It's time to honour the ass with this year's Midsumma Festival show, Baby Got Back. This one hour burlesque-circus-performance art all-female homage to the derrière is an uninhibited celebration of woman. Slut shaming or any degradation of women - whether by males or females - is not permitted here, where women are able to take pride in and control of their own bodies. Burlesque performers and producers of Baby Got Back, Vesper White and Frankie Valentine, ensure their show empowers women while entertaining the audience with some creative and ingenious performances.
The show begins strongly with a montage of scenes from various cartoons, movies and social media clips of asses, which is a great reminder of how the human posterior has been used and perceived by society. The opening performance has three performers appear wearing elaborate monstrous "pussy" cat costumes, wearing large heart-shaped collars branded with "dyke" on one, "slut" on another and "whore" on the third. By the end of the performance, these collars are ripped of and from there, it's a no-holds-barred booty-focused revelry.
If you're looking for some cheeky entertainment during Midsumma, then you really cannot go past Baby Got Back, a celebration of everything ass. That's right, those glutes are getting a show of their own. The all-female homage to the derrière is a 'psychosexual adventure of demented dancehall, projection mashups & remixed soundscapes, burlesque shakedowns and stripper mayhem'.
After sold out season at the 2015 and 2016 Fringe World in Perth, the show is finally making its way to Melbourne and the cast could not be more thrilled. "Basically, we came up with the show because we are a bunch of perverts," Frankie Valentine, one of the performers of Baby Got Back laughs. "We are so excited to finally be bringing this show to Melbourne though! The concept of the show has definitely changed and morphed as we continue to do it. Initially it was simply about a celebration of women's bodies and a mutual appreciation of ass. As we continue with the show we use it as a platform to highlight numerous issues we face as women in our society."
Melanie Jame Wolf was a stripper in a
gentlemen's club for eight years. Mira Fuchs was the name of her persona while
working there, and is also the name of this work, the first in a trilogy of
pieces where Wolf examines how the manifestation of being a ‘woman’ changes
according to different systems or economies of affect. Performed to an intimate
audience in the round, Wolf shares her experiences while exploring issues
related to women and stripping, such as gender, sexuality, desire and the
stigma that comes attached to this line of work.
At times it is unclear who is performing; Wolf or Fuchs? Perhaps after being together for eight years, the answer
is not so clear cut. At one point, she dons a white lab coat and a pair of
glasses and in the blink of an eye, she is now a scientist who shares her
findings on the ecology of a strip club. Through some well-constructed
diagrams, Wolf explores the science of what type of male pack she approaches
and when, to maximise her financial gain. While humourous, it's a reminder that
while she is in a seemingly authoritative position, the power still rests with
the pack.
Earlier this year, Becky Lou dazzled audiences with her debut
solo show Shake, in which she recalled
moments of her life that in some way, shape or form led her to a career in
burlesque. It was a unique opportunity to hear her speak, as well as entertain us
with a number of memorable burlesque acts. Presented as part of the 2015
Melbourne Fringe Festival, Lou’s Seen
& Heard, brings together a number of her favourite performers on stage to
share with the audience some highly personal moments of their lives.
There is a rotation of six guest artists from a variety of
performance backgrounds for Seen &
Heard’s run and tonight’s line-up consists of drag queen Karen from
Finance, stripper Perri Hunter, burlesque performer Honey B. Goode and
vaudevillian Clara Cupcakes. Tonight’s guests put on quite a show including
Karen from Finance’s rendition of “I Will Always Love You”, which had me in
stitches and Hunter’s humourous depiction of what a stripper is actually
thinking about when giving a lap dance.
