aware that the 1950s took place over 50 years ago, right?
It’s completely safe for work and I fail to see how anyone could find it offensive.
You REALLY need to get out more.
CoffeeGeek said :
Yes you do. There is nothing on display you wouldn’t see in any newspaper, magazine, advertising hoarding, shop window, on the beach, or in a club.
Pommy bastard said :
I’d agree with you on art. Even if they aren’t the most pulchritudinous women, and whom of us is, the show may be easily classed as entertainment..
Pommy bastard said :
Most of us it would seem, time for a poll?
Well, poke my eye out with a burnt stick! Offensive? We presume, Mr/Ms Geek, that you don’t read the newspaper at work, because goodness, what if there was one of those ads for underwear? Who on earth could you work for that this would be deemed offensive? Are you an assistant to George Pell?
Coffeegeek, open your mind. Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Sad that many of those writing rude comments about the performers are actually women too.
It is true that women are their own worst enemies.
johnboy said :
+1 to both comments here…
CoffeeGeek said :
I’m more politically incorrect than most, but, I agree … I don’t find it suitable for work …
For what it’s worth, I see this as both ‘Art’ and ‘Entertainment’, but I don’t feel everyone has to agree with me.
As for the NSFW or offensive, I suspect in those same work environments newspapers and magazines would be banned entirely, yes?
sepi said :
If I sent in an article inviting people to see “The New Adonis, body building and muscleman show”, and it was accompanied by an image of me looking like an anorexic Bez, how do you think the men here would react?