Welcome to my Circus School / Tour Blog!

Welcome to my circus school / tour blog! (Active from 2007-2010) 

Before there was a pole dance studio in every town, finding quality circus instruction meant going to either San Francisco or Montreal. The first year that the New England Center for Circus Arts began a professional intensive training program for adults, Trixie and Monkey were the first to sign up, having to fully relocate to god-forsaken frozen Vermont for 2 years. This is a journal of all the comings and goings during those years, the grueling physical training during the week in Brattleboro whilst gigging every weekend in NYC, with tours in between. I continued the blog for about a year after leaving Vermont, which covers some fun tours.  It was a crazy time!   HERE is the original. 

JANUARY 2010

PARTY SHOW TOUR!  On our way down to Key West, we did a mini-tour through the south with Clams Casino, Little Brooklyn and Anita Cookie.  Monkey inspired one Atlanta gal to create a fashion statement using bananas.

KEY WEST HOLIDAY EXTRAVAGANZA was amazing.  Read my article about it here: http://www.pinup.me.uk/family-vacation-the-key-west-burlesque-holiday-extravaganza/
The photos say it better than words...

FALL 2009

"WIZARD OF BRAS" at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. Produced by Rita Men Weep.  I was Glinda and Monkey was an evil flying monkey.  Little Brooklyn as The Scarecrow- lost her stuffing to puppet crows!

HALLOWEEN at The Slipper Room. With Dirty Martini, Bambi the Mermaid and Zombie Gal Friday who had to hold onto her body parts so they didn't fall off.

BURLY-CON in Seattle was an educational weekend for burlesque performers to take classes, listen to talks, receive feedback on acts and network. Here is the BOYLESQUE PANEL and a photo of me and the living legend Marinka...who had just taught us a class on walking and on how to fuck stage curtains.







Leland Bobbe is a NYC photographer taking serious portraits of burlesque performers...here are some of our shots:

EXOTIC WORLD, CONEY, NEW ORLEANS

After breaking my camera in Key West during the winter, and losing the habit of shutter-buggery- I am finally back on the blog-horse! I'm going to catch you up quickly and then keep things more up-to-date from now on...here are some photos from the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend in Las Vegas, our Coney Island show and a trip to New Orleans for a Hendrick's Gin party and Bust Out Burlesque show.

BACK IN VERMONT

We're back in the LAND OF ENDLESS SNOW...it's almost spirit-crushing, but we have been working hard in circus school during the day and trudging home to hot cocoa by night. On the up side, my abs are rocking from all the shoveling we've done and my butt is going to look good too after all the times I've had to walk up the long road that leads to The Chalet- it's so steep the truck often can't make it up.

HELLO, 2009!

AN ELEGANT CHRISTMAS

We had an epic 12 hour drive from Vermont through a blizzard to get home to Baltimore for 2 awesome shows at The Patterson. The drive was worth it cause we spent the weekend with Miss Astrid, Dirty Martini, Lukki, and Taro. The day after our shows, we took our Burlesque-Family Holiday Party over to the infamous 2 O'Clock Club that used was where Blaze Starr got her start and eventually owned and operated. Now it's a gem of a strip club- probably hasn't been re-decorated since Blaze retired in the 60's- we smothered our favorite dancers (Elegance, Spice and Movement) with oppressive holiday cheer! Then we went home and listened to records...Monkey and Taro danced to Thriller in their matching outfits.

HOLIDAY MADNESS BEGINS!

I was THRILLED to be doing holiday numbers this year. Friday we were at Slipper Room and Saturday we performed a new Elf-Trapeze act at Murray Hill's HUGE holiday show at The Zipper! An online review of the show said this about us: "But perhaps the most memorable performance was the dirty, gravity-defying trapeze dance between Trixie Little & The Evil Hate Monkey, which was so weird as to defy description." Perfect.

BURLESQUE IN BRATTLEBORO

I taught a really fun Burlesque Bootcamp class at Luminz Studio up here in Vermont this fall. We had two packed nights for our recital show- it was CRAZY fun because everyone in town kinda went nuts over all of the acts! In addition to helping them all create new solo acts, we performed a very "Vermonty" group number and stripped off our sweaters and mittens! The act that practically stole the show, though, was by our stage manager and sound tech- named "Twink & Berries." They are in the circus program we did last year and they rocked it.

THANKSGIVING AT THE CHALET

SAN FRANCISCO

I GOT A NEW CAMERA! The blog is back in action. This past weekend, we left Vermont on Wednesday night, flew to San Francisco Thursday, had a gig Friday, flew back to NYC for a gig Saturday and made it back to Vermont by Sunday...welcome to show business. The SF gig was amazing- the gorgeous Catherine D'Lish was there with the adorable Kitten on the Keys! Monkey helped Catherine by scaling the wall to bring her her sponge...that was after he sexily applied glitter to his nipples.

SEPTEMBER GIGS IN NYC

We're back to training like dogs at circus school in Vermont during the week and drinking like fish and stripping like steaks in New York City on the weekends. There's not much to show of our circus training yet since we're still just getting back in the groove and trying to pick up where we left off last May.

Here some lovely moments from our NYC gigs this month: Yeo backstage at The Box. Nasty Canasta & Darlinda Just Darlinda show support at Tigger's Man-A-Tease Show. Dirty Martini & Violet Eva at the New York Burlesque Festival. Dr. Lucky with Melody Sweets and her "assistant". Tiggo The Clown at Pinchbottom's "Pretencion" show. Me and Murasaki Babydoll. A 9/11 light memorial. Our little friend, Nick, inside of a box at The Box.

SUMMER 2008- PART THREE

At the end of August, I squeezed in two photo shoots while we were home in Baltimore with my favorite photographers and my dear friend and stylist, Nikki Verdecchia: First was a shoot with Mike Lee: http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiouslee/ We shot these in his backyard while drinking wine and laughing at his adorable daughter who was being a ham in the background.
About a week later, Nikki teased my hair into oblivion for a BRIDE OF MONKEYSTEIN shoot with Steve Parke: http://flickr.com/photos/imagecarnival/ Steve is a whiz with Photo Shop, so included the "before" shot as well.

SUMMER 2008- PART TWO

More from the Rothbury Music Festival...Here is me, Monkey, Lucky, Scotty, Una, Stephanie Monseau, Sxip Shirey and Gravity Plays Favorites!

We performed in the same tent as the BEST marching band ever- Pazzo Luna- from Chicago.

Monkey and I spent the entire month of July gigging in NYC at The Box, Corio and more. We would ride our matching pink pom-pom bikes over the Brooklyn Bridge at the wee wee hours...this is the last Saturday of the month...after 4 weeks of 10 shows per week...with the sun coming up.

We did the 3rd Virgin Mobile Music Festival in Baltimore at the beginning of August. Una Mimnaugh of Circus Una invited us to perform in her MOTOR CYCLE THRILL SHOW! Totally amazing, Evil Knievel antics with a motorcycle on a 40' tight wire with two gorgeous trapeze gals beneath- all set against the backdrop of a blue sky at Pimlico Race Track!


The Mermaid and Neptune were there too.

We had 3 amazing weeks at home in Baltimore after such a busy summer. Bill Stevenson finished out our trip at the Baltimore Tattoo Museum with a design we've been talking about for over a year- it's a tribute to our dearly departed house rabbit, Mahatma Bun Bun.

SUMMER 2008- PART ONE

Man, we've been too busy to even update the blog! But here it is in a nutshell...from the Miss Exotic World Competition in Las Vegas (I won 2nd Runner Up & Most Innovative), to our appearance on Comedy Central's "Gong Show with Dave Attel", to the Rothbury Music Festival in Michigan...




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JOLLY OLD ENGLAND- WEEK 4

This week...a lovely visit to the Blackberry Wood campground in the glorious English countryside ( www.blackberrywood.com ), High Tea (really champagne) with burlesque legend Immodesty Blaize, and shots from gigs we had with DJ Margaret the Gimp and at the rowdiest gypsy party we've ever seen!

JOLLY OLD ENGLAND- WEEK 3

Here is the beer tent at the Udderbelly, shots of a pavillion and the decaying West Pier at the beach and a shot of us playing chase near the Arundel Castle.

JOLLY OLD ENGLAND- WEEK 2

The first week was mostly spent promoting the show- it finally got up and running only to receive a bad review from the local paper. They called Monkey "hideous" which he took as a compliment and delivered bananas in his thong to the reporter! We had bruised feelings for a few days but then realized that everyone hates the paper that wrote it and took the review favorably! By the of the run every show was sold out! The Wau Wau sisters were here for 2 days doing the festival and we got to catch up with them too.

In England a Pasty is actually a type of pot pie thing. So, "pasties" are actually called "nipple tassels."

JOLLY OLD ENGLAND- WEEK 1

We're off to England for a month to perform in the British debut of the NYC cabaret show Le Scandal at the Brighton Fringe Festival. The trip got off to a THRILLING start when we were seated on the plane next to the female-to-male tranny porn star- Buck Angel! We know Buck from The Box as "the man with a pussy"- and he enthralled me all night long with stories about the porn world! He even invited us to stay with him and his wife in Mexico!

Brighton is a really cool sea-side town along the English Channel- it's known as being the "Little London" and kind of classy and gay. Le Scandal is doing 14 shows in this upside down purple cow tent called the Udderbelly.

Our producer/host (Fiona) put us in an AMAZING flat and it's awesome! It has a balcony, a big comfy rug, flocked wallpaper, fancy old shudders and you can see the sea from the window! It's a part of Brighton called by the locals "Hove, actually" because it's fancy. Across the street all week this famous boxer who just went through a messy divorce after his reality show bombed stayed in the Landsdowne Hotel. He drove a BIG RIG around. We couldn't help but take photos with it one night.

CIRCUS SCHOOL- THE END....FOR NOW

Monkey and I had to leave our Pro-Track peeps in Vermont two and a half weeks early to do the Brighton Fringe Festival. It was bittersweet leaving early- we were happy to get the work but were sad to not be able to perform alongside all the bad-ass circus friends we trained with for nine long months! Monkey and I are definitely coming back in the fall to train more though- so it's not exactly good bye!