The Arizona Burlesque Festival

 The AZBF was amazing!!
Tucson is amazing in itself. Hot, dry, sunny, gorgeous vistas of desert and those giant cacti, friendly people - and I have good friends there I stayed with in luxury, with a pool!
I spent a fair bit of my time there hunting down pink feather boas to repair this gown, which after so many wears looked like it had some kind of bird mange.
My darling Stevie patiently drove me all over town until we found what I needed at Jo-Ann, and SAS Fabrics. The latter was amazing. If I didn't already have enough sequin fabric to last me three lifetimes, and a full suitcase, I'd have dropped some serious currency there.
Anyway it was worth it. As you can see I'm all pink and fluffed up! I performed Perhaps on Saturday night, which meant I could watch the rest of the show. Great show.

Someone called me Ursula that night. i was a bit miffed but after seeing this photo, I think it's a fair call.

Talk to the Hand!!!

What was happening? Maybe the microphone was giving me an electric shock, not sure. LOVE the lighting and the haze.

Thanks so much to Matt Finish and his team for putting on such a great festival. And to Tiffany at 48th and Pixel for the great photos!

Run up to December

After the Tease on Tour show in Queenstown last night, we experienced an unprecedented amount of audience curiosity and fandom! Over several hours around a fire pit, I got asked a lot of questions and got given a LOT of amazing compliments, which was lovely. It was an amazing way to round out a fantastic night and it got me thinking about what I will have achieved by the end of this year.
This includes:

• performing and hosting about 40 times in seven New Zealand locations! - Queenstown, Dunedin, Christchurch, Hamilton, Te Mata, Tauranga and Wellington;
• four countries: New Zealand, Canada, US and Australia (next week!);
• hosting 20 events from shows to a conference dinner, a carol service, some private corporate events;
• hosting in venues from an intimate 45 to a sold out 400 seat theatre, 400 dinner delegates, and everything in between;
• winning the Golden Garter Award 2019 for Favourite Emcee for the second time of three consecutive nominations;
• increasing my musicianship considerably from three guitar chords to 11 in a whole new type of performing for me;
• being invited to perform in the Menagerie in 2020 with my precious partners in crime, Leo and Clever.

One of the things I am proudest of is that Debbie and my DIY Burleskiwi show has jumped the ditch to Australia! To be known there as DIY Burleskoala, the inaugural show is on Thursday 5 December. Debbie and I are going to judge and host respectively. Jack is going to kitten, Artem his lovely boyfriend is going to be generally useful and amazing. A family busman's holiday! This year's DIY Burleskiwi winner Amourous Ava is also coming over.

Random encounter in a bar in Queenstown at 1am with Jason, it turns out we know lots of the same people! "Only in NZ"

 One of the cutest things that has come out of the stats is this. In 1983 I went on a tour of NZ with a show we would now call burlesque. I had made the costumes and was operating the spotlight. The show went to Queenstown and Dunedin among other cities and having hosted Tease on Tour in those towns I realised it was the first time since that tour I'd been to either of them! And two of the cast of that show now live in Sydney and I get to hang out with them next week when I am there.
How's that for a full circle.

Festive Fun to come!

Very soon! May 9-12, I shall be in Auckland attending, performing at, teaching at, socialising at, squealing at, the New Zealand Burlesque Festival.

When the framed publicity photos are released, THEN we get excited! It's really happening!
And I get to share a chunk of stage time with my favourite Grumpy young Man, Clever Hansel. We are building up our set, turning solos into duets and generally having as much fun as two freaks, a ukulele and a guitar can have on a week night (that's a surprising amount!)
If you'd like to come and see us as well as all the other amazing humans performing, the show I/we are performing in is on Friday 10 May click here for more information.

 

2 out of 3 ain't bad!!

This will take pride of place on my Wall of Bling

On 23rd March at the Phoenix in Auckland, I had the awesome job of co-hosting the NZ Burlesque Industry Awards (also known as The Golden Garters).
It was an amazing night! Performances by Pixie Twist, Lilith LaLune, Anglebert Humpermink and the Roaring Antoinettes. Co-Host Mae de la Rue from Sydney and I did a fun duet version of Razzle Dazzle 'Em.
It was so much fun collaborating with Mae - we had dinner together during the previous week and planned shenanigans! Photos will be forthcoming soon we hope!

The fabulous Mae de la Rue from Sydney won Honorary Kiwi!

 And I am very, very honoured to receive the award for Favourite MC 2019. It will join the 2017 award for the same on my Red Wall of Bling. And the 2018 award Clever Hansel and I received for Favourite Non-Striptease Routine. I was nominated for favourite MC that year too, so two out of three ain't bad!

The 2019 award for Favourite Non-Striptease act went to my darling friend Mr Lola Illusion for his delicious Lola in Love.

The whole schedule of winners is here on the NZ Burly Awards website.

Hosting a BIG Dinner!

On Thursday 21 March, Leo and I got to Emcee at the ILGA World Conference dinner. When we walked into the venue and saw how big it was, we had a giggle! 450 delegates, 40 tables of gorgeous humans from all around the world! It was so much fun to get up on stage and look out at them.

Leo and I hosting the ILGA World Conference Dinner

 Me before the show in the shade hence the blue tinge. Prize for best use of a $2 lawn ornament? ;-)

$2 lawn ornament head piece!!!

 This is me with Ross Weistroffer! Who is Ross Weistroffer I hear you ask? (Unless you know him and Googled his name and this came up in which case HI!!!) He is a Research Analyst from UCLA who hunted me down at dinner time to sit and chat because he loves drag queens. What a poppet! I adore gorgeous Gay American men so we're a match! Ross took the photo of Leo and me on stage, bless him.

Ross Weistroffer and me

We had an amazing night with incredible food, dancing, speeches, food, dancing.

Dessert Unicorn!!!

What a great organisation it is. So much love and acceptance in the room. <3

A weekend away and a wedding

Hi there! Life has ratchetted up somewhat over the past few months and that makes it hard to find time to write. Plus most of the busy is very, very dull.

Relaxing at a friend's wedding recently

A few weekends ago a bunch of us headed up to Auckland for a wedding. It was lovely to hang out and not have to do much - usually we are madly producing shows. Clipboards were swapped for glasses of bubbles for the day. SO nice.
I bought this little off the shoulder number to wear as most of my clothes are too sparkly for even a formal wedding. It wasn't really my kind of dress but its softness and the serendipity of the flower placement on the bodice pleased me.

The Caburlesque Family - son Jack, me, Pinot Sister Debbie and everybody's Daddy, Soundbitch!

What a glamorous lot we were! I do feel that we are one Timmy The Dog away from being The Famous Five here however. Or perhaps the Narnia children. I wouldn't put it past Jack to dob us all in - not for Turkish Delight but possibly jersey caramels!

A lovely day was had by all - a couple who are meant to be together got to be together and it's always an honour to witness that.