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Bump
and Grind, Southern Style:
New Orleans' Shim Shamettes
by Alison Fensterstock
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| Photo
© Jorge Bastille |
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Excess.
That was the zeitgeist of the 1950s in America. From the voluptuous,
bubbly shape of cars to Vegas as the vacation hotspot to pinups like Monroe and Mansfield, the U.S. of A. was busting out all
over. And nothing captured the mood better than the surging popularity
of the entertainment industry's most flamboyant, ostentatious
and fabulously over-the-top niche: burlesque.
Burlesque was a genre unlike any other; its stars were queens
of sexy excess, featured alongside Hollywood's most glamorous
starlets in movies and "photography" magazines.
Their
dancing was backed by the top names in jazz and the nightclubs
where they performed were palaces of theatrical splendor, frequented
by business moguls, politicians and film stars. And now? Now,
it would seem, the heirs to the tradition are a travesty: bored,
assembly-line beauties shaking their silicone for straight cash
in joints near the airport or on seedy side streets, with little
enthusiasm and less talent. But as the rest of America yawns into
the 21st century, one group of gals is bringing back the lost
art of strip seduction. Down in New Orleans, they are always at
the very forefront in terms of vice. And down in New Orleans,
they have the Shim Shamettes.
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| Photo
© Jorge Bastille |
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During
the Golden Age of burlesque, when bawdy beauties like Lilly Christine
and Tempest Storm launched a thousand cheap pinup magazines, New
Orleans was the the seething hotbed of the art of striptease.
Since its inception, this cosmopolitan port city has been a playground
for luxe living, sin and sedition. And down on Bourbon Street,
at least back then, decadence and frivolity had class, when jazzmen
played and ladies danced raunchy, all in the very height of style.
The
Shim Shamettes are deliberately harkening back to that
feeling of saucy glamour.
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| Photo
© Mick Vovers |
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The
Shim Sham Club and Juke Joint, the New Orleans spot that is their
home base, in fact, was named after a 1940s nightclub owned by
Louis Prima's brother, which boasted its own Shim Shamettes Revue
of dancing ladies. (Appropriately, the new club's opening show
featured a performance by Sam Butera, who had frequently packed
the original Shim Sham back in the day.) Their show isn't strictly
1950s; they do a '60s go-go number and some just plain sexy little
ensemble pieces. But in creating their production, the Shim Shamettes
capture the feeling of burlesque to a T, exulting in the sexy,
theatrical eroticism that celebrates women and makes naked ladies
even more fun than they already are.
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| Photo
© Jorge Bastille |
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Lorelei
Fuller, the group's director and producer, is a longtime aficionado
of classic burlesque and a collector of memorabilia as well as
a formally trained dancer. She brings her passion and knowledge
together with her talents to create, along with co-choreographer
Nina Bozak, a tight, polished show that is as much a lush and
erotic spectacle as a performance straight from the glory days
of striptease. The idea for the Shim Shamettes Beauty Chorus was
something Fuller and Bozak (alter ego: bombshell Nina "Boom
Boom" Boomavitch) had been planning for some time, and with
the opening of the Shim Sham Club less than a year ago,
the girls finally had a runway to call home. The revue boasts
elaborate routines complete with comedy and stage sets to make
each number a theatrical skit. What's more, the group is backed
by a live eight-piece jazz band onstage, the Shim Sham Revue,
whose musicians have played with acts like Pete Fountain, Dr.
John, and Little Richard (a burlesque queen in his own right).
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| Photo
© Jorge Bastille |
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The
secret of the beauty of old burlesque is in the details; these
girls don't just wiggle and show skin for three naked minutes,
swinging on a pole to flash their goodies. The real appeal of
burlesque glamour is in the talent, the presentation and the pure
celebration of the female form. Modern go-go dancers can present
your standard fashion mag body type; a striptease artist--and
this title befits each and every Shim Shamette--can lure, tease,
play and perform in a way that celebrates and presents women of
a wide range of body types as saucy, glamorous, and simply fabulous.
So feast your eyes; do a little New Orleans siteseeing, and make
the Shim Shamettes your date for Valentine's Day.
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