The global smash hit, legendary burlesque-eats-its young salon that has set critics raving and 60,000 audience members around the world in raptures comes home at last, with a 9 week love letter to its home town; The Burlesque Hour LOVES Melbourne. Melbourne icons unzipped, unveiled and unleashed!
Moira Finucane – the woman who the French call ‘exquisitely sumptuously demented’ and the legendary house of Finucane & Smith have concocted a red hot cocktail of new acts and new artists. This season features a different Melbourne icon every week!
Rhonda Burchmore the leggiest dame in showbiz; Meow Meow direct from the West End, she purrs, she roars; Constantina Bush & The Bushettes from land rights to lamè with the deadliest moves in showbiz! If that wasn’t enough star power for you we have the Burlesque Hour Divas: Ethiopian Circus Queen Sosina Wogayehu; elegant iconoclast Maude Davey; and Dance floor Divas Holly Durant & Harriet Ritchie direct from Paris!
Meow Meow: 21 – 31 July 2011
Constantina Bush & the Bushettes: 4 – 7 Aug 2011
with special guests Vika & Linda (5 & 6 Aug) and Pamela Rabe ( 7 Aug)
Rhonda Burchmore: 11 – 14 August 2011
Pamela Rabe then fronted in a full-length, figure-hugging, black leather gown, about the only garment that would’ve sufficed for her erotic address to the nation, a tract cleverly adapted by F & S from Wedekind’s Spring Awakening and an ancient Sumerian poem, circa 1200, in Who Will Plough My Vulva. It’s hard to imagine anyone doing it more justice than Rabe, who makes it a dramatic anthem to feminine empowerment, dressed-up and disguised as a terrific tease. With characteristically creepy, gothic music composed by Darrin Verhagen (Shinjuku Thief), it was a dark delight. Rabe becomes Inanna, queen of heaven and earth, when she implores: “Who will plough my vulva; who will plough my high field; who will plough my wet ground; who will station the ox there?” – blog.crikey.com.au
Photo by Paul Dunn
Finucane’s Burlesque Hour has survived longer than most in an increasingly competitive Australian market. The candle-lit, Weimar-inspired extravaganza evolved in Melbourne eight years ago and has since grabbed more than 20 awards on the international festival circuit. Finucane and her troupe of special guests – including cabaret superstar Meow Meow, award-winning stage actress Pamela Rabe and Tivoli veteran Toni Lamond – delight in the original meaning of the word ”burlesque”.
”In the 1600s, it meant a mockery, a grotesquery, an exaggeration and a parody,” Finucane says. ”For me, burlesque is a sensibility that is risque, razor-sharp and has a humorous wink.”
In the new ”Glory Box Edition” of the show, Rabe will hark back to the German cabaret tradition with an erotic monologue to open the show. ”She will be stalking the stage in a black leather dress, wearing Vivienne Westwood high heels, reciting a piece called Who Will Plough My Vulva?” Finucane says.
Source: smh.com.au
Another guest star, Pamela Rabe, slinked in a sheath like some haute couture condom delighted the audience with a vulgar verbal about her vulva. Talk about vagina monologues!
