Kookaburla Excerpt

Sugartime's Absinth Club

At a dark soiree in the city I spoke to a sibyl or two on the topic of the dolce vita sub-tropica; a sweet life down under, if you will. And Yea, it was agreed in that frenzied den that the time of the Burlesque was upon us. Not just the burlesque of the dance and the tassel but the carnival of the boheme, the portent of art and life in decadent combination.

It is for the audience to take up this standard and fly it. It is for the crowd to please themselves as much as the troupe to entertain. One of the ripping things about it is, we have to do little more than enjoy ourselves, the slog is done by the dolls who dance, and men who rattle, bellow and glide. Brute clubbers elsewhere spin in circles of bulldust in franchises late into the night but the bespoke besporting wormwood imbibers don’t tire of watching the tireless remove attire in style. Returning to nature in evermore refined dances, from picturesque moment to moment it is created. Sugartime’s Absinth Club tour cannot pass without shiny comment.

Absinth is a cooling louche in the sou-sou pacific. The neon quaff is an anise breeze in the antipodes one that pleased back beyond Gauguin in the southern seas. The raspberry sip on offer at the Gaelic Club that February eve, warm and balmy in the south, was sweet and iced.

Upon entering the venue peepshow belles waved through stereoscope sights, bellhops and babes circulating amongst the throng welcomed and beckoned. The crowd was a mix of novitiates and discerning members. The queue stretched around the block. The venue so hot, I knew it must be right, the crowd seethed. Many a delish dish in the crowd. The temp as it rose melted their glad rags from them. Sleek and glistening bodies writhing for better advantage. The crowd endured heat to taste the treat.

Late, late into the night it began. The children were in bed to be sure.

Oh, for the bright shiny baubles of it all,

People getting nifty with their feet,

People in their receptive best,

Anticipation and colour,

People getting their kit off in dazzling array,

Scrummy fun!

So many eager punters thronging for what Sugartime has, the air fairly dripped with the dank atmosphere of an opium eaters den, a suitable haze for an absinth libation and a true test of the raw gothic darkness at the heart of a burlesque crowd. I turned to my company. My secretary smiled through his specs, his fine woolen suit had him a poor lamb amongst wolves, his lilac collar breached, his lemon socks fluoresced, his boutonnière bloomed

Burlesque is an artistic onslaught of the spontaneous, from the performative op-shop of the sensual upon the senses of the sensible. No stuffiness endured, and yet in the midst of it decorum.

Punters on the edge of their seats, tips of their toes straining to view the acts, talents and scenes worth chaffing at the bit to see, at such proximity. An atmosphere of performance was indeed key to the evening. Indeed. The level of skill on display on the night in question was beyond your typical burlesque event. Sugartime appears to have upped the ante, with a vintage variety show right out of the box. Ritzy routines, projections, a ‘euro’-rock tour band (in the orphan party), swing dancers and hoppers, interpretive gymnasts, beat boxers, barbarous quartets, cameo acts, hulahoopists, fan dancers, and entire visiting troupes of burlesquer showgirls enlisted for the eastern seaboard tour; the backstage & transit management and logistical coordination required for corsets and pasties alone must have required a qualified strapper and full time mobile librarian.

Through clothes offs and dance offs. Music backed up the night, as much rouge as verdigris. Man’s Ruin came up to the front of the stage and enlisted recruits for a full frontal attack. Shock and awe of the palatable kind. Let it be noted, Miss Amelia wood balances her apparatus with skill and agility, dynamic, lusty and impressive. Peddlers of cabaret full of pregnant performative meaning rode in. A spirit soaked skeletal self-immolator setting fire to his cranium enjoyed a cigarette. A talented lady of the jungle taboo dancing a Josephine Baker of a number, replete with python and the burning female chest gyrated and shook. Lola, authentic note of the Belle Epoch, spun her evening dream, catching many in her trawl. Simply the finest exemplar of a troupe of vintage burlesque on tour this season.

Truly a commendable effort was to be found, raising the profile of Burlesque style once more. Slog on the road, glamour on wheels. Swooping on the Spanish club, the Gaelic, the Columbian, a melting pot of ports. Mai tai at the reigns of a Gypsy caravan, Melba to Brisvegas. Russall ‘I-like-mine-moving-and-shaking ‘Beatie, backstage, onstage and front of house, moving and shaking. Kaspia there, behind scenes receiving flowers, hosting her host on high. Offering us pleasant diversions. A pacific dream of tucked away raunch, offered by vintage guns of fine succor. This incarnation of la fee verte sipped en pointe, magic making the green fairy greener still

Just within reach, the potential now floats. The leviathan city breaths and the air is hot from its nostrils still. The behemoth sighs of its comic and corrupted life, written on its face in greasepaint and zinc. Beams ray from its cleavage heat and riddled venue soul, superheated by sugar and wormwood. Twin fires burn and the night is a dark green with emerald envy. The Absinth corp. runs in verdant battles through streets still echoing night songs of the Rum corp. in post-colonial ears. The beauty of its currency lasses and detained Circe’s spelling glamorous parades rise and attend.

We passed out into the air of the night freshened for our turn.

In the morn my secretary muttered languidly in his slumber. I cannot find my lemon socks now. They were knocked quite off.