We're hard at work here in circus land preparing for our first event this Thursday, in order to help introduce the Sarah Lawrence community to the world of the Wild Westlands show. The Van Duzer Sisters and their team have certainly got their work cut out for them-it's finals season and everyone's a wreck.
How can we lighten the mood? How about some 20s fun and a charleston? Here's an clip from a vintage documentary about the life of the flapper. Do you know what "Cash or check" meant at a speakeasy? How about the "black bottom"? Take a peak at the fringe and the fast feet!
But it wasn't all black and white...we're mixing tumbling with our charleston, and flights of fancy with our front man's work. Check out this lovely recording of a circus in the same period!
Karen Abbot is a biographer and historical novelist who has most recently written a book on Gypsy Rose Lee. Probably one of the most well-known burlesque dancers, Gypsy was known for her educated and eloquent demeanor as well as her striptease. I've posted about Gypsy before, and mentioned American Rose (Abbot's biography), but I haven't yet read it. If it's anything like the writing Abbot posts on her website, though, I'm sure it's really interesting.
In preparation of our upcoming event (hint hint nudge nudge), I've been revisiting a piece Abbot wrote about Gypsy's relationship with gangster Waxey Gordon. I've always found speakeasies to be fascinating and completely compelling, so I was especially drawn to this story.
I tried watching Boardwalk Empire, HBO's show that takes place during prohibition in Atlantic City, but unfortunately wasn't a fan of Scorsese's directing and only made it through the first few episodes.
a screen-shot from the casino on HBO's set
It's beautifully done though, so I may need to give it another shot. In the meantime I suppose I'll just stick to the history...
...or I could just have a speakeasy of my own.
I highly recommend reading Abbot's article. It's short, exciting, and a great temptation. You can find it on her website here.
The blog may be a bit quiet, but that's because we've been so frightfully busy making magic! We've been aided by our fabulous show photographer, and it's time for some introductions...
"Step right up Ladies and Gentlemen to meet the most marvelous pictures of insanity this side of the Atlantic! It's time for our production team to say Hello! And as always, they'll do it IN RHYME! Never has there been this much scandal so early on a Sunday!
Mimi, our Producer, makes sure everything runs right
from big top rings to costume things and fantasies of flight.
Vivian knows what she wants and how to get things done,
as our A.D. Ms. Slim makes sure we do it all in fun!
And finally there's Lilli Vyne, by whom we're all directed,
It's up to her to point the toes and check the lions are perfected.
So here they are in person, our little train's production team
here to say Hello! to you and sparkle like a dream.
If you're interested in helping out and at SLC you dwell
track these lovely ladies down and your interest tell!
We're so excited to begin, the sequins are unfurling,
so keep on check back for more exciting news is twirling!"
Upcoming this week: announcements about our title and our theatre! Plus you never know who else might pop up...
Ellen von Unwerth is a German photographer who has done a lot of work for various fashion publications. Here pictures have a really neat surreal quality to them that really spoke to me. While we're on the subject of inspiring photos, here are a few:
Stay tuned: we have our very own photographer, and the pictures from our first shoot with her will soon be making an appearance!
I really love the production team. In this instance, Audrey (our fabulous all-around adviser as well as our sound designer/op) pointed me towards a bunch of fantastic photos. I feel super inspired, and that is a lovely thing to feel! Here is a selection of awesome pictures from various Vogue shoots. Enjoy!
I've wanted to write a post for a while on early 20th century tango, but unfortunately there just aren't a lot of videos available, so the ones I'm including are all modern, although some are movies set in the period.
I learned tango as 'one-step with attitude.' One-step, another dance from the period, is essentially walking, so really tango is just 'walking with attitude.' There's a little more to it than that, but attitude is by far the thing I find most important for our circus opening!
Since I wasn't able to find much to illustrate tango in the period, I'm just going to share the things I love most about the tango. There's a reason I keep returning to it...
1. One of my favorite examples of tango attitude (and also great storytelling through dance!) is the Tango de Roxanne from Moulin Rouge!. If you remember from the very first Look Book post, the gritty sparkle of Moulin Rouge! was an early inspiration. If you haven't seen the movie (or just want to watch some awesome dancing), here's the clip I'm talking about:
Attitude.
2. Of all the couple dances I do, tango is by far the most passionate. Obviously, if you're not dancing with somebody you're attracted to it's not going to be the same, but I find tango to have to most potential for spark. Here's a clip from another favorite dance movie, Strictly Ballroom, where the whole scene is about the connection between the characters, and they're working it out during the dance (ignore the plot bits):
3. I will be the first to admit I have a flair for the melodramatic. The tango is an extremely dramatic dance-just listen to a 1920s or 30s tango song! So here is a great example of the drama of tango, from Take the Lead, and a great classic dramatic tango song:
4. While there are songs written specifically for tango (like Tango Bolero, above), the cool thing from a performance perspective about the dance is that since it is mostly walking with attitude, as long as the song is the correct time signature there is a lot of flexibility. Which isn't to say you can tango to anything--it would be pretty silly to do such a dramatic and passionate dance to, for example, Katy Perry. But there are a LOT of options. This is actually from Step Up 3-D (which I hate to admit I've seen!), but the song is a really neat choice:
5. Anyone can tango! I wouldn't say it's easy to tango well, but it can definitely be an approachable dance, especially if it's choreographed and you don't have to worry about leading or following. Follow the circus long enough, and you may just pick up a few steps...
Even Mr. Darcy can do it--although technically this is from Easy Virtue, Firth will always be Darcy to me.
We're moving full force towards auditions this coming Thursday, and our first fundraiser performance of the year in November! In the meantime, we had a photo shoot today with the project's fantastic photographer (and SLC burlesque performer) Frankie London AND the fantastic campus publication SLC Speaks wrote a profile of the project!
You can read it here! And don't forget to stop by auditions this THURSDAY! We'll post some pictures and 'behind the scenes' fun as soon as the edits are done.
For the circus, setting the tone for the show will be important from the first moment the audience arrives. I'm not giving away all of our tricks, but I do want to talk about the opening number, which is based on real early twentieth century circus acts. It was specifically inspired by this poster, but there's a lot more to these awesome women.
In the inset circle on the left, you can see 'Adgie's Lions' performing a tango. Adgie's Lions were a famous act, featuring ten lions including the 'Man-Eating Teddy,' who performed tricks and (apparently) dance-like sequences. According to Janet Davis, author of The Circus Age: Culture and Society under the American Big Top, poses such as 'the tango' were a way of sexualizing female trainers. This is especially interesting in the context of the 19-teens, when tango was called 'the best ballroom dance' by the New York Times and fell into a new, more sensual category of dance that also included the maxixe and blues. If sex sells, lions and trainers tangoing was a sure way to bring in the crowds.
Adgie in a cage with two of her lions, 1897 (from the Library of Congress)
So, naturally, a little bit of elegant scandal seemed like the perfect way for us to open the show. I have experience with both modern ballroom tango and vintage tango, so I'll be choreographing a dance for our own lion trainer and her beasts to perform.
However, Adgie wasn't the only woman known for making big cats dance to her tune. Another was Dolores Vallecetia, who had a leopard act.
Mlle Vallecetia in charge-love the fur trim!
Here's another act, but I can't find her name:
In the 1920s and 30s, a little after Adgie's time, there was Mabel Stark. A performer with many circuses throughout a long career (including Ringling), Mabel worked with as many as 18 tigers in the ring. Her famous wrestling act is shown in this poster:
She suffered numerous maulings by her tigers during her career, but she never quit. In her autobiography, Stark writes "The chute door opens as I crack my whip and shout, 'Let them come,' Out slink the striped cats, snarling and roaring, leaping at each other or at me. It's a matchless thrill, and life without it is not worth while to me."
Something especially neat about Stark in particular is that she was Mae West's double in the 1933 hit I'm No Angel, in which West plays Tira the Lion . That means that if you watch the circus scenes from the movie, you are actually seeing Mabel Stark at work! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a video clip online, but here's a still from the movie:
Rhinestones, feathers, and girls taming beasts? The perfect start to the circus.
The title of this post says it all...I've already posted one aerialist costume from the V&A, but the museum's collection is so fantastic and shiny there are a couple more to show you!
front and back views of a 19th c. clown costume
a much better picture of the aerialist costume I posted earlier-check out the lacing on the shorts!
a late 19th c. evening shoe-not a circus costume, but the stripes are awesome!
And one last piece-a mid 19th c. bodice that just said 'circus' to me, although actually it was part of an evening ensemble. This one is actually from an antique clothing store, not the V&A:
I had a meeting in NYC with one of production team members, Mimi, this past Saturday. There are some really exciting things in the works, but I owe you a post or two!
Continuing the brief biographies of performers I find inspiring/useful for this show and burlesque in general, today we're looking at Miss Gypsy Rose Lee. There's a lot of information out there about Gypsy, including a new biography (American Rose) by Karen Abbott and Gypsy's own memoir, which was adapted as a Broadway musical called--what else?--Gypsy.
Here are two versions of the famous song showing Gypsy's career from the musical. Above, the 1993 made-for-TV film of the show starring Bette Midler as Mama Rose. The costumes are by Bob Mackie-not accurate for Gypsy's career, but soooo sparkly!
Below, the original 1960s movie version starring Natalie Wood as Gypsy. Which do you like better?
Gypsy was born Rose Louise Hovick in 1914, and traveled the Vaudeville circuit throughout her early life with her sister June. June starred in their act dancing and singing under the overbearing eye of their mother, Rose, who kept a totalitarian control over the girls' lives...that is until June ran off with one of the dancers from the act in 1928 when she was only 15. After that it was all up to Gypsy to continue the act, but her singing and dancing (kept in the background while her sister shown) were not up to filling June's spot...especially as the world of Vaudeville was dying out around them, unable to compete with the new forms of entertainment such as movies.
Gypsy c. 1937, image via IMDB
Eventually, with her overbearing mother still trying to use her for financial support, Gypsy and the act ended up in a burlesque house. When the star act refused to go on (a lot has changed--I've heard some stories recently from the Boston Babydolls about Lili St Cyr demanding tea service in her dressing room, although she didn't drink tea), Rose took the opportunity to put Gypsy on stage--at just 15. Her version of the striptease, with much more emphasis on the 'tease' than the 'strip', met with a positive reception and launched her career.
two images of Gypsy, looking glamorous with fur
Gypsy eventually became one of the biggest burlesque names of all time. Her act, which combined intelligent recitation,witty banter, and clothing removal, charmed audiences in a way that more traditional burlesque acts--at that point considered sleazy--didn't. In addition to normal burlesque houses, Gypsy was the toast of Minsky's burlesque and high society balls. Here's an example of a famous Gypsy act, 'The Psychology of a Stripteaser', done in an edited 'clean' form for a movie appearance:
Gypsy did try to work as a movie actress in the 1930s and 40s under her real name, Louise Hovick, but with little success (she was witty and charming but not a very good actress). Next, she became an author, publishing a backstage burlesque mystery called The G-String Murders in 1941. The book was made into a movie two years later, starring Barbara Stanwyck. Her writing career never went much farther, though, and she retired in the 1950s to just be the reigning queen of burlesque.
Gypsy at her typewriter
Things changed again after her mother Rose's death in 1954. Throughout Gypsy's career Rose had continually tried to extort money from her daughter, but with her death Gypsy no longer had to fear her mother's threats. In 1957 she published her memoirs, which became a bestseller. The memoirs were turned into the Sondheim musical mentioned above, and Gypsy was reborn, immortalized alongside her mother.
Although Gypsy's career was not necessarily the biggest, or most successful, she left an incredible impact of the performance style. Her obvious intelligence, charm, sarcasm, and wit during performance--as well as her emphasis on the tease--are all pieces of burlesque that are a large part of the art form today. Even if it wasn't the career she wanted, she was good at it.
And just for fun, here's a clip of Gypsy on the television show 'What's My Line?' after the premier of the musical.
I've been debating whether or not to do any videos featuring modern performers. I don't want to encourage anyone to use their acts, but at the same time, I sometimes find it highly motivating to see what fantastic things are being done on the scene. So, I've decided after a lot of consideration that I will feature a few people, every now and then. Especially when I can't help but share because they are SO COOL.
This is Roxy Velvet, a British burlesque performer who does a fantastic birdcage bit with fans and lyra--a type of aerial performance with a suspended hoop. I've seen lyra done for burlesque before, and it's great, but the concept of the birdcage is what truly makes this. I feel like that's honestly possibly one of the most important things about burlesque acts: if the concept is good, your number is almost automatically ten times better.
At the moment, I'm really into the idea of doing a sort of abstract set--scaffolding with little decoration and a couple of circus wagon flats--so that the show could be in any time and place, like a real circus travels. This is slightly out of character, since I'm usually not into abstract art. But some of my favorite artists are Impressionist or post-Impressionist, and so rather than calling my ideas for the set 'abstract', I'm going to say 'impressionistic'.
Regardless, I've found that a lot of my favorite artists were also inspired by the circus. Here are some of my favorite works!
Degas:
Miss La La in Circus Fernando
Rider at the Circus Fernando
Lautrec:
Acrobats at the Circus
At the Circus Dressage
Tissot:
Women of Paris: The Circus Lover
Picasso:
Au Cirque
Circus Family
Seated Harlequin
Chagall:
The Circus Horse
Seurat:
The Circus
Here are a few more--not necessarily by artists I already liked, but that popped up when I was looking for the others and struck me.
