Considering Quentin Tarantino’s affinity for powerful female characters, it’s fitting that the vivacious ladies of Vancouver’s burlesque scene would shake their tassels in a salute to the genre-bending director. In burlesque, confidence is everything. A great backdrop story also helps, and Tarantino’s imagination offers the perfect sharp-shooting and sword-wielding femme fatales to emulate.
If you couple this with a bit of cinematic history, a Tarantino-inspired burlesque show was inevitable. A grindhouse is a (mainly defunct) theatre that showcases the B movies and exploitation films that Quentin is so fond of echoing. Due to their graphic nature, grindhouses were named after the burlesque theatres in New York City where stripteases and bump ‘n grind dances were performed.
Following on the heels of Beatles Burlesque and Dirty Dancing Burlesque, Tarantino Burlesque featured some of Vancouver’s best known burlesque dancers, backed by the Blue Morris Band: Voodoo Pixie, Little Miss Risk, Sparkle Plenty, Mama Fortuna and Ariel Helvetica.
It’s Friday night and the lineup for the show stretches far past the front doors of Fanclub on Granville Street. Show-goers huddle under umbrellas, but some may be disappointed — the venue is already packed and the show is scheduled to start in two minutes. Every seat is full, bodies line the staircase and faces peak over the wrought-iron balcony.
They pull off Voodoo Pixie’s shirt, and the first of the nipple tassels are exposed.
A few fans wear Tarantino-inspired costumes and red wine is ubiquitous. The Blue Morris Band steps out, beginning the show with one of the most quintessential tracks — really, it couldn’t have started any other way — the opening number from Pulp Fiction, “Miserlou.” The crowd cheers in anticipation.
First up is Voodoo Pixie, the choreographer of the show, but the other dancers quickly hit the stage, expressing a Tarantino-like penchant for violence; they pull off Voodoo Pixie’s shirt, and the first of the nipple tassels are exposed.
More show-goers are let in, and the place is filling to the brim as Little Miss Risk takes the stage. Sauntering around as Jackie Brown, Little Miss Risk is skilled as a dancer, but strangely has a distressed look throughout her performance. One act quickly melds into the next, rotating between the dancers and the band performing solo. The band is fronted by Red Heartbreaker, and her soulful crooning definitely begins to steal the show.
Perhaps fuelled by the ever-flowing red wine, the crowd begins to bump ‘n grind amongst themselves as Mama Fortuna takes the stage as the highly anticipated Mia Wallace. “You Never Can Tell” plays as she dances to her moderately-nude version of the Jack Rabbit Slims Twist Contest.
Red Heartbreaker, slowly losing clothes herself, sings a fantastic rendition of “Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon.” One excited fan, obviously lost in a Tarantino reverie, runs to the stage and begins to dance as close to the spotlight as possible.
Tarantino Burlesque finishes strongly with Voodoo Pixie showing the crowd that one doesn’t need to be a vibrant vixen to be sexy. Instead, Voodoo Pixie plays Marvin Nash from Reservoir Dogs, and dances to “Stuck in the Middle With You” before throwing a cut-off ear into the crowd.
With killer tunes and a powerful performance from the Blue Morris Band, Tarantino Burlesque was a huge success. The crowd was pleased, the place was packed and every performer sauntered with overwhelming confidence. With this amount of popularity, these performers may have to start looking for a bigger venue.
Or perhaps a grindhouse of their very own.
