Hello Blog Land
My apologies. It's been a while. I've been attempting to go through a few life changes since I got back from the Burlesque Hall of Fame, namely going from full time Producer, Performer and Teacher to just Performer. I've decided to put MissChief Events into hiatus as I'm well in need of a break from the ups and downs of being a producer of burlesque shows. Unfortunately, that decision took away my main source of income, so I've been trying to find a day job, preferably in event management or theatre production to help pay the bills.
Of course, this decision means that I'll have less time to work on being Miss La Vida, so I'm being very careful about which jobs I apply for. It's a catch 22 being a performer. You need money to invest in costumes, marketing, travelling, but a full time job doesn't give you enough time to develop acts and keep yourself in the spotlight.
I have been thinking long and hard about the future (perhaps a symptom of the fact I'm having a milestone birthday in 11 days) and the future, quite frankly, seems a bit murky. I've been taken aback by the amount of burlesque classes and shows I've seen struggle to get enough of an audience/subscriptions to break even. I expect this in Auckland because the city is a bit of a cultural backwater. It's really hard to get bums on seats here or get students to commit to doing a class. But I'm now seeing this trend overseas which is making me think, has the burlesque bubble finally burst?
I've found this year particularly challenging from the perspective of booking corporate gigs. I blame this utterly on the film "Burlesque". All the corporates who have emailed requests for a performance have asked for groups of dancers performing for 15 minutes. They're stunned to hear that burlesque is performed mainly by soloists and involves stripping. I have had no corporate work this year, either as a soloist or producing shows. And my laptop has on a few occasions nearly been thrown out of the window out of sheer frustration at receiving emails such as "Do you dance in a group?" or "Can you not take your bra off?".
Last week I began writing a play, "Encore-Finale" which is set during the last show in a fictional burlesque club that is about to close and be converted into a nightclub. The inspiration for this came from Kalani Kokonuts telling me at Burlesque Hall of Fame this year how there are only 2 showrooms left in the whole of Vegas because the rest have been converted into nightclubs. Even the home of live entertainment is dying a death it seems.
I'm finding writing the play quite cathartic and hoping it will go into production, not just in NZ, but in all countries that do burlesque, so that audiences can share in my insights, hopes and fears for burlesque and for live entertainment in general. But as cathartic as writing the play has been, I still fear that the popularity of burlesque is in jeopardy.
Perhaps the economy is to blame. In New Zealand the only thing happening in the world for the next 6 weeks is rugby, so that really isn't helping. Perhaps the media are to blame for labelling us 'the latest thing', i.e. implying burlesque is a trend which will die out. Perhaps we are a victim of our own success where too many cooks are spoiling the broth. Perhaps what they say is true, all good things must come to an end.
Who knows. My only hope is that all the hard work that has been put into the revival isn't in vain, otherwise I really will have to find myself a real job.
MLV
