Root Magazine is pleased to welcome guest writer and Burlesque dancer, Kellita of Hot Pink Feathers:
This Bump's For You
I entered burlesque through the back door. I wasn't aware I was doing it until I saw my first burlesque show in New Orleans in May, 2001. That was more than 6 months after going public with my dance company, Hot Pink Feathers.
How did I find myself bumping and grinding, shimmying and
shaking before I had a context for it? Here’s how. A mover from the get
go, I was satisfied at first with my own movement explorations in the living
room and the backyard. Eventually I
found myself traveling through the world of ballet (too masochistic) and then
modern dance (too serious). My
floodgates of enthusiasm were thrown open only when I encountered samba and
Brazilian dance. I couldn’t believe a
whole culture actually moved so exuberantly and sensually outside of my
imagination! I danced in my first Carnaval San Francicso Grand Parade in 1997
and then expressed a desire to parade every weekend. The grand spirit of abandon that Carnaval
evokes struck me as my physical mantra. I had now heard my calling.
When it came time to start Hot Pink Feathers, I was aware
that preservation of culture was not its mission. Rather, my interest was honing in on the wild
joy that samba catalyzed in me and following where that led. This allowed me to
create numbers from that font of joy to share with the dancers I gathered, and
ultimately our audiences. There is a
tangible vicarious thrill that an audience member experiences when a performer
is channeling their full charge, in every cell. And it cycles right back to the performer,
too. I hadn’t encountered such a
life-giving exchange in any other medium. This, too, is what I found in New Orleans that May.
A fateful little flyer beckoned me to travel to New Orleans to immerse in what would become my primary
community in the next years. I found the
same spark I knew from Carnaval in the glamourous, fearless, and oh, so witty burlesque artists
performing there. Their use of humor and
painfully great timing had us all captivated. As the artists teased us with their routines and their saucy removal of
select items of their sparkly costumes (often leaving much to the imagination),
both performer and witness became amplified. We were all called to be more. More of ourselves. We were
invited to integrate. Not
intellectually, not by some grand design of a committee, but by the bold
movements and revelations of a dancing woman (and sometimes a man!). As the clothes came off, not only more skin
was bared, but concurrently, more spirit. This was truly hot.
I learned from that first shot of burlesque, that Hot Pink
Feathers performed at the crossroads of
carnaval and cabaret, and began to
refer to us as a samba burlesque troupe. Our numbers were dance heavy, often peppered with striptease. Since then, we have branched out to include
music from around the world, and no longer limit ourselves to our signature
retro Brazilian music. We now count
narrative rich numbers in our repertoire, including a bawdy Bollywood routine,
and have acts set to latin gypsy horns, New Orleans jazz, French can can, and an ever expanding list of world music. In fact, we have now coined the term World
Cabaret to express our new fusions. Our
aesthetic is ethnic dance through a showgirl lense. In the words of Theatre Bay Area magazine,
“Leaders on the scantily clad front, the Hot Pink Feathers are a samba-based
troupe who shake it to anything from bossa nova to Klezmer music.”
The most salient link between our two primary forms of
influence, samba and burlesque, is not the obvious aesthetic of shiny sequins,
beads, feathers, glitter and ruffles. Nor is it the emphasis on hip gyrations
and shimmy-shakes. It’s the common
thread of a no-holds-barred embracing of life, as focused through physical
performance. It’s the generous gift of a
bump, and a wink and a smile, that is just as much for the performer as it for
the audience.
See you at the show!
Kellita
Head Feather
Photo credits top to bottom: Don Spiro, Billy Hustace, Dave Golden
To connect with more of the burlesque community at large,
visit both
www.teaseorama.com and www.burlesquehall.com
To learn more about Hot Pink Feathers, and to stay abreast
of our shows and Showgirl Academy
classes and workshops (session beginning 7/24!), please visit www.hotpinkfeathers.com
Carol Rosegg
