Not Just Stripping
Lefty Lucy (LL): How long have you been doing burlesque?
Bonnie Dunn (BD): I started with the Blue Angel in 1994, if I remember correctly, but I had been in New York since ’86 or something. [laughs] Since 1925!!! But before that I was doing a lot of cabaret singing, and in my cabaret shows I had a lot of burlesque styles—maybe I didn’t articulate it as such, but I used that kind of costuming.
LL: What made you decide that you wanted to be in the burlesque community, instead of just doing cabaret?
BD: Well, I was doing go-go dancing in New Jersey. Then a boyfriend of mine said, ‘I rather see you dance topless and be safe in New York City,’ than going to Newark, where these go-go clubs were—it’s amazing, because you show so much more in burlesque, but it was the whole mentality. There were so many of us that were in theater and dance or whatever that would go-go dance in New Jersey, and we felt like, “Well, you don’t have to take your top off, so it’s not as bad,” but it’s still the same mentality. I used to have this debate with my boyfriend (at the time) when I first started stripping. I’d say, “Look at a Vegas show—they’re in pasties.” And he used to argue with me, “No, it’s not the women, it’s the guys. It’s the vibe of the club.” And I think he was really right. I think that burlesque is one of the most empowering things, because stripping can be the opposite. It’s the energy that people are giving to you.
So I was dancing in New York, and I remember seeing a little ad in the paper about the Blue Angel, and I followed up on it, and I thought, ‘This is incredible! This is exactly what I do!”
The Blue Angel
BD: When I got in to the Blue Angel, it was just a really natural progression. I had performed in New Orleans a lot because I lived down there, and the whole burlesque scene never really died, although it overlapped with the strip scene.
LL: So what was it that the Blue Angel was doing?
BD: It was this woman named Ute Hanna who headed it. She had worked in strip clubs and she felt that it was a fun job, but it was run by really misogynistic men, and sometimes women. It wasn’t a cool atmosphere. So she wanted to bring in this German cabaret sensibility. She was having performances three nights a week, sandwiched in between the strip acts, and the rest of the week it was just strip shows. But I worked Thursday, Friday, Saturday—that was when she had performers. It was interesting because it was a night club, so it had acts all night long.
It was just this cool avant-garde club. You really felt like you were going to something that was naughty and underground and New York. Sort of what the Box does, except it was rougher. It was really a part of New York that doesn’t exist anymore, with a speakeasy feel to it. You descended down these stairs, and it was very Fellini-esque, like Fellini meets Times Square. And on the right hand side was this sectioned off room, sectioned off only by these sheer, dark materials, so you saw shadows of people, and that was a lap dancing room. And I mean, really lap dancing—sitting on somebody, grinding, which is totally illegal now. The Blue Angel had this kind of seedy element to it, which was part of its charm.
You just sat down and you didn’t know what you were going to see. Anybody that walked in that door, Ute gave them a chance. Somebody who was really bad could come out, and then somebody who was just amazing would come out, and it was good because we could work on our acts, so a lot of stuff developed. A lot of things that I do today kind of developed out of that show.
LL: Who are some performers that left an impression on you when you were at the Blue Angel?
BD: Well, I’ll tell ya, there was this magician, Tanya [Queen of Magic]—she was from Russia, and she got a facelift for $50 because communism had just fallen and they didn’t know what to charge because they were state paid positions. So when did communism fall? Like, in the 50s! I don’t even know how old this woman was, but she was really funny. She would do acts that had live birds and sometimes her birds would die—I know, it was horrible! She was onstage at the Blue Angel doing her act—picture this attractive but senior citizen woman, and just everything looks very handmade, and scarves and glitter and all these feathers, and just really gaudy. So this stripper comes in from the back room, and she’s holding the dead bird by the neck, and the head is flopping around, and she walks out in the middle of Tanya’s act, and she goes, “’Scuse Me! ’Scuse Me!” Everybody was just horrified, and she goes, “Ya bird’s dead.” [laughs] And Tanya’s just like, “Oh, OK, just put it in the back,” like it was no big deal. But that was the kind of thing you would see at the Blue Angel—you didn’t know what you were going to see. It was just really crazy.
There was a woman that was a performance artist who called herself Malaria. She really was genius, really stood out. A lot of performance art I don’t like because people just do things for the shock value and it doesn’t have any real substance to it, but she was really one of a kind. She inspired me to be a good performer, but my stuff is so different from hers. I wish I could think like that! [laughs] I don’t go that far out there.
Velocity was down there, Velocity Chyaldd. Dominic [Chianese, Jr.] used to MC the show; He was really great. Jo Boobs was on the tail end of it.
Oh, well, Flambeaux!—Flambeaux the Fire was with us and did all the business tips. Keith Bindlestiff used to put me in a trance watching the fire—it was really very beautiful. Yah, and then Flambeaux was just crazy—they were both crazy. I remember Keith Bindlestiff doing an act where he would hang himself and he had this fake penis thing. He made this apparatus that was like a fake penis, and you may have heard about people who masturbate while they’re hanging themselves—so it was like a play on that. So he’d hang himself, and then he had this fire penis thing!
LL: It’s outrageous! [laughs]
BD: [laughing] It is outrageous! It was really creative. The fire and stuff is amazing. ”
LL: Did you do group numbers there, or was it solo?
BD: If we wanted to do something with somebody else we could, but it kind of came out of the seeds of performance art, and there were a lot of performance artists who came in to the Blue Angel to do their act. We were the strip club rejects, you know? [laughs] This was the mid-90s, so it was a little bit different then than now. People didn’t even know what burlesque was.
LL: Is there a performance you remember where, “Oh My God, my music went wrong!” or “I couldn’t get this dress off”?
BD: [laughs] Every performance! Oh gosh, there were so many at the Blue Angel! I got food poisoning one time, and I just barely finished my act and then went in the back and barfed my guts out, and the paramedics and the ambulance came in to the club—people LOVED it though. They thought, “Oh, it’s just another night of craziness.” Then they took me away, and I had my burlesque costume on, and the doctor was all, “Oh my!” [laughs]
Le Scandal
LL: So tell me about Le Scandal.
BD: What happened was that Ute wanted to leave the show, she wanted to move on and do other things. She wanted to give me the show, which I was very grateful for. But she told me to change the name eventually. I really didn’t want to take the show without keeping the name, because the name is what people knew and that’s why it was packed. So it really hurt me, because she left me a very unorganized show of endless performers, like 15 performers, which works well in the setting that she was in, where she owned the club and it was running all night long. It doesn’t work well when you have an hour and a half. So it was a long road of fixing it and tweaking it and building up a new name. It was a lot of work and a lot of reinvesting my own money and really not making a profit. I made up my mind early on that I would guarantee people a certain amount of money so they felt confident when they’d come to work for me, though it wasn’t a lot of money.
I think that one milestone in there is when the band came in. It was the New York City Blues Devils, and they came to me and they said ‘we want to play for your show.’ That changed the whole style, which was good for me because I’m a singer, so live music is perfect because I mostly sing with all my acts. That’s what I’ve been doing since I started burlesque. Even at the Blue Angel I would come out and sing and then strip after that. I’d start out completely dressed, and I’d look really innocent and sweet, and I’d just end up getting completely naked! [laughs] Why? What was the purpose of this? Was I working something out? It was really funny.
Le Scandal has a little touch of chaos to it. Because it’s an intimate atmosphere and there’s a looseness about it. When we took the show to England, I realized the charm of Le Scandal was that it’s a little bit raggedy. Not that it’s a theatrical performance where everybody has certain lines.
LL: How many performers do you usually have in a night? Is it a variety show?
BD: I call it a variety show, and it has usually one or two burlesque acts a night, and the rest is variety and circus. But if it’s a circus act, the theme of it being risqué has to be there. It’s tailored down a bit because I moved from a place where we were really packing them in to a smaller room, and I’m just building it up again so I can only afford four to five acts right now.
Le Scandal is in its ninth year. I tout it as the longest running variety show. I could say the longest running burlesque show if I connected it to the Blue Angel, but I think the Slipper Room is the longest running burlesque show.
Le Scandal is every Saturday night at the West Bank Café on 42nd st and 9th Avenue.
Images from Le Scandal's myspace
www.myspace.com/lescandalcabaret
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