Multiple Exposures: The Red Mill Review is a Raunchy, Sexy, Eclectic Good Time
Not like your grandpa’s burlesque reels in the attic. These performers are live in your home.
By Ricky and Dana Young-Howze
Just about a month or two ago we were casting a wide net trying to get more geeks and circus freaks in our lives. We already had a surplus of Shakespeareans and a cornucopia of clowns but we didn’t have any juggling, stripping, glittery gymnastic glamorous performers. I’m proud to announce that we have some for you tonight (or morning I forget how Aussie time works) with the Red Mill Review! The minute I saw them in the list of shows I locked in on them. We were definitely not let down as we stayed up until 4 AM to watch them.
Lady Eleanora one has this look that can freeze you right up and this confidence that will make you accept whatever she’s doing onstage. She’s also a lady and you get this idea that she commands respect. Your burlesque persona is very much like wrestling or even commedia, it becomes a second skin that you wear onstage and with these kinds of performers that skin sits right next to your birthday suit. She really set the pace for the night.
Now contortion and gymnastics is something that I do know a tiny bit about. It’s all about muscle isolation and keeping your center of mass in a perfect line with the bar. That doesn’t explain anything about the artistry of it and Ejika Handsome exhibits that by making it look effortless. Ejika has a bit of a drop off in energy near the end but I would have been too focused on not dying if it were me so who am I to talk?
Vivian Fonteyn… well first let me get this out of the way… is YUMMY!!!! I’ve never seen a more beautiful performer in all my life. Fonteyn has no right being that talented, that handsome, or that wrong! I mean it’s like if Toulouse Lautrec painted a Pride banner. A remarkable voice that just fixates you and style to match. I’ll take one in every size.
Minnie Mayhem is the reason why I’m going to walk out of a burlesque show saying “I saw tassels in places I never thought of before” and no one will believe I meant her shoulder. That is fine muscle control and a half. Dana took one look at her and said “Lord knows my a$$ ain’t doing that.
Jagaraj is someone you really just have to experience to know exactly what I’m talking about. A brilliant host but also a very talented performer. I’m floored by his strange artistic appeal but I’m staying floored because of his version of “Screw Loose” that I can’t. get. out. of. my. head!
Anna Phalaxis first of all wins for the coolest name in burlesque ever. Second of all she wins because of her connection to the camera and doing what we call “break the fifth wall” Thirdly she proves that sometimes you just have to cover yourself in fairy lights and take your clothes off. This performance had just as much Power that we’ve seen in modern dance and elsewhere. Great job!
Pat Pending proves what I’ve said before and that is juggling is the perfect drama. It’s not man vs man or man vs self it’s man versus gravity. The artistry involved is really how effortless you make difficult things look and how very difficult and dangerous you make easy things look. He does both really well.
Abbie Normal was nothing of the sort. She had a great use of eyes throughout and a certain ability to half creep you out and half keep you watching. She did a hundred percent entertain us! Also give her a big hand for her burlesque premiere!
Lana Lunacy proves that curvy girls win the day. Great stage presence and has all tge grace and lines of some of the greatest dancers we’ve had on the site. Really a performer that brings us into the classic and the contemporary and I’m now a big fan!
Burlesque gets a reputation for being raunchy and dirty and nothing but a bunch of strippers (I could go all day about how strippers deserve way more respect as artists but that’s hopefully another day). It really is this confident crazy that pulls back the curtain on what you really want to see, twists what you think is weird or wrong about the world. Moreover it takes all the weird and says “here I am world and remember if you don’t like it you paid to see it”. I’m so glad that they’re taking this art out of grandad's attic and into the digital theatre world. You have two big queer fans in the states!
I’m going to link straight to their link tree so that you can see where to find all of the performers.In case some of you didn’t get the hint that this was a burlesque show some of them are a bit nude on their own Instagrams (I know perish the thought right!) You can find them all here.
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