Burlesque sells like hot cakes these days, well actually like warmed-up cakes with whole new flavours. It can be found in its simplest form, in particular when (mainly young) women artists use it to make fast and easy striptease money, and afterwards become tagged with the currently highly appreciated epithet of an »artist and sex worker«. But luckily burlesque can also be found in more complex forms which combine various genres and critically address sexual and cultural stereotypes – the Australian hit The Burlesque Hour most definitely belongs amongst these. The performance is an explosive series of cabaret, variety, circus and showgirl acts, there is even butoh dance that the Australians use to ridicule and mine the boundaries of the erotic.
Moira Finucane, one of Australia’s leading cabaret artistes – the Queen of Cabaret Bizarre– has in collaboration with director Jackie Smith, shock cabaret artist Yumi Umiumare and Australian Circus Star Azaria Universe, created a wild mixture that entertains, perturbs and possibly even frightens. The performance in Ljubljana was joined by Maude Davey, diva of the Australian gender performance and the manager of Vitalstatistix - a group of women authors in Australian theatre - and a special guest at City of Women festival - Ursula Martinez.
