Belated BHoF 2014

As I write this, I am one week away from traveling to Las Vegas for Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend 2015. It will be my fourth year attending in a row.  I wrote down some thoughts about the experience in 2012 and 2013 and had fully intended to do a write-up about 2014 well before now, and it's fairly inexcusable that I haven't. As I've said before, I write about the Weekender not to criticize anyone's performance but to celebrate the stuff I find inspiring or special. I am not a critic and feel I have a lot more burlesque to watch before I could begin to fulfill that role. As always, any opinions are strictly my own and in no way are intended to slight or offend. I am just trying to be a better fan/admirer of this art I have come to love, and I come to understanding through writing.

As such, I am, for this entry, at least, not going with my past "Five Favorite Performances" format. It served its purpose previously, and I certainly may return to it, but this time I'm going with something a little less structured. Also, all of the performances from 2014 are online at Vimeo, so I can link directly to the performance instead of trying to coordinate with photographers to find photos I like (one bonus of waiting so damn long to write this). In no particular order, these are simply a few numbers I enjoyed. Not all, by any stretch of the imagination, but a few that stuck with me, for whatever reason.


Bonnie Fox - 2014 - 24th Annual Tournament of Tease from BurlesqueHall on Vimeo.

Bonnie Fox: I'd be hard-pressed to name a favorite overall routine from 2014, but if forced I'd probably pick this one. Bonnie's Charleston number is as classic as they come with a great striptease seamlessly added in. I tend to prefer my burlesque on the neo side, but Bonnie was a perfect blend of technical proficiency and the SHEER JOY OF PERFORMING. Honestly, the happiness that she felt on that stage, knowing she was hitting every mark, radiated outward and allowed the audience to share in the moment. Bonnie won "Best Debut" and "Most Dazzling" with this showstopper, as well as a roomful of hearts.


Iva Handfull - 2014 - 24th Annual Tournament of Tease from BurlesqueHall on Vimeo.

Iva Handfull:  There are certain people who always hit a sweet spot for me. Iva is one such performer. She's blessedly unique, mixing glam and punk and industrial and rock influences into something that's just so damn exciting every time she takes the stage. Her costuming is always creative, her musical selections are far from traditional burlesque offerings, and she ALWAYS BRINGS IT. In this case, she brought it to Scissor Sisters' "Filthy Gorgeous." She killed it, as she always does, and LOOK AT THAT MOTHERFUCKING HEADDRESS. LOOK AT IT. You're going to have a fever dream involving that headdress. And you'll want more.


Kay Sera – 2014 Movers, Shakers & Innovators Showcase from BurlesqueHall on Vimeo.

Kay Sera: I love the Movers, Shakers & Innovators showcase. Just love it. It's the best chance during the weekend to see stuff that may be a little more bizarre or humorous or just outside the box. Kay Sera turning Eve's temptation in the Garden of Eden into a cheeky reverse striptease with great props and a fine bit of tassle-twirling set to "Bolero" and "Welcome to the Jungle" was more than enough to make me happy.


The Ruby Revue - 2014 - 24th Annual Tournament of Tease from BurlesqueHall on Vimeo.

Ruby Revue: If you couldn't tell from Ginger Valentine placing as second runner-up in the insanely competitive Queen competition this year and Missy Lisa winning the "Most Classic" trophy, Ruby Revue is a collection of By-God SHOWGIRLS. From TEXAS. Dancing to a double-dose of David Rose ("Sunset Strip" and a sexed-up "St. James Infirmary,") they deliver choreography you could cut paper on and a rainbow spectacle of costumes that you'd be content to go blind after seeing. They won "Best Troupe" for this routine, and you can see why. They're one of the most professional groups going today.



Aurora Galore - 2014 - 24th Annual Tournament of Tease from BurlesqueHall on Vimeo.

Aurora Galore: I've said it before and I'll say it again now: "Most Innovative" is my favorite award of the weekend. In 2014 it deservedly went to Aurora Galore. She brought Weird Sexy Ringmaster Realness to the stage and immediately shot up the list of unique performers who do something different and special and demand to be seen and respected on their own terms. Her performance was one of the most electrifying of the weekend and thankfully, the crowd ate it up.


Lola Frost - 2014 - 24th Annual Tournament of Tease from BurlesqueHall on Vimeo.

Lola Frost: Another woman for whom I am unapologetically a complete mark, Lola is the rare performer who combines a distinct personal aesthetic with a hybrid of dance forms both old and new to create amazing burlesque that could come only from her.  She's extraordinarily good. And just extraordinary in general. If you told me that electroswing was created by someone who caught a contact high from her glitter, I'd not even question the claim. Also, with this "Fancy Flapper" routine she works those assels like a prizefighter gunning for points in the twelfth round. Can I get a witness?!


Midnite Martini - 2014 - 24th Annual Tournament of Tease from BurlesqueHall on Vimeo.

Midnite Martini: It's only right to say something about the Queen, isn't it? Beginning with a great visual, then fully revealing herself and A RHINESTONED LADDER she treats like a balance beam before finishing with skilled aerial work, I think a lot of people fully expected this act to take the title as they watched it gloriously unfold. I met Midnite months later when she headlined Atlanta's Southern Fried Burlesque Festival, and I like this win for reasons beyond her obvious talent. Midnite is a genuinely nice person and a damn fine ambassador for burlesque and The Burlesque Hall of Fame and will continue to be for years to come, I'm certain. Oh, did I mention RHINESTONED LADDER?!

That's it for this time. Again, there are several more acts I could highlight with great enthusiasm, but I'm running out of adjectives. I will say that I am more excited than ever to attend BHoF in 2015, as I think I finally may have figured out how to do the thing right. And I've actually seen each of the performers vying for Miss Exotic World at least once, a few of them multiple times, and I know that pageant is going to be breathtaking for the audience and brain-grindingly difficult to judge for the poor souls put in charge of such a thing. Which probably means it will be another year before you see me write about it, because winnowing it down to a few acts is hard enough without having to choose a "winner."

I leave you with a few random photos from Las Vegas and BHoF 2014.

Follow me on Twitter @TheOneWhoKnox.

If the Las Vegas Neon Museum ever decides to sell this, BHoF should jump.

Me with the balletic Bonnie Fox.

Well met, Kitty Glitter. Well met.

Me with the incandescent Iva Handfull.

If this is wrong, Kitty Glitter, I don't want to be right.

Me with the adroit Aurora Galore.

Speak not of this, Kitty Glitter.

Post-fest at Frankie's Tiki Room. Trying to forget Kitty Glitter.

Crying Over Banshee

As I write this, it is just over two weeks since Cinemax drama Banshee aired the final episode of its third season. Unlike a lot of shows which introduce an overarching concept and milk it until syndication, Banshee has proven to be an action drama that is relatively comfortable with change, for good or ill. This is a show that has built up a lot of goodwill with me, and if nothing else it stages thrilling action setpieces better than any other show on television (and superseding most films, to boot). I'm still damn excited to see how Banshee moves forward past some fundamental alterations that happened in season three, but I'm admittedly still a bit shellshocked by them, so much so that it took me two damn weeks to mull over my thoughts on what the show accomplished this year.

Banshee Season 3 Key Art

I watch Banshee live as often as I can. I usually livetweet while viewing at 10pm, then immediately watch the rebroadcast Cinemax so thoughtfully schedules at 11pm sans the Twitter distraction to pick up on subtleties that may have escaped me, or just watch a really obese guy become road sausage again because...c'mon, that scene was batshit crazy. One of the things Banshee has done very well is modulation between the batshittery, which is the obvious selling point of the show, and actual, nuanced character work and damn solid acting. Characters in Banshee live in one of two worlds...the stylized action world, and something approaching the real world (as real as it can get in this crazy town, anyway). I've always felt that the characters who lived in this so-called "real" version of Banshee help ground the craziness and make the hyper-intense world of Lucas Hood, Carrie Hopewell, Sugar Bates,Job, Kai Procter, Rebecca Bowman and Chayton Littlestone a place where stakes feel dramatically viable and human-scaled.

Rus Blackwell as Gordon Hopewell, schooling some punk kids

In season three, Banshee killed its two most human characters. As someone who came to love Trieste K. Dunn as Siobhan Kelly and Rus Blackwell as Gordon Hopewell, their losses make this a fundamentally different show. Gone is Lucas Hood's promise for something approaching normalcy. Gone is the man whose support allowed Carrie Hopewell to rebuild herself. Because these characters were rarely a part of those aforementioned setpieces, they didn't have as much screen time as others, but Dunn and Blackwell made their scenes count.  Siobhan had conquered her personal demons. Gordon had pulled himself out of his vice spiral and assumed the mayorship of the town. I took the Siobhan death particularly hard. Even though Dunn stayed around for a couple of episodes after her character's death to appear in dream sequences and hallucinations, I have to admit that the urgency to rewatch that 11pm rebroadcast was not nearly as strong with my favorite character gone. The deaths of Siobhan and Gordon were handled about as well as they could be, but their import to the show cannot be overstated. Dunn's luminous power and Blackwell's load-bearing authority will be gravely missed.

What Chayton actually broke was my damn heart. (Geno Segers, Trieste K. Dunn)

There is a lot to love about season three, though. New characters Billy Raven (Chaske Spencer), Kurt Bunker (Tom Pelphrey), Douglas Stowe (Langley Kirkwood), Robert Phillips (Denis O'Hare), Aimee King (Meaghan Rath) and Emily Lotus (Tanya Clarke) were all dramatically intriguing and added texture to the ensemble, though my newbie MVP was Clarke. Matt Servitto's Brock Lotus is a favorite of mine and clearly the writer's room, and even though he's one of the aforementioned "real world" characters, his facility with a one-liner makes me believe he'll survive for a while. Fleshing him out by introducing us to his ex-wife is a thoughtful way of deepening Brock, and her portrayal as a sympathetic, nurturing counselor whose own personal life is dysfunctional as hell is a nice tightrope for an actor to walk. We also got more burrowing into the pasts of mystery men Burton (Matthew Rauch) and Job (Hoon Lee), while chief villain Kai Proctor flirted with absolution upon the death of his mother, Leah Proctor (Jennifer Griffin) in some of my favorite scenes of the year. The action sequences were again on point, from a highway gun supply hijacking to a brutal two-person duel (Burton and Odette Annable's Nola Longshadow) making full, "every part of the buffalo" use of a Rolls-Royce to an all-night siege at the Banshee police station to an innovatively-filmed military base heist to a Hood/Chayton chase through a surreally empty French Quarter ending in one of the more graphic shotgunnings you could ever hope to see just outside Mardi Gras World (Geno Segers was unquestionably great as Chayton, by the way), Banshee never lost sight of the fact that action scenes work best when you care about the consequences of the barrages, bullets, and bone-breaks. And, of course, the two leading actors of this show, Antony Starr and Ivana Milicevic, continue to murder in the roles of Lucas and Carrie, while Ulrich Thomsen serves up one of the most complex bad men on TV.

The first table read for Banshee season three, when 1/3 of these characters were still alive.

If I had to guess, there are going to be two more seasons of Banshee. This production churns story at a rate unlike anything else on television, and at some point most of the characters will be dead or incapacitated, so two more seasons seems about right. I'll be there for every episode, no matter who they kill or how they kill them.  That said, there is a dramatically viable version of Banshee in another dimension which ends with newly appointed Sheriff Siobhan Kelly guarding the town against the machinations of ascendant ex-Amish crimelord Rebecca Bowman (Lili Simmons). I know I'd watch the hell out of that show.

Follow me on Twitter @TheOneWhoKnox

I was in New Orleans the night Hood and Brock went looking for Chayton. All I found was delicious ice cream.

Forgotten Femmes

I watch a lot of TV, which has been more than adequately expressed/bemoaned in this space before. And I am happy to say that more and more great roles are being written for women on the so-called small screen. So much so that, because of the bias towards males in our society or because of the focus on other characters in their shows, there are some great actresses playing fantastic characters on television who are not often written about. As I prepare for the premiere of season three of Banshee tonight, which stars my favorite underserved female character, I wanted to single out a few such actresses who I feel are somewhat unheralded when these shows are discussed.

Melissa McBride as Carol Peletier on The Walking Dead

One could argue that, by virtue of TWD being so popular, no one is overlooked, but I'd disagree. The Walking Dead is certainly an enjoyable show, but it often mistakes character death with story growth. With Rick, Michonne, and breakout sensation Daryl getting most of the screen time and the action bits, it's easy to forget that the character who has gone through the most actual change, and the actress who has most clearly and compassionately communicated that journey, is Melissa McBride. Characters tend to disappear for episodes at a time on The Walking Dead, but when I see McBride I always know at least a portion of that episode is going to be really damn good.

Azure Parsons as Gloriana Embry on Salem

When one discusses Salem, the conversation begins and continues for a good long while with Janet Montgomery. It would be easy to just write a little about Montgomery, because not a lot of people have yet discovered Salem, and she's certainly doing amazing service to a show that's essentially an entertainingly schlocky supernatural melodrama. But one shouldn't ignore the heartfelt and heartbreaking turn by Parsons as a prostitute caught in the middle of an impossible family struggle. Though Gloriana was written out of the show, I believe her return could only help a program still finding its identity in many respects.

Kerry Bishé as Donna Clark on Halt and Catch Fire 

The showy female part on this AMC drama is Mackenzie Davis' Cameron Howe, but the one I came to love is Donna Clark.  On paper, Donna is the most thankless role on the show, the wife to a genius engineer who must keep their household together while he grinds toward something great. The thing is, Donna is just as smart as Gordon and, in her way, just as wildly creative.  Unlike many shows where a female is seen as the harpy preventing the male character from achieving some sort of greatness, Donna is the one clearly in the right of any familial argument. Even a potentially troubling storyline involving a possible affair takes an unexpected zigzag, and the misdirection works because Bishé has succeeded in making Donna so sympathetic and dynamic a character.

Robin McLeavy as Eva Ferguson on Hell on Wheels

Hell on Wheels is a curious case for me. It does some things really well, particularly allowing Anson Mount to play a taciturn Western hero, and has some amazing actors in the cast. But Hell of Wheels also dealt with a serious creative shake-up halfway through its existence, and often runs into the problem of forcing square characters into round scenes on any given week in order to move the story along.  Best case, a strong actor can shine a light on a different facet of the character. Worst case, it's just a mess. Happily, Hell on Wheels has Robin McLeavy, who is the best of the best case.  I don't think any actor on the show has had to sell sharp story turns as often as McLeavy, but she makes Eva grounded, believable, and powerful even in defeat and tragedy. Mount is the star of the show, but McLeavy is the team MVP.

Annet Mahendru as Nina Sergeevna on The Americans

I can't wait for the third season on The Americans, because the first two were so damn good and the potential is there for this to be an all-time great show.  It nails its character melodrama perfectly, and it's period details are both fun and lived-in all at once. Keri Russell is the star and deserves all her due praise, but the conceit of the show means Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings won't be caught in their spy game anytime soon.  So while the show is a thriller, knowing the lead characters won't be discovered undercuts the thrills ever so slightly.  Fortunately we have Nina, a Soviet embassy employee compromised by the FBI . Though she has no interaction with the ostensible lead characters, much of the drama on the show has centered around which side Nina is going to choose and if she'll survive the choice. Mahendru slyly underplays many of her scenes, refusing to telegraph which way Nina is going to swerve, but you always see the gears turning in her head. A lot of shows tread water when the leads are away and the B and C plots take over, but Mahendru makes the show's primary subplot compelling as hell.

Trieste Kelly Dunn as Siobhan Kelly on Banshee

Banshee is such an all-in show filled with such eccentric characters that I feel one of its strongest performers is frequently lost in the shuffle.  With Ivana Milicevic doing amazing work as the clear leading lady of the show and Lili Simmons sexually carpet bombing the town, Dunn's soulful, grounded woman-coming-into-her-own Siobhan Kelly, though certainly kickass and sexy all in her own right, seems overlooked at times.  Which is a damn shame, because she's become the moral center of the show and the beacon of normalcy for not-really-the-sheriff Lucas Hood. I know that with a sprawling cast and so many characters to serve, Siobhan may not get a spotlight every week, but when she's been asked to take it (season one's "The Kindred" and season two's "The Thunder Man"), she owns the screen.  Dunn is a legitimately great actress, and I hope Siobhan is well-represented in season three.

Follow me on Twitter @TheOneWhoKnox