Edit – It’s now a bit sad for me to read this post. I left the Cabaret because unfortunately I found it unprofessional and embarrassing (for example, at a show during our performance our director – who was supposed to be singing the song that we were dancing to – announced “I’m sorry y’all, I just burped” into the microphone.) But just because something isn’t for me doesn’t mean that it’s wrong and of course I wish them all the best.

I told you a while ago about Fat Bottom Cabaret. We are now up and running. We debuted at Emo’s at a SXSWi event. It was crazy – a packed house. I do the choreography for the group and I had forgotten how difficult it is to debut choreography. It’s like showing people your baby, knowing that they might

1. Think it’s ugly

2. Have no problem telling you that loudly and publicly

3. Throw fruit at it.

Also, we were the only cabaret performers – everyone else was burlesque. That meant that we were the only women on stage (beside the fabulous Mojo Queens singers!) who were not getting down to panties and pasties. So on top of the anxiety of debuting as a performer and a choreographer, and the fact that the stage was carpeted which meant that we had to change our choreography when we got there, I also had the unsettling opportunity to be simultaneously worried that people would feel that we were wearing too little, or be disappointed that we were wearing too much. Did I mention that I’m a worrier.

Skip to the end: One of the absolute biggest rounds of applause of the night. People asked to take their picture with us, people chased us down to tell us how good we were, people told us that we inspired them, we got interviewed for the news. It went great. We’ve done several other gigs since then and always received a great reception. It has been amazing so far and I feel that the world of burlesque – which is populated by women (and some men) of all shapes and sizes – has afforded us the opportunity to be appreciated for our beauty and praised for our talent. I continue to feel incredibly lucky to have a chance to be in a group with such talented, awesome women.

We will be putting on our own show in June (I’ll keep you posted!) and our awesome leader Nikki has sent in our application to the New Orleans Burlesque Fest for which we were required to complete two videos – I’ve shared them below. Fair warning, if you work with me, know my in real life, or if you happen to be my Mom and you think it might be uncomfortable to watch me shake it in a miniskirt and fishnets then feel free to skip these videos. Otherwise, enjoy and I hope to see you in New Orleans in September! (For some reason a bit of the right side of the video gets cut off in the embedded version so if you want to see the full thing just double click to open it in full screen.)

This is the number we did at SXSW (and it’s my favorite of our numbers so far):

This is the first piece that we ever put together: