Performer Rachel Riot revives burlesque one city at a time.
Is there any better combination than alcohol and fire?
Its a Thursday night at The Black Cat Lounge in Fayetteville North Carolina, and a crowd has gathered to watch what they’ve been promised will be an unforgettable performance by some of the area’s finest female entertainers. The women in question aren’t earning tips by slinking around a poll to the beat of a Kid Rock song, but rather by swallowing fire, singing and in some cases juggling. Thanks to the effort of former pinup model turned entertainer Miss Rachel Riot, burlesque has finally arrived in Fayetteville.
In 2007 Riot (aka Rachel Shaaf) attended an audition for the Empire Theater’s burlesque show in Greensboro NC as a show of moral support for a friend of hers. Unexpectedly, she herself was asked to audition and was immediately cast. The following year, Riot took what she’d learned from the world of professional burlesque and helped found the very first burlesque group in Raleigh NC, The Demon Dolls, who would perform regularly at Legends.
Burlesque, says Shaaf, is often confused with traditional stripping, and though she admits the two forms of performance have similiar roots (“at the end of the day you’re still stripping your clothes off”), she contends that burlesque is more about artistic expression than it is about earning tips.
“Many of the acts you see will have spent some 20 hours per-performance coming up with a theme, choreography and costume,” said Shaaf. “There is a huge divide between classic, neon bikini, Nickelback stripping and today’s burlesque.”
Burlesque has been around since at least the 17th century, originally being thought of as more of a theatrical satire. It was in the early 1940s and 1920s when burlesque entered the cabaret clubs, and soon the word became associated with risqué comedy and the female (and sometimes male) strip tease. This was perhaps most famously demonstrated by American burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee.
“In the 1960s burlesque died out – only to start catching public interest again in the late 1980s,” explained Asheville-based burlesque dancer Queen April. “Burlesque has really taken on three different forms. There is the satirical, which evolved into stripping – and then there is neo-burlesque, which is what is done today, which is a sort of combination of the two.”
Riot came to Fayetteville in the usual way – thanks to falling head over hills for a soldier who was stationed at Fort Bragg, whom she would later end up marrying. She said that upon trying to adjust to her new life in Fayetteville, she had felt creatively stifled.
“As a general rule, it seems like army wives are very stay at home,” said Riot. “I can’t imagine my life without burlesque. (Burlesque is) the only way to be happy and satisfied.”
To scratch her itch to perform, Riot approached area strong woman performer Lindsey “Mama Lou” Lindberg, who had already been hosting a variety show at the newly opened Black Cat Lounge.
“(When approached by Riot) I was really excited because it is something that I know that the Fayetteville arts culture needed,” said Lindberg. “She’d shown up in town and didn’t know anyone – and out of the blue she called me to have lunch one day.”
Lindberg describes burlesque shows and variety shows as ‘kissing cousins,’ though noted that, like incestuous cousins, the two generally don’t mix well.
“They don’t often cross that line. In variety shows I never could cross that line to have burlesque. If the audience wasn’t expecting it. People will get uncomfortable. ‘We trusted you, why are there naked people!’” Lindberg said. “On the other hand, when people come to see a burlesque show, it is a wonderful variety show of its own kind. You kind of have to buy into that format. You have to know what you’re getting into.”
Currently Riot and the other performers (all of them spanning from different parts of North Carolina) are getting set for their next few performances.
Riot will be performing as part of a show called the Sinners Side Show August 13, at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh, and at The Black Cat Lounge in Fayetteville on Aug. 18, Sept. 15, Oct. 13 and Nov. 17.
