Before I start this blog, I just have to say that I absolutely LOVE doing burlesque! I love everything about it and I am thrilled to read up on it and really get deep into it. The art form itself is mesmerizing to me. The history behind it is rich. And every person I have had the opportunity to share a stage with truly inspires me!
If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I love many things (some of which may be a bit out of the ordinary). You have watched me go on very long 400 mile bike rides. You have watched me run ultra marathons. You have seen me belly dance. And you have certainly seen me do burlesque before. (Okay, maybe you haven't SEEN me do them, but you have read about me doing them and seen pictures, right?)
When I first started doing burlesque two years ago, I had this HUGE idea of planning a performance to two of Jimmy Buffet's songs (Fins and Why Don't We Get Drunk And Screw). I was going to mash them together. That was before I learned that there is an "ideal" time for a performance (3:30). My original idea would be too long. However, I still wanted to perform to Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw (WDWGDS). It is my all time favorite Jimmy Buffet song (don't ask me why, but it just makes me smile). When the casting call for "The LOVE Show" for Frankly Burlesque came out, I knew it would be the perfect show to perform this in. After all, it is a love song, right? I had three weeks to get this ready (well nearly three weeks). That was plenty of time, or so I thought.
See here is the thing, when you plan to run a Marathon, normally, you give yourself at least 6 months notice to properly train. If you are a seasoned runner, you can do it in a shorter amount of training time. But you give yourself time to train so it doesn't kill you. (I was never great at training. As a matter of fact, I did my fist marathon with NO training...longest "training walk" was 2 miles) There are many things you learn when you properly train for a marathon. One of them is "never do a race with brand new socks, shoes, or anything else you have never actually spent training time in". I have never been great at following these kinds of guidelines. And I have a complete "all or nothing" mentality. This kind of mentality followed me into burlesque.
The big difference between burlesque and running a marathon is that the training and big day are kind of "flip flopped". Training for a marathon comes in chunks and the race day is the BIG day and can be very long (for me...anywhere between 6-8 hours). In Burlesque, the long hours come in preparation to the actual BIG DAY. And the BIG DAY can have you on stage performing for a total of 3 minutes 36 seconds for one song. Sometimes you perform more than one number. But for this blog, we a talking about one number that was 3:36.
How do you train for burlesque? Well I have taken two workshops with Frankly Frankie. I have done belly dance for several years. I am a professional storyteller. I grew up on stage. All of these things have gotten me to where I am today (or where I was last night). But aside from that, everything else, is research for character development. Research for show ideas. I spend a crazy amount of time on the internet researching songs and ideas to make sure someone local hasn't done it, or even better, that my idea is completely original to begin with. Then there is the part where I need to find the right version of the song. Who knew there were so many versions of WDWGDS? I learned that Jimmy Buffet was not the original singer of this song! I was shocked. I also learned that my beloved Jimmy Buffet version was entirely too short for a performance. Three of us in my family spent DAYS trying to make it longer by editing it. That was frustrating! Finally, Tracy found a version that I had no idea existed! It was perfect at 3:36! Bonus: a woman sang it, and it was completely sassy, just like Leazetta Rose (my burlesque counterpart).
Music, though very important, is just a small portion of the "training". Then there is the costume! You can't just go into a store and buy a dress and call it good. Even if you can find a dress in the store that is "perfect" it still requires some work to make it stage appropriate. Maybe it needs some alterations to make it more elegant to strip out of. Maybe it needs some bling or more visual interest. There is always something that needs to be done. In the case of my performance last night, I knew exactly what I wanted. Before I could even commit to performing, I called my favorite Designing Goddess and asked her if she could have the dress ready in time. With the confirmation that she would, I went ahead and committed to the performance. The next day, I beelined to the fabric store as soon as it opened and I found the only and last 4 yards of the material I needed for the dress. I also picked up things I needed for the other parts of my costume (like pasties). While Chante was working on my dress, I started in on my props, base layers and pasties! I had to shop for the perfect base layers (bra and panties). This is never easy for a "plus size" burlesque performance. In the city of Boise, we have strict alcohol licensing rules about what needs to be covered and being the rule follower that I am, its important to me to have the right bra. All of this shopping takes time..lots of
time.
Once I had everything I needed, I went straight to work making my pasties, embellishing the bra and buying the pieces I needed to make a "belt" to wear over the bottoms (I wanted to be able re-wear the bottoms for other acts so I thought a removable decoration would be best).
The very next day, I took it to my friends house for a sparkle play date. We looked over my bra, bottoms, and the long black formal gown I had just bought. Together we brain stormed and got it figure out. I went home that night and started working again. The next day, I spent all day figuring out how to embellish this long black dress into something appropriate for burlesque. It took me 2 days to get it all done. I had a blast designing this costume piece. I felt so glamorous. But the rehearsals with it, were not going well at all. I was in tears. I was exhausted. I just wanted my original dress. I was still hoping it would come through in time. Finally, on the 13th at 4pm, I picked up my dress from Chante. It was PERFECT!!!! But now, I needed to get it ready for the stage.
I went and bought ribbon for the belt. I also bought ribbon for my apron I would be wearing. I bought MORE rhinestones. I spent all night making a belt for the dress, adding the ribbons to the ties for the apron and embellishing my hair flower. I was up until 3 on Sunday morning. I spent that entire time playing with rhinestones and hot glue. I was beyond exhausted. I still hadn't even practiced with the dress! It was 1 in the morning, my fingers were covered in glue, my back was hurting, and one by one I put on over 500 rhinestones on 4 pieces of ribbon and one flower. At 1 in the morning, I hit my burlesque wall. I had no idea there was a wall in burlesque. Just like on my very first marathon, I had no idea there was such a thing as a wall in a marathon. In a marathon, the wall comes between miles 18 and 21. You are physically and mentally DONE but you still have a several miles to go before you reach that finish line and can celebrate. You have to dig deep to find the motivation to keep going. And some how you push yourself up and over that wall and keep putting one foot in front of the other until finally you are crossing the finish line.
Well at 1 in the morning (the day of my performance) I found the strength and motivation to keep putting one after another rhinestone down until I was done with the costume. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally. Burlesque isn't just about the 3:36 seconds on stage (that is all the audience sees). But for the performer, its about everything leading up to that 3:36 seconds. It's about the hours of research, rehearsal, music editing, costume designing, prop making, and balancing "muggle life". Our finish line, is that last second of the song and the cheers and applause of the crowd. That is what we live for.
When I was training for my marathons, I used to visualize crossing the finish line. That is what got me through miles of training. When I hit the wall in my races, I would pump up my music and dance my way through this rough times. When I hit my wall at 1 in the morning working on my costumes, I remembered my last performance and the cheers and the applause of the audience. That is what kept me going. I knew that this costume was worth it. I knew that this hard work would pay off. And it did.
Last night's performance was so much fun. Even with only a couple of hours of actual rehearsal time in my actual dress, the performance was amazing. The strip part of it could have been a bit better (if I had more time with the dress) but the performance went over very well and the audience was amazing as always! It was my first time pulling an audience member up on stage and having them be part of the act. I picked the perfect person which made it even better! I love our regulars at Frankly Burlesque!
Crossing the finish line of a burlesque performance feels the same as crossing the finish line at a marathon... happy and exhausted and high on life! And the recovery time is the same as well. The next day, instead of being physically sore, my brain is exhausted and happy. And yes, my body is tired and needs lots of sleeping (which it is not getting today).
So who knew... I have traded in my running shoes for my sparkly heals, and I'm having the time of my life!
No comments:
Post a Comment