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 Entertainment | June 2006 
Show Takes New Orleans Back to Burlesque
 Ann M. Simmons - LATimes
| | From left, dancers Maria Frangos, Nedra Nequan, Alexis Graber and Kacey Fonger close a recent show at Tipitina French Quarter theater in New Orleans. (Carolyn Cole/LAT) |
Revered by some, reviled by others, a risque troupe recovers from Hurricane Katrina to find enthusiastic crowds in the French Quarter.
New Orleans — In one sequence of "Bustout Burlesque," Nedra Nequan, whose stage name is Perle Noire, or the Black Pearl, springs onto the stage stripped down to a G-string, pasties and yellow featherlike ruffles on her wrists and ankles.
In a routine reminiscent of legendary vaudeville dancer Josephine Baker's, she performs a series of calisthenics, flinging her arms and legs sky-high and leaping into a starburst before landing in the splits and slithering seductively across the floor toward the audience.
The predominately middle-aged male and female patrons inside the small Tipitina's French Quarter theater erupt in cheers and applause, just the response producer Rick Delaup hoped for when he revived the show after Hurricane Katrina.
He sees the production as an effort to preserve a New Orleans tradition revered by many here.
"I want to bring back an entertaining, sexy show that is appealing and honors our past," said Delaup, 38, a city native. "There is awareness in New Orleans that this is important to the culture."
Burlesque, a form of erotic striptease variety show, sprang to life in New York in the 1880s as a form of working-class entertainment, said Jaye Furlonger, a San Diego-based historic preservationist who wrote her master's thesis on the history of San Diego's lost Hollywood Burlesque Theater.
The theatrical art form was in full swing by the 1930s, gained momentum during the 1940s war years, and had its heyday in the 1950s in places like Bourbon Street in New Orleans' French Quarter.
"Shows were lined up and down the street," said Delaup, who was working on a documentary about burlesque before Katrina wiped out his archives.
"New Orleans definitely is a unique case study and has certainly had a very rich burlesque history," said Furlonger, who also is helping to document and preserve the archives of the Exotic World Burlesque Museum in Helendale, Calif., in the Mojave Desert.
The tradition gradually dwindled with the changing of the times and tastes.
"Burlesque died because it was cheaper for theater owners to show movies than a full theatrical performance," Furlonger said. "The shows started to get leaner."
And they started to morph into seedy nightclub strip acts.
A nationwide burlesque revival in recent years inspired Delaup to launch his show last year. He serves as director, host and ticket master for the show, which ran for three months and was set for another run last September.
But then Katrina struck, ravaging the producer's home and his livelihood.
All of the show's props and costumes were destroyed, including a Josephine Baker-style tuxedo and rhinestone-decorated top hat, and an imitation of her infamous banana-skirt costume, which Delaup had bought for $800 just days before the storm.
Delaup's first inclination was to quit — to leave his hometown and forget the show. But when he went to clubs and private parties, people kept asking, " 'What about the show?' and 'When is it coming back?' " Delaup recalled.
With many of the show's original staff displaced or still struggling with problems wrought by Katrina, Delaup's team — including a brass band and the dancers — has gone from about 19 to a dozen. He convinced the staff to work for deferred pay.
When ticket sales are low, salaries are paid from Delaup's own pocket. He now commutes from Thibodaux, about an hour southwest of New Orleans, where his wife recently found work.
Nequan said she started dancing when she was 4. She had formal training in ballroom dancing and said she added to that modern and burlesque styles. Before joining Delaup's troupe, she was a supporting actress in a local musical.
"It was important for me to continue with the show," said Nequan, 26, whose house in the city's Lower 9th Ward was washed away. "Josephine Baker is a legend. I'm paying tribute to her."
She also underscored the importance of preserving aspects of the city's culture that distinguish it from the rest of America.
"We want to keep what makes New Orleans," Nequan said. "We want to keep that alive."
Crowd sizes at the show's two performances each Saturday typically range from 50 to 80 patrons, Delaup said.
The dancers perform solo acts with a group finale. They go by names like Trixie Minx, the leggy tassel twirler; Foxy Flambeaux, who does provocative acrobatics on a couch; and Athena, the Harem Girl, whose moves mirror that of a contortionist.
Their gyrations are performed to the accompaniment of a brass band, and in between are a singer's salacious songs and an emcee's bawdy jokes. A marionette puppet act has recently been added to the show.
Furlonger said couples and women typically outnumber men at burlesque shows, which also attract a substantial lesbian following, she said. Heterosexual women tend to be attracted by the costumes and by the "very positive" attitudes of the dancers, she said.
However, critics of burlesque — Nequan acknowledged some of her relatives fall into that group — argue that the show promotes immorality and exploits women as sex symbols. Others condemn the shows as a sin that they wish Katrina had washed away.
The Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of the New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, a nondenominational group based in the eastern suburb of Metairie, believes the storm was punishment for the city's decadence.
"We don't need to go back to the same thing, having Southern decadence, making this the murder capital of the world, going back to pornography and strip shows." Shanks said.
But supporters of burlesque argue that detractors just don't get it.
"It's real entertainment. Women enjoy it as much as the men," said Frieda La Brehce, 70, a former burlesque dancer whose stage name was Wild Cherry.
At each show the dancer turned florist wows guests with alluring publicity photos taken at the height of her career and does a comic monologue about the "good old days" of vaudeville and burlesque.
Furlonger said that "much of the nudity and sexuality in burlesque is very tongue-in-cheek, so it appeals to the audience's sense of humor."
In a recent article, David Cuthbert, theater writer for the Times-Picayune newspaper, said the show "puts the 'tease' back into striptease," and praised it as being "a surprisingly authentic re-creation of what Bourbon Street shows were like 50 years ago."
That's why John Searles recently felt compelled to bring his out-of-town boyfriend to see it.
"This is classy; this is art," said Searles, 37. "And it's very New Orleans."
Scott Tramel, 41, who attended the same performance with his wife, son and a group of boisterous friends, said that keeping the traditions like burlesque alive was part of the remedy for reviving New Orleans.
"Things like this will help to get the city back to normal," Tramel said. "We support this." |
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