by Kirby Lindsay Laney, posted 23 March 2016
This Friday, March 25th, Moisture Festival opens its Libertease Burlesque for only two weeks at the Broadway Performance Hall. Over nine shows, held at 7:30p and 10:30p, audiences will be treated to some of the best in burlesque entertainment.
“This is an historic example of a classic American art form, a lineage people should experience,” observed Armitage Shanks. Shanks (known off-stage as David Crellin,) encouraged everyone to give Moisture Festival, and Libertease, a look. “It’s a great, accessible ways to see fellow humans do amazing things fifteen feet away, in the neighborhoods where they live.”
‘The Body As The Canvas’
“It can be really tempting to be reductive,” Shanks observed about burlesque art. Audiences, and some performers, think only of the nudity, and not the meaning, and substance, of the performances. “Someone is not doing their job,” he said, if all the burlesque act comes down to is a crude presentation of bare genitalia.
An international performer, Shanks often appears as MC at Libertease – and came on as a coordinator of this other-half of Moisture three years ago, helping attract and select acts for this sizzling showcase. “Everyone has their own style,” Shanks observed about the performers, “trying to weave a narrative, to be understood on a deeper level.”
“The tricky thing is that ‘burlesque’ means a lot of things to a lot of people,” Shanks confirmed, “People think all they have to do is take their clothes off. I’ve seen burlesque that is art; that is, everything you’d see with theater, prose, painting. You’ve got to know why you are doing that.”
“In its day, burlesque was an extremely political and radical thing to do,” Shanks said. Today, the best performers carry on that tradition – along with the feathers, the boas, the bumps and the grinds – when they build their acts. “For me, burlesque is about what one can expose, using the body as the canvas,” Shanks explained, “it’s an artful dialogue. As with everything, the devil is in the details.”
The most well-known burlesque act remains the strip-tease, where performers may (or may not) give audiences a look. As Shanks explained, in a strip-tease the artist holds all the power, as if to say, “I’m going to be presenting it as I want to present it.” Moreover, according to Shanks, ‘neo-burlesque’ artists are returning to the political, radical roots of burlesque as they “infuse burlesque with content,” using their bodies, through dance, humor, props, and/or revealing, to subtly comment on issues of gender, race, food, etc.
‘See What Others Are Doing’
Libertease attracts some of the best performers from around America, and the world, such as the “truly stunning” Tansy and Shanghai Pearl, “carrying on in the great lineage of high-class burlesque,” Shanks observed.
When asked how Libertease, and Moisture Festival, attract such high-caliber talent, Shanks observed, “I think that circus / varieté / burlesque performers are like any group. They are their own micro-culture – like a tribe.” Like any cultural group, the urge is strong to gather like with like, together. “It is an opportunity to show what you do, and see what others are doing,” Shanks explained.
Shanks described the annual Moisture Festival exhibition as ‘the wailing wall of varieté,’ and explained the arrival of so much talent as a ‘circling of mecca for a month.’ Ultimately, it’s a chance for many to feel that esprit de corps that performing in solo shows, or as a special feature, doesn’t always provide.
Moisture Festival, “feels like community,” Shanks observed, “It’s not slick circus. This is what they are used to – an art you felt you could be part of.”
Circus To Moisture To Burlesque
“My intersection with Moisture Festival is through Circus Contraption,” explained Shanks, “through Du Caniveaux and Oregon Country Fair.”
Like many of its producers, and performers, Shanks knew most of the people behind this comedy/varieté showcase long before the Moisture happened. One way he knew them – and they knew him – was Circus Contraption, one of the productions that may have prepared audiences for the way of Moisture, and did set the stage for Café Nordo, an MF partner venue this season.
In the early years of Moisture, “[Circus Contraption] would come and do a piece or two, or do a whole night,” Shanks explained. He and aerialist Lara Paxton founded Circus Contraption in the 1990s, a performance theater troupe with a circus aesthetic and “a kick-ass band.” In 2009, the Circus went dark, allowing its talented members to move on to other projects. “When Circus Contraption decided to lay it down,” Shanks explained, MF producers Ron Bailey, Cathy Sutherland and Martha Enson asked Shanks to help coordinate Libertease.
“When Circus Contraption ended, I’d already started being asked to work as a host here and in Europe,” Shanks explained. “I’m a circus and cabaret performer, and I got asked to host festivals that had some burlesque, and some had gone burlesque.”
Creating A Nice Dialogue
“I travel four or five months of the year,” Shanks explained, “I see lots of shows where everyone is mixing up circus into everything. It creates a nice dialogue.”
With Libertease, some acts are not ‘strictly’ burlesque, but as Shanks explained, “It’s all true burlesque – it all has to meet a criteria of professionalism.” Still, the mix of Libertese, “has one foot squarely in the Classic Burlesque and one in Neo,” he explained, and “Libertease never goes too, too far.”
Libertease offers the same delightful mix of performers that can be seen in the comedy/varieté shows at the Hale’s Palladium Moisture Festival showcases, only thrown into the wild mix of music, comedy and skills acts (aerial, contortion, etc.) will be striptease, and more than a little skin.
Purchase tickets now to see Libertease, and its incredible performers, while you can still get a seat. Shows take place from March 25th – April 2nd, at the Broadway Performance Hall. Be sure to see this piece of classic Americana, if only for the history…
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