showtime: holiday burlesque benefit show, elbo room, december 11, 2012

Backstage with Bombshell Betty (l), Erzulie Rose (c), and yours truly.

Normally I have a donut post up here on Mondays, but not today. I've had too many irons in the fire this past week. A different treat for today, cheesecake if you will!

Last month I performed my Snoopy act in Bombshell Betty's holiday burlesque benefit show at the Elbo Room. I love dancing to Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy", I think it's hilarious. Last December I performed this act with a now-defunct band called Fromagique, which brought a great energy to the song, but the original recording I used in this year's show is one almost everyone knows and can get into. 

The shots from last year's performance are here, and they are full of energy and I love them! This year I woke up the morning of the show with my left eye swollen shut out of no where and almost had to cancel, but the swelling went down enough to glue on the lashes and glitter. It still wasn't pretty. Literally. I can tell in the photos how jacked-up my eye was, for sure.

 

Classic Peanuts dance moves! The audience loves this part.

By the end I'm all dressed up like Snoopy.

I love the photo booth at this venue and use it every time I perform there. My poor eyes.
Bottom left shot is my best impersonation of my beloved Bombshell Betty's thinkin' face.

When I got home that night, after a wonderful show (the holiday shows are some of the best shows), I felt like I couldn't bear to unpack all of the costume pieces and jewelry and props just to pull them out again a few weeks later. I wrote an email to cancel an upcoming performance I had scheduled with a new group of performers. It hit me that I really needed to conserve energy for all of the things I'd be doing this winter. So, I've kind of packed burlesque away for a little while. I am booked to perform my very favorite act on March 1, 2013 with Red Hots Burlesque at El Rio. I would perform that act seven days a week if I could. Besides that, I've unhitched the wagon for now. I've spent over two years performing and it has meant almost as much to me as being a parent as far as personal growth goes. Invaluable. I've sincerely loved every second of it so far. I can't wait to get back to it, and yet it's a good load off not thinking about all that costuming and choreography and such for a while. Something had to give, I just didn't know it would be one of my favorite things to do. You have to do that sometimes to keep moving forward, I guess.