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In residency at THE TRIAD THEATRE, 2nd Sundays of every month.
A Time Out New York "Critics Pick" and a Flavorpill "Editor's Choice", recently featured in BUST.From barely legal to legally bare, Rhinestone Gorilla Burlesque is New York's ragtag team of art school rejects. Heralded as "dangerous-minded and infectious" and "the future of burlesque" (The San Francisco Burlesque Review), The Rhinestone Gorillas are not your average showgirls; they're rhinestones in the rough, anti-glamour guerilla grrrls prone to attack and entice. Formerly known as ALPHA PSI ECDYSIA, Rhinestone Gorilla Burlesque was founded in 2008 as the nation's premier undergraduate burlesque troupe. While based on the campus of the State University of New York at New Paltz, RGB lived a double life as an educational institution and a professional producing entity. On the New Paltz campus, RGB dedicated itself to teaching burlesque history, the politics of neo-burlesque and the practice of burlesque performance; off-campus, RGB was the underage darling of the New York stripperformance art scene, getting naked on school nights at The Slipper Room, Rififi, Public Assembly, and Sugarland and in venues in LA, SF, Boston, and beyond. Though frequent subjects of controversy and police activity, the students of RGB remain the only state-sponsored strippers in the nation.RHINESTONE GORILLA BURLESQUE performs at The Triad Theatre, 158 W. 72nd St., the second Sunday of every month. Tickets are $10 (with a two drink minimum) and available online.Join RHINESTONE GORILLA on Facebook!
GALLERY
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Lucida Sans
Lucida Sans
Lucida Sans
Alyssa Morar
Spartacus Rising
Avian Rush
Ophelia Diphthong
Avian Rush
Ophelia Diphthong
Gemma Stone
Angeliqu A'LaMode
Kinky Demure
Kinky Demure
Izebel Vivant
Debra Delorean
Izebel Vivant
Gemma Stone
Izebel Vivant
Angelique A'LaMode
Lucida with Avian and Kinky
Gemma Stone
Gemma Stone
Spartacus Rising
Angelique A'LaMode
Ginger Snap
Spartacus Rising and Ginger
Angelique A'LaMode
Lucida Sans
Lucida Sans
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BUST Magazine
Eat The Damn Cake
Hudson Valley Chronic
Hudson Valley Magazine
BUST Magazine
BUST Magazine
interview by Gemma Stone Nov. 1, 2011In the spring of 2008, a ragtag group of theater majors, art students, musicians, and feminists met in the campus dance studio of The State University of New York at New Paltz and learned how to strip. Their teacher was Jo “Boobs” Weldon, Headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque, and the lessons they learned that day (how to seductively remove a glove, make love to a chair, twirl nipple tassels) would be put to use in a way that the small college town of New Paltz had never seen. The co-ed collective called themselves “Alpha Psi Ecdysia” (“ecdysiast” meaning one who sheds one’s own skin) and, under that name, designed to seem innocuous as any sorority the Student Association funded, they started the nation’s premier college burlesque troupe. A buzz quickly grew for the group; their first show sold out a small piano bar, subsequent shows packed the campus theatres, their ranks grew from a dozen to over fifty members, they booked gigs in New York, were the subject of a few documentaries, and eventually went on tour across the West coast. The original core of Alpha Psi Ecdysia, or APE as they refer to it, graduated in the next year or two, and continued performing under the moniker Rhinestone Gorilla Burlesque; they left the troupe in the hands of underclassmen, who rose to the challenge of producing shows and educating their peers about the oft-controversial artform. I am a member of that original group, and my experience with APE certainly helped define my college career and life beyond it. I talked with Jenny Weinbloom, the founder, producer, and creative director of APE/Rhinestone Gorilla (who goes by the stage name of Lucida Sans), and Jackie Wolozin, the senior who leads APE in its current incarnation as Kinky Demure, about the unique phenomenon of college burlesque.Jenny, where did the idea to start a burlesque troupe come from?Jenny: I started seeing shows as a teenager in New York. By the time I transferred from NYU to New Paltz after my freshman year, I'd already been hanging around the Slipper Room for two years. I missed it when I moved upstate, and I talked about it all the time. I remember standing in a circle doing some stupid exercise with the theatre majors when one of them mentioned that she had been a champion competitive hula hooper as a kid. I told her about Miss Saturn and she got interested in hooping in burlesque. She would later become Equa Fellashio, one of the founding members of our troupe. Honestly, I didn't really intend to start a troupe when I brought Jo up to teach a workshop. I just wanted my new friends to know about this thing I loved so that they'd understand me better. But then they fell in love with it, too, and suddenly we were planning a show. We were a troupe. What drew you to burlesque, rather than traditional dance, theatre, or comedy?Jenny: In retrospect, I had kind of been interested in it my whole life. My sister played Mama Rose in this super precocious, inappropriate 3rd grade production of Gypsy when I was like 3 years old. We had recorded the Bette Midler TV movie off of CBS and we'd watch it all the time…I was always drawn to that moment when Louise first transforms into Gypsy, and she stands in front of the mirror and says "Mama, I'm pretty. I'm a pretty girl, Mama." My awkward years hit early and hit hard, and the idea of being glamorous, beautiful, and wanted was very attractive to me. When the awkward years ended, I'd spend hours in front of the mirror stripping out of too-small dresses, lip-syncing jazz standards. At the same time, I was listening to a lot of Nirvana, getting really into experimental theatre, obsessed with drag queens and attempting to convince my mother that I was a lesbian. It would be a good six years or so until I'd learn that burlesque still exists in the form of neo-burlesque, and that it has absorbed aspects of punk rock, drag culture and performance art. I happened to discover neo-burlesque just as I was growing disillusioned and angered by actor training and the Svengali-like actor/director dynamic. After a number of unpleasant experiences as a young actress in the hands of adult male directors, I was thrilled to discover a female-dominated art form where performers have total control over what they do onstage. I was sick of directors; I wanted to be a self-sufficient, sexually liberated artist, and I found that opportunity in burlesqueJackie: I think one of the first reasons I was interested is that I like to shock people, and what better way to shock people and make them uncomfortable? Another more personal reason is that in high school i was very uncomfortable exhibiting femininity and didn't really understand how to feel about my own sexuality. I was very uncomfortable with being feminine, and burlesque really helped me with that by allowing me to be as glamorous as I wanted in a setting where that was acceptable; and then, of course, as strange as I want to be, too!Why is burlesque important for college students or young women in particular?Jackie: I think this is an age when people, women especially, spend a lot of time judging each other and deciding what is okay and what isn't in terms of their sexuality and how they exhibit it. I think it is important for women and college students both have a way to express their sexuality, and I believe burlesque takes the negative connotation away from exaggerated sexuality. Jenny: I think that women entering college are expected to appear sexually liberated, regardless of whether they actually are. By talking about burlesque at New Paltz, and many of the ideas behind its role in my life, I made myself a kind of lightning rod for sexual angst. Women I was only just beginning to know--women who were seen as sexually mature and self-possessed--were talking to me about feeling uncomfortable with their bodies and, mostly, being unable to orgasm. I was surprised to find that the sexual discourse happening on my campus was really limited, and I was thrilled to see that change, at least in certain departments, once I began the troupe. Alpha Psi Ecdysia became a safe space for sexual discourse as well as a performance ensemble. As an ensemble--as a family--we've helped each other through bad relationships, past traumas and the constant ebb and flow of body image. Whether it's a burlesque troupe or a gay/straight alliance or some other student organization, every campus should have some sort of club where peers can have a healthy discourse surrounding sexuality. What makes a burlesque troupe so effectual in transforming the campus discourse is that a burlesque show tends to be a pretty popular event. A wide percentage of the student body might come to a show with whatever expectations, and find themself witness to all the good work that the troupe has been doing on themselves, and I don't mean as performers. Hopefully, the performance empowers the wider student body to be more vocal and less ashamed of their own sexuality, their own bodies. Young women--and young men--are so rarely in an environment where sexuality is embraced as a good, healthy, vital, complicated part of life. If a campus wants healthy undergrads, they should encourage any avenue through which students can explore and embrace their sexuality, especially if they're expressing that journey through their own awesome creativity.What challenges have you faced as a troupe? Did you have any opposition from family, friends, or other authority figures?Jenny: APE was always supported by the administration of our university, but often less so by parents, professors, and local government. I remember walking through the theatre building one day and being summoned into the office of a female professor I hadn't yet met. She told me quite sternly that her students were like her children, and that I had "turned them into stripper trash". I should note that the only part of this statement that's offensive is the "trash" part, and the equation of that word with strippers. A semester later, a fairly forward-thinking theatre professor attended one of our performances and applauded the classic acts--the ones that are all about pretty girls stripping out of pretty costumes to display pretty bodies--and expressed extreme disapproval of the more political acts. Our debut performance was nearly canceled after local government grew concerned that we were operating a strip club out of our performance space, but an 11th hour plea to their memory of Natalie Wood in Gypsy caused them to call off their troops. I remember a sophomore whose mother threatened to stop subsidizing her tuition if she didn't leave the troupe. We never saw her again. For the most part, though, we've faced little opposition. The school generously funded troupe visits to The Boston Burlesque Exposition, Burlycon in Seattle and Exotic World in Vegas. When Christian students expressed outrage over an act in which Mary births then destroys the baby Jesus, the administration defended the act, explaining their interpretation of the act as a statement on post-partum depression and the universal challenge of motherhood. Frankly, we rarely got in trouble for anything worse than letting our shows go overtime and leaving a glittery mess in the dance studio. New Paltz has been so good to us. How do you come up with ideas for acts or shows? Jenny: It varies. Sometimes a show theme evolves from a funny title, but more often it comes from a legitimate desire to find out what my friends and troupemates will do with that theme, what it means to them. Like this "When I was 10" theme we're doing for November-- I'm loving learning about who my friends were as kids and what they learned from that period in their lives. Seeing how we all react to a theme is always fascinating. As far as acts go, that varies. Generally a concept drives an act--who I want to be, what I want to say, why I want to get naked--but sometimes there's a song that I just gotta do an act to, and the song drives the concept. Jackie: I think my ideas for shows tend to come from thinking up ways in which to bastardize peoples ideas of normalcy and polite society, and thinking of ways to disturb people. I do love to disturb people! There are a lot of dead babies in my acts. Who/what have your biggest influences been?Jackie: This question is easy, and perhaps a little obvious. When I came to campus, I learned about the troupe from two excited girls when I was waiting for my department interview, but it was meeting Jenny that really got me into it. Her passion for the art is contagious, and it as easy for me to see and appreciate it when she was the one teaching us what it was. From the first general interest meeting, I was really excited, and I knew that this was something i wanted to do, and she was someone I wanted to do it with. Now, this is a little strange as you are the interviewer, but I shall speak of you in third person to make it better! [Oh god.] Watching Bridgette (Gemma Stone) perform is inspiring all on its own. Every act is clever and hilarious, or when it's not hilarious, beautiful and always intelligent. I have never seen an act of hers that I didn't love, and they are always creative in an unexpected way. I also greatly admire the persona she has developed. It's not about being glamorous or pretty, its rough, gritty, in-your-face and fabulous! I aspire to such general awesomeness. Jenny: Tigger!, the original King of Boylesque, is a huge inspiration to me as a performer. He's a tremendously loving performer that manages to take care of his audience, even while shocking them and often making them uncomfortable. The entire New York burlesque community helped me to trust that my friends and I having fun together onstage would be fun for an audience, because watching them have fun was always fun for me. James Habacker, the owner of The Slipper Room, is a huge inspiration to me as a producer and a community organizer. As an educator, Jo and Tigger! inspire me to always embrace my students' ideas and personalities while honoring the history and tradition of burlesque. Do you have any advice for anyone looking to start a burlesque troupe on her college campus? Jenny: See burlesque as often as possible, read about it, watch videos. Be as informed as possible, because if you arent, how can you teach? Understand that your primary roles are that of teacher and stage manager, and dont get so wrapped up in performing that you push those to the side. Discourage your kids from falling into lichés, but honor thatat least in the beginningthose lichés are their primary point of reference and they shouldnt go unexplored. Take your kids to see shows. Most of all, maintain a symbiotic relationship with your campus. You probably depend on them for funding, rehearsal space and possibly performance space. Dont piss them off unless pissing them off is part of a truly noble political agenda. If their rules are reasonable, play by them. Educate them. When APE began, we never stripped past bras and full-back panties when performing on campus because we liked our school and respected that request. We earned their trust and respect, and soon they let us perform on campus in pasties and g-strings. Also, be a spin doctor. Lets say youre petitioning for funding: if burlesque makes the program board groan in disgust, talk about how youre reviving a forgotten art form while teaching body-positivism. If burlesque makes them giggle in excitement, talk about how you guys are a totally awesome glittery girl squad. If it clearly excites them sexually, talk about how your bad girl strippers and offer them comps. Be a saleswoman and pick your battles [Dont fight when youre asking for money]. Also, run a co-ed troupe. Men have so much to contribute. Just try and keep the creeps out. Where do you see APE/Rhinestone Gorilla going? Do you have plans or hopes for the future? Jackie: I don't know where APE will go. I think each generation of burlesquers worries that it won't exist after they're gone, and I am no exception. As for Rhinestone Gorilla, I am thrilled out of my pants about it! It is always the most exciting, interesting piece of news I have, and I am always excited about the shows, and proud to talk about them to my friends! I love the troupe, I love what we do, and I am wholeheartedly invested in our troupe for as long as it exists! I'm in it for the long haul! Jenny: I am thrilled that APE is continuing without me. Avian [Rush, the sophomore co-producer of APE] and Kinky are both talented performers and poised, self-possessed, creative leaders. They and their troupe are doing great, sponsoring workshops, putting on shows, and building relationships. I hope that burlesque will exist on the New Paltz campus long after there's anyone there who remembers me. As far as RGB goes, we're doing monthly shows in New York and are hoping to keep that going for a long time, maybe go on tour within the next two years, produce some major one-off events, and absorb more talented students and graduates from APE. What items could you not live without as a performer? Jenny: Red glitter, eyelashes, heels. They're the tools of the trade. Jackie: I could not live without the eyelashes. I love grandiose, over-the-top, ridiculous eyelashes that make my overall appearance even stranger. I suppose also the hair, but as it is always actually attached in my case, i wouldn't ever have to go without anyway! Burlesque is still a relatively underground scene. What do you think about portrayals of burlesque in mainstream media? Do you see burlesque as having an influence on mainstream culture?!Jackie: The only reference direct reference to burlesque that I can think of is the [2010] movie Burlesque, and I dislike that because it seems like a portrayal of what polite society wants to see burlesque as. I do see burlesque influencing mainstream society in a big way though, whether or not people realize it. The biggest example I can think of is Lady Gaga. Jenny described what she does as burlesque with a [big]budget, and I think that her crazy costumes are very reminiscent of burlesque.Gaga started out at the Slipper Room, too! Has burlesque changed you in any ways? Jackie: Burlesque has definitely made me a lot more comfortable with my own sexuality. It has made me more comfortable with being a woman, and also more comfortable making other people uncomfortable, one of my favorite pastimes. It makes me feel fine about having a sick sense of humor as well. What's the best thing about burlesque?Jenny: The community. I really love burlesque people. Also, the drag element, the opportunity to embody a femininity outside my own. Jackie: Its a place where I can be as strange and shocking as I want, and make people as hilariously uncomfortable as I want, and still look super glamorous and have people love me for it.
Eat The Damn Cake
Eat the Damn Cake
Nov. 14, 2011
The young woman took off her bathrobe. She was completely naked. She dropped the robe. The music swelled.She had glorious ankles. A plush, gentle, welcoming body, a proud, striking face. She was beautiful. In time to the music, she slowly, slowly began to get dressed, stockings first.My friend, the blogger Rachel Rabbit White, and I were at a burlesque show on the Upper West Side. We were watching Lucida Sans (stage name), the founder of Rhinestone Gorilla, a burlesque troupe that began in college at SUNY New Paltz, perform a backwards striptease. We were impressed. I am not a particularly daring person. I have never even been drunk. Going to a burlesque show feels like kind of a big deal to me. I’'m not one of those cool New Yorkers who have seen it all. I have barely seen any of it, and I know it.But this was not my first time watching women undress on stage. It was my second. I was back for more, because the first time made me feel so good.I found out about Rhinestone Gorilla through this blog. One of the readers, who has since become a friend of mine, is an original member of the troupe. Her stage name is Angelique A'’LaMode. She is this bubbly, high-energy, incredibly sweet and smart (well yeah she’'s smart. She reads Cake) woman. My age. Writing a Master’'s thesis on the art of burlesque. I didn’'t know anything about burlesque, and she was happy to educate me.And then I went to her show, and I understood. These young women were hilarious. Their acts were cultural commentary. They referenced religion, literature, and art. Someone dressed as a G.I. Joe doll who strips off his outfit to become Barbie, who then strips off her outfit, too…...I thought: Sex and humor don'’t get mixed enough. I thought: Seeing all these bodies makes me feel good about my own body.The young women (and a few young men) on the stage were poking fun at themselves even as they reveled in their sexuality. They were making fun of stripping while stripping. They were also very conscious of the eroticism of even the simplest movement. Running a hand along your own leg or arm. Taking off a glove. It made me want to try taking off my gloves. I have obviously been doing it wrong.They were comfortable. Their bellies stuck out. Their breasts were all different sizes. Some of them were tiny, some of them were large. The fat was distributed differently on each body. I realized I don’t see very many real naked bodies.I signed up for a burlesque workshop. One of those LivingSocial things (“Botox + Dental Exam + Deal on Cheeseburgers in Midtown– Today Only!”). I’'m going to go with one of my more conservative friends. Someone who is already joking about how intensely awkward she’s going to be. Good. Because I will be intensely awkward.Unless, of course, I can dress as Carmen Sandiego. That was one of the acts last night. The (loose) theme of the show was “being ten.” Someone did a Blair Witch Project themed act. Angelique did an act in which she gets attacked by Lamb Chop, the puppet. And one girl, a guest performer called Lefty Lucy, was obsessed with the computer game about the sexy globe-trotting criminal in the brightly colored trench coat and floppy hat . So was I. And that song! With the guy with the insanely deep voice who says her name! So great.This is my favorite quote from the girl who introduced me to burlesque: You are the X factor in your portrayal of sensuality. It’'s nothing without you, whatever you look like, however you think.I think that’'s the best thing about burlesque. That'’s the thing I love. And even though I’'m probably not going to become a professional burlesque dancer (also, Bear would die), that’'s the thing I want to feel, in my own life. All the time.
Hudson Valley Chronic
Hudson Valley Chronic
July 1, 2009
A traveling college-based performing troupe called Alpha Psi Ecdysia is busily re-introducing the nearly lost art of burlesque to audiences from New Paltz to New York City and beyond. The group, led by a long-term student code-named Lucida Sans (a moniker she shares with an obscure printing font), is nearing 50 strong these days and includes both men and women in its ranks. They put on a rousing full-length, three-act show last month at Joe'’s East/West in New Paltz.I caught up with Ms. Sans recently, and she got me up to speed on what’'s happening with the neo-burlesque movement that began in New York City in the late 1990s, and which she took up in earnest in 2006, as she was finishing high school. “"Neo-burlesque is about taking the classic striptease beyond mere titillation and into storytelling. Yes, it routinely involves the shedding of clothes, but the stripping is employed in the service of a three-minute-long character portrait. A routine can be humorous; or it can be sad. It can be beautiful or horrific. It can be uplifting or downright sick. But it always strives to be sexy in some way.”"Sans got into burlesque as an extension of her love for avant garde theater. “"I had been a performer of another kind, you know, with traditional actor training,"” she says. “"I was always into the avant garde, and also really into physical theater of various kinds, specifically the Polish Laboratory Theatre, really gritty, visceral stuff. My interest had always been sort of using the body for storytelling. So doing burlesque was kind of a natural departure, actually.”"The New Paltz show featured women and men of wildly varying physicality, performing a wide array of theatrical clothes-shedding. There were fan dancers, fire dancers, nurses, schoolgirls, theatrically violent knife- and chainsaw-wielding punks, religious figures, and caricatures of emcee icons. There was a magician, who extricated himself from a reasonably secure-looking hogtying job performed by a couple of surly-looking audience members.Audience surliness, it seems, is apparently de rigueur. “"Yes, there were hecklers,"” says Sans. “There are always hecklers – I like them. They’re a throwback to another era when that was an acceptable form of feedback. So I dig that. Because they’re being nostalgic in the same way we are. Plus, you know, we need the feedback.”"
Hudson Valley Magazine
Hudson Valley Magazine
Feb. 12, 2010
It's no secret that women often struggle with confidence and self-esteem — a quick survey of the many self-help titles at your local bookstore can attest to that. Although it’s a weighty problem, who says the solution can’t be fun? Two local girl-power groups--a traveling burlesque show and a ladies’ arm-wrestling league--take unconventional approaches to helping their members feel confident, strong, and beautiful.“"There’'s no wrong way to enjoy a burlesque show,”" says Lucida Sans, founder of Alpha Psi Ecdysia, the Valley’'s only vaudevillian striptease group. This eight-member troupe of professional entertainers started out in 2008 as a popular performing arts club at SUNY New Paltz. Most of their shows take place in Albany, New Paltz, and New York City, and tend to draw quite a crowd. (During the troupe’'s first show in New Paltz in May 2008, the audience filled the joint to maximum capacity; latecomers had to be turned away.) Performances usually last about two hours, with anywhere from 10-20 different acts.Sans (it'’s her stage name) explains that the group'’s act is not simply a form of exotic dancing, but “more of a choreographed theater show.” Beyond just taking-it-all-off, performers attempt to engage the audience by mixing song, dance, and a storyline into brief skits which, according to Sans, combine “"narrative, politics, commentary, identity--and a real, real fun party.”"Wait a minute. Politics? Social commentary? In a striptease show? “"We want to prove that women can be sexual, powerful, and intellectually provocative at the same time,"” Sans says. Like a variety show, the acts include some fun, frivolous numbers for purely entertainment purposes. Other performers play colorful characters and depict scenes that challenge the stereotypes that women often face. In one act, Izébel Vivant of New Paltz —-- a women’'s rights activist when she’s offstage —-- portrays a wife who is continuously ignored by her husband. Rather than beg for his attention, her character finds fulfillment by taking matters into her own hands (in a humorous and decidedly seductive way).Sans, 21, admits the group has faced opposition from those who believe the entertainers are simply objectifying themselves. “"It’'s a different generation of feminism,"” she says. “"[The previous generation] fought by saying, '‘Don’t sexualize me.’' But we’'re reclaiming that sexuality, saying ‘'You’re allowed to want me, but from a distance —-- and I’'ll control the way you do so.’'" ”
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