If you’ve ever seen a burlesque show, you’ll be familiar with the way the dancers glide across the stage as if they were simply born to do it. You’ll recognise the seamless way in which performers remove their clothes to reveal perfectly positioned pasties. You’ll have seen how poised a dancer is whilst seductively removing a stocking with ease. However, what you won’t see are the safety pins keeping her skirt in place, or the way she deftly repositions a wayward pastie or the still-wet glue sticking her gems to her, otherwise flawless, bra. Burlesque is an art form, it is all about how things appear to be. But digging a little deeper, there are some things that burlesque performers need to know to pull off the performance of their lives. Introducing, The Ultimate Burlesque Survival Kit: 5 Ways to Make Sure Your Performance Doesn’t Go T**s Up.
1. Don’t get in a sticky situation
Love You Burlesque absolutely swear by Gem Tac (other fabric glues are available) and hot glue guns for quick and easy wardrobe alterations or amendments. Picture this: it’s ten minutes until showtime, and unbeknownst to you your lace trim is unravelling itself from your knickers and you’re rapidly losing sparkles from your bra. Luckily for you, your best burlesque friend comes to your assistance with Gem Tac and a hot glue gun – saving the day and your performance! We recommend always packing extra glue in your Burlesque Survival Kit, you never know when you might need it!
2. Avoid hair-raising problems
The day of your performance has arrived and, unluckily for you, so has a gale-force wind. The plans that you had to take a leisurely bath before crafting your hair into something fabulous are royally scuppered by the wind, which seems relentless in its attack. But fear not! If there’s one thing we insist upon at Love You Burlesque, it’s that you should always have hairspray and spare bobby pins for your hair. It doesn’t matter how many pins you have to push into your beehive, as long as it has the appearance of looking sensational the audience won’t know any difference!
3. Mirror mirror on the wall
Burlesque is all about looking and appearance, therefore it stands to reason that one of the most important things that you should always have to hand to be performance ready, is a mirror. Whether you have a hand-held mirror in your handbag, a standing desk-mirror or choose to go the whole hog with a full-length mirror that lights up the whole of your dressing room, whichever is your style, be sure to have one with you when you’re preparing to take to the stage.
4. Over-pack or be under-prepared
Picture the scene, you’re hastily packing to leave for your next performance and have so far discarded the multi-pack of plasters, two bottles of water, spare change, spare gems, extra stockings, spare knickers and spare pasties from your bag. Three hours later you arrive at the venue with blistered heels (and no plasters), having just walked a mile from a free car park because you got rid of your spare change. Then, you find that the kitchen at the venue is being refitted and you’re kicking yourself for not bringing those two bottles of water. Then, to cap it all off, your only pair of stockings have a tear in them, your frilly knickers have become somehow stuck to your pasties and the whole sha-bang is ruined. Take our advice, always over-pack.
5. Avoid a choreography calamity
Where would a burlesque performer be without her choreography? We don’t feel that we should be telling you this, as seasoned burlesque fans, but if you are going to be performing you should always make sure that you have your choreography written down or filmed. There’s nothing like the pre-performance panic when you think that you can’t remember any of your moves – having your choreography to hand will make sure that your performance definitely, definitely doesn’t go t**s up!