The Cost of Burlesque

Good morning, world!


In the past several days on my facebook, which unsurprisingly has a very specific mix of naked people and nerdy people, I've been seeing many cosplayers post "cost breakdowns" of the costumes they make. This is a reaction to silly trolls on the internet saying that they only do it for attention, and them trying to show how much love and effort goes into every costume.

Well... they put a lot of money into it, and to be honest, that makes me think more that they do it for attention. Don't get me wrong- this is not what this blogpost is about- and to be completely honest, I see nothing wrong with putting tons of time and effort and love into a hobby (which sadly can't often translate into a career) and then being pissed off when people don't recognize how fucking hard they've worked. Holy hell would I be angry if I made a giant suit of armor with wings and horns and walked around and no one took my picture. Anyway.

This comes at a time when the burlesque community is (once again) bitching at itself about pay rates, which haven't changed in ten years, and which often don't change (nearly enough, anyway) when you improve, or put effort in. True, when I first started I accepted 20 and 30 dollar gigs and now I don't do anything under 50 per show even for people I like. Most of the time, I don't accept those, either, unless I really love the producers AND know they'll let me get away with experimentation and fuckery (aka, they will let me practice my craft on stage- a very valuable resource for sure.)

As a burlesque performer, the more effort I put into a costume, the more attention I want it to get, directly translated into dollar signs. When I posted about potentially doing a costume cost breakdown, one performer (with responses in agreement) said that sometimes she would just pull stuff from her closet for one off acts, to offset the fact that she was unable to make much if any profit from that act.

I get that when you're first starting out, but we are being paid money to be on a stage in front of people and give them an experience- it shouldn't be an experience they can have anytime in their own living room with the $25 Hulk costume they got at K Mart. I watch burlesque performers scoff at regular joes on Halloween who don't "put any effort in" and shell out for store-bought clothes; to then turn around and justify performing out of your closet is just lacking self awareness**. Those people are dressing up for funsies- we are dressing up for money. We should be putting more effort into it. We should be ABLE to put more effort into it.

SO, with that prologue I give you the costume cost for my "Classic Metal" act. This is the costume cost alone- it doesn't reflect act creation and rehearsal time which is just as if not more important for a burlesque number. I've decided it's dumb to include costs of stuff like makeup and travel, which I would have to pay for anyway and which I use multiple times (even my eyelashes, which I wear a billion times each even though it's probably totally unhygenic). I also didn't include the cost of sewing tools because, as a regular costumer, I would have that shit anyway. Rest assured that I have more tools and makeup than if it were Not My Job, by at least if not more than $1000, but it is my job, and it's not imperative to this cost breakdown.

I DID include labor because many performers do not make their own costumes and either order custom or embellish off of readymade bases, and since I make custom work, I think it's relevant to show how much my time is worth- how much I charge other people for it when I do custom costuming. I chose this costume because it is a typically burlesque piece, that many other performers can relate to. My labor quote is less than it normally would be because I did not have to make the dress from scratch (it was a gift).

Are you ready for this?

Photos by Tom Casey

Not pictured is my ostrich feather fascinator which I use to hold my hair up, and my extraordinarily tiny yet ridiculously sparkly underthings (my barely-there thong and tassels pasties).

I spent a total of $409 on materials for this costume, even despite the free dress, with 20 hours of labor, making this a costume I would charge another person $909 to make for them. My labor charge is also less than many other costumers in the area by the way, if you were wondering.

Thank fuck I didn't need an ostrich boa or feather fans for this number, which cost a minimum of $100 for low-quality China-made stuff, but really cost $200-$300 if you want something that doesn't look like shit.

I'm pretty skilled at buying stuff cheap (three yards of that gradient charmeuse for $40 was a deal) and this is probably one of the cheaper costumes I've made, materials wise. So let's break this down:

At $50 a show, I need to perform this act, specifically, 9 times to make up for material cost alone. Including labor, I would have to perform it 19 times.

I perform 12-18 shows in average every month, which is more than most performers but about average for professional performers in NYC. Now, ask me how many I would be performing if I just did this same one act over and over again...

For NYC, you really need a minimum of four acts in rotation, especially since many shows require two acts, and every show has a different need and niche. I have close to thirty acts, and the majority of them use costumes which cost equal to or double this in materials and time.

Let's say I just have four though, and that they all cost $400 and 20hrs to make, for ease of Math-ing. That means I spent $1600 on my costume and 80 hours, or $2000 in time. That means, at $50 an act, I need to perform 32 times to cover materials costs alone  and another 40 times  before I can make a profit on having four costumes.

With how much I perform currently, that means I wouldn't start making a profit until six months in. Of course, having only four costumes also would probably mean I couldn't perform in half the shows I do (theme shows would be right out). So, let's say I perform 8 times a month- that's still really respectable, every friday and saturday perhaps- it would take me 9 months before I could turn a profit. And after that, my profit for the year- 8 shows per month for three months at $50 each- is $720.

Did you read that? $720. That's your annual profit, if you only have four costumes, and if you perform at least 8 times a month.

I recognize that it's hard to just turn the status quo on its head, but instead of just saying "I can't, we can't" and being scared, its time for us to say "I can, I can," revalue ourselves, and push for more. All of us, together, can do it. Movie tickets cost $20 with snacks that cost $15 minimum. Drinks in NYC cost $14 each. Burlesque provides venues with a valuable audience, an audience that drinks without causing chaos and destruction. They need us. We can charge more, from our venues, for our tickets. The audience is there.

Let's push for a living wage.


Cheers,

Dangrrr

**Edit: When I'm talking about people pulling stuff from their closets, I don't mean reusing expensive stagewear like fans, dance shoes, fringe sets, etc. I'm talking about them using "that cute panty set I got from target for dates" or "this pompom hat that I wear every day in the wintertime," aka regular non-costume clothing. As professional performers, it's true that many of us have really epic closets!

Virginity

Everyone knows that I'm a pervy lady now, but as a kid I was a total prude. It was no fault of my mother, who was pro (safe) sexual experimentation and tried in vain to teach me that sex was healthy and fun. During our first sex talk she told me, "Honey, boys are going to do some things for you and they'll feel really nice, and you'll do things for them in return- it's only fair..." I mean, that's some fantastic and wonderfully open minded advice for a teenager in retrospect, but I remember yelling over her, disgusted, that I didn't want to talk about it. A unique experience to say the least.

I think it mostly had to do with the fact that sex was a thing you did with "friends", and I did not have friends, so I equated it with people I did not enjoy or respect; and therefore it appeared unenjoyable and disrespectful. Terrible teenaged logic, but it's how I felt.

None the less, organically I'm an extremely sexual girl and before I discovered sex, I had spontaneous orgasms probably once every week or so, maybe more. I imagine it was just like what boys experience when they're going through puberty with preteen erections and wet dreams and such; awkward and confusing and unavoidable and exciting and shameful... And delightful. Still, I never even touched myself.

People in my school bullied me constantly about being ugly and uncool, and so I figured sex was not a thing I would ever have to worry about, anyway. Instead I spent most of my time worrying about online chat roleplay games, dragons (I fuckin loved dragons), and the video games I played nonstop in my basement everyday after school.

When I became a sophomore in high school I somehow managed to score a boyfriend- a really hot boyfriend, too. He was three years older than me and was new to our high school- a second year senior after being kicked out of military school. He didn't have the preconceived dislike of me that the rest of my school had and so was able to see that, in fact, I was neither ugly nor gross (and my uncoolness was apparently very cool to him.) 

He told me he decided to ask me out after he saw a girl dump water on me, and watched me respond by chasing her down with a stick.

He had an eyebrow piercing and a car. As a teenager these things are basically like gold. He had pitch black hair, thin eyes and big juicy lips. He was very dark skinned naturally and even darker in the summer- watching him take off his watchband was a delightful lesson in tanlines, not a thing I had ever personally experienced, being so pale myself that my skin is practically translucent. He was- is- the only Jewish guy I've ever dated, much to my mother's chagrin. Oh well. Let's call him Ben. His name obviously was not Ben.

My mom and Ben got along famously, and when we started dating she turned to me and said "he'll be a great fuckbuddy until you go to college." She was right, of course, but it was still very embarrassing.

Ben was a perfect first boyfriend. He loved video games and swords and fantasy just as much as I did. He did not balk at my monstrous stuffed animal collection and he loved that I loved metal (even though he was more of a jam band guy.) He was understanding of my initial aversion to sex and walked through the bases with me slowly and respectfully. He started giving me head months before I felt comfortable with the idea of putting a dick in my mouth and never made me feel shitty about it or complained about unfairness. 

His penis was a perfectly average size with a slight upwards curve. The bottom half of his shaft was the same color as the rest of him but the top half looked like it had been frankensteined on from a black person. He let me draw faces on it, and do this thing when it was flaccid where I would turn it inside out inside his body, cover it with his balls, and then release it and watch it slowly pop out again like a car coming out of a garage. This is apparently a very easy way to entertain a fifteen year old girl, in case you were looking for one (don't do that, by the way, unless you also happen to be a teenaged person.) After his cock and I had finally gotten acquainted, I could not keep my hands off of it.

The first time I ever touched his dick- my first of many future dicks- there was actually another girl in the room. She was trying to initiate a threesome but, I mean, she was clearly barking up the wrong forest. We were all in bed watching tv together. She started snoring, so we gave each other a look... He pulled his dick out from his pants zipper under the covers- I'd never even seen it before, and I didn't look then. I nodded consent at him, and he pulled my hand towards it. Trembling, I took it between my thumb and forefinger in the kind of way you might hold a plastic baggie containing a dead mouse; with both fear and unfathomable gingerness, as though it would break under the slightest pressure. I couldn't breath. It was so weird!

The other girl woke up and got up to go to the bathroom, and as soon as she was out of earshot he gave me an amused smile and said "look, you're not gonna hurt it." I exhaled, wrapped my hand around its flesh and fell in love.

That June he was kicked out of his parent's house and lived in my basement. We spent every waking moment together. He was leaving the state for college in the fall- I thought for sure that would be the end of it. I fell stupidly in love and so did he.

By the time my birthday rolled around in late August, I knew I wanted to lose my virginity to him. I meditated on it the whole week beforehand, getting my courage up to tell him to make love to me. 

My birthday was less than a month before Ben had to leave for school. I was ready, and had a smile on my face all day in expectation. At dinnertime, my parents took us and my family out for birthday tacos, buy right after we placed our order I started to feel like death.

Dinner was a blur- I could not force myself to eat even a single bite of my food. My father screamed at me in the restaurant, claiming I was being a spoiled brat for some reason or another. My eyes welled up with tears as I swore I wasn't trying to be a problem, I just couldn't physicallh eat.

We returned home to find I had a fever of 102 degrees. I cursed my father out and ran to the basement with Ben behind me. He held me and calmed me down, and even though I felt sick we began to kiss. Heart pounding, I sucked his cock until he was hard, then mounted him and started rubbing my pussy on his erection.

"Stop," he breathed. "We have to stop right now or I won't be able to stop."

"So let's not stop."

"I...really? Are you sure?"

I pulled out a condom I had hid among the basement couch cushions and handed it to him. He slid it on, and then...

We just couldn't get him inside of me. The pain was monumental. My body being already weak from the fever, I couldn't hide the shock and gasped for air.

He stood up with haste, looking like a man who'd just accidentally shot someone. "It's okay," he said. "We don't have to do this now."

My mom called us to the kitchen eventually- my dad apologized and I opened presents, mechanically, completely uninterested. I watched other people eat cake. I frowned and said I wanted to go lay down. 

Ben and I went upstairs to my parents bedroom to watch tv and snuggle. I was not put off by our earlier failure- I pushed, and I played, and eventually..

"Stop," he breathed, "we have to stop right now or else..."

"I don't want to stop. All I want for my stupid birthday is to have sex with you before you have to leave me."

When he climbed on top of me again I wrapped my whole body around him and pulled him hard, against our uncertainty, deep inside of me.

The pain burst like an explosion and shattered into waves of pleasure unlike anything I'd ever felt, or would ever feel again.

Despite the massive pain I didn't bleed even a little bit, and as soon as it was (unsurprisingly quickly) over we threw our clothes back on and held each other close underneath my parents' comforter- sorry, mom.

The next day I told my mother (mostly- I didn't say it happened in her bed.) She said mazel tov and took me to CVS where she bought me the biggest box of condoms on earth, glaring in defiance at the cashier as she told me, "you should never feel guilty about making sure you're safe. There's nothing shameful about buying condoms." Two weeks later she would take me to her OB/GYN and hold my hand through my first exam, signing me up for a prescription for birth control pills.

After that, Ben and I had sex three or four times a day until he left. We experimented with almost everything kids can think of- roleplay, crazy positions. We did bondage using satin ribbons. I had a riding crop left over from horse riding lessons. We used to fuck constantly while fighting against each other in Super Smash Bros. I never let him touch my butt, though. (True facts: the first sex I had with my next longterm boyfriend, which was several years later, was anal sex. In the woods. In a tree. No lube. Really.)

I thought our relationship was going to end when Ben left for school, but it stupidly didn't. He wanted to try being long distance. He didn't want to break up. I was too naive to disagree.

Ben got kicked out of college after his first semester. At that point, it became obvious that we were not meant for each other, though it took longer for us to acknowledge it. His parents bought a townhouse for him to live in and he sat around there doing nothing except getting high. He became friends with people who made me feel unsafe. He started making me feel bad about my weight (a hefty 118 lbs) and my intelligence (a defensive measure since I'd earned him his only college A by writing one of his papers.) A year later, he started refusing sex and we mutually agreed to break up. 

True story- he met another girl two weeks after our split in one of his community college courses, and started dating her immediately. That was ten years ago! They got married, and very recently just had a baby. I'm happy for him; I'll always remember him fondly for being so patient and caring with me when I needed it. 

Xo

Inspirations 2013

So! I wrote about my year in review, but I'd also like to shout out some of my top inspirations from this past year. I'm not doing a "top 10" format or anything like that because, well, I just don't feel like numbering right now.

Ray Gunn's Jabberywocky Act

Photo by Starry D'Light

As a person who does abstractions on nerdy themes in burlesque aaaaand, to be honest here, sometimes has a problem with the too-narrow scope of most nerdlesque acts currently, AND as a total literary dork, this performance appealed to me on so many levels. The Jabberwocky, a totally nonsense poem that illustrates Alice's descent into dreamland and madness is one of those literature things that 75% of all the nerds you've ever met had memorized at some point, and probably used as an audition monologue (which they will probably never admit to, but I swear it's true.)

I saw Ray do this at Colorado and immediately fell in love with it. Here is an act that so clearly illustrated the poem, and yet also was extremely accessible to audience members who had no idea what he was representing. Thoughtful and gorgeous. I know people get all gaga about Ray's bod but he has a fucking sexy brain and that is the best thing a person can have. This is what nerdlesque should be- brilliant, powerful, and inclusive.

Nasty Canasta's Everything

Best ever. Photo by King Morgan

Nasty was one of the first people I saw perform when I came to New York a few years ago, at a Wasabassco show I went to on a sort-of-not-really date, at which I got black out drunk and woke up the next morning in the spare room of hottie Hazel Honeysuckle & her husband, with a stolen bowler hat. Mr. Hazelton had left a gatorade by the side of the bed for me to wake up to- clearly, these are the best people in the world.

Anyway, tangent- I don't remember many of the other performers from that night but Nasty did her Unknown Stripper act, and I remember thinking "holy shit, I suck and this is INCREDIBLE." I was correct on both scores; it made me want to be better. 

Anyway I've gotten to do multiple 8+ hour roadtrips, many shows, and lots of brunch with Nasty since then and she still remains one of my favorite performers (and has become one of my favorite people) of all time. It feels like she creates numbers by penetrating convention with a giant middle finger, as though she is saying "fuck you burlesque, you're not the boss of me! And you're GONNA ENJOY IT!" Oh, I definitely enjoy it. 

  

Gina Louise: Calmest Producer Ever

Photo by Emma Freeman

I did a billion festivals this past year (read: eleven) and the best one by far was also one of the first: Minneapolis Burlesque Festival. Gina Louise, with Ophelia Flame and her team of fabulous festival coordinators put together a festival that really lived up to the "Hey! Community Rocks! We love community!" vibe that most festivals try, or pretend, to have. They coordinated free housing, free food and booze, free viewing of the shows, free afterparties; they produced a fabulous lineup, had an organized and tightly run backstage and show, AND Gina was on top of helping us all personally with our millions of likely-repetitive questions. I appreciate that there were many people involved in the organization of this festival, but Gina really shined; smiling, calm, and alert, she did that festival right. 

AND THEN, in the middle of it all, her entire costume went missing two hours before she was supposed to perform. She laughed it off, borrowed costume pieces from other people backstage, went on and did a really fucking good job. Totally impressed; and incredibly sad that there is no Minneapolis Burlesque Fest this year.

Imogen Kelly's White Dress Number

Simple, poignant, whimsical, gorgeous. Pretty straightforwardly incredible.

Doc Wasabassco's Producing Wizardry

I'm not going to lie, I chose this photo cause it says ASS, and I really like ass. Photo by Mo Pitz

When people ask me what performing in NYC is like, and "are you in a troupe" and stuff, I giggle a little bit and tell them that NYC is a mercenary place of individual performers, and that troupes don't really work here the same way. And then I tell them that Wasabassco is the exception, a quasi-troupe that operates outside of the rest of NYC burlesque.

Drawing from a regular pool of performers, Doc puts together very carefully curated shows in all manner of venues. Each performer brings something unique to the show, and they've been diving more into scripted productions (written by previously-noted-brilliant-lady Nasty Canasta) which I find extremely exciting; he's very smart about his branding, and the loyalty of Wasabassco audiences is almost terrifying. It's like drinking the koolaid, except instead of poisonous red sugar water it's perfect derrieres and boobs and I AM INTO IT. I've had the pleasure of performing with Wasabassco a few times this year and I can say with certainty that they have one of my favorite backstage vibes. The performers aren't just great onstage, they're fun as hell offstage, which makes a huge difference; plus, Doc makes sure his performers are safe and well-paid which, although it should go without saying, it rarely does.

Like I said in my last post, Doc's producing class this year really inspired Stella and my direction with RAWR. Stella is very branding-oriented and I am very critical of burlesque in general (if I am being unoffensive towards myself here) and so Doc's producing style really appeals to us. He had wonderful advice generated by years of success and the occasional failure, and more than that, he offered his class *for free* which is a really lovely service. I hope we've done him proud. 

Paco Fish's Journey

Photo by Sarah Kimble

I always love watching Paco perform. He's consistently entertaining and many, many of his acts put the hugest shit-eating grin on my face. 

I've been hit hard by wanderlust this year, having been sapped of my energy for NYC, and so I've watched Paco's cross country tour with interest and excitement. It takes a high level of self awareness and drive to realize you need to completely switch the direction of your life, ask for help, and then DO IT; I love that and I love him. Follow his blog here: http://burlesquevanguard.com/

Albert Cadabra, Evelyn Vinyl, Nina La Voix, St Stella, Trixie Little, and everyone else I've watched workout in person or on social media

You all and your goddamn muscles and yoga. I've been lucky to slide by on natural metabolism thus far, but working out would make me a better dancer and offset the eventual effects of all these cheeseburgers I eat. Watching all these fit showgirls and showboys has made me want to step up my efforts in fitness, dance, and flexibility. And next time I get the chance for naked pull ups with friends and peers, I want to *actually be able to do one*. You guys, seriously.

These are not *all* the people who inspired me this year, nor all the people who taught me something; but they are the people who stick out so strongly in my mind that I don't even have to think about it to write it down on the page. Watching them, their careers and their strengths has motivated me to keep trying harder in my own life and career.