Each week I'll update the post with what I got up to in class and any naughty pictures I take!
I will be dancing in a class troupe at our graduation show on Madame JoJo's stage in The Cheek of It! Easter show! March 31st - BUY TICKETS HERE!
You can also follow my progress on my Twitter burlesque account @OpheliaBataille
Week 8 - The Final Class!
Good evening everybody! I've just got home from the last class of my Showtime course, our final rehearsals before we hit Madame Jojo's this Sunday!
Tickets for the show are SOLD OUT ONLINE! You can still buy tickets on the door on Sunday for £15 but get there early! Doors open at 6.30pm
So, in tonight's class we ran the routine over and over again, fine tuning our moves and working up quite a sweat! We are all very excited for our showgirl debut on Sunday.
A very cheeky sneak peek at our rehearsals tonight!
The wonderful Melissa brought absolutely amazing, delicious cupcakes to our final class to celebrate our hard work!
I will be sure to write up a post about the success of this Sunday's show, along with plenty of cheeky pictures. It's been an absolute pleasure working with my fellow North London ladies and Trixibelle Firecracker has been an incredible teacher!
Week 7
How appropriate is this underground ad?! Spotted after tonight's class!
The penultimate class! I cannot believe show week is nearly upon us!
Tonight we worked our cute butts off and got through the whole routine a few times! The most time consuming part was getting dressed again and again after each run through! We worked up quite a sweat.
I don't want to give anything about the routine away, our costumes and choreography are fabulous and fun, I hope you can come to the show and see us North London Cheekettes in action!!
Here are a couple of cheeky pictures, one is my illegible choreography notes, the other is a saucy sneak peek at a part of my costume!
Week 6
Only 2 classes left! I'm getting so excited for show day, we choreographed more of our Easter routine to a fantastic mixed track.
The gorgeous Lady Cheek popped in to see what we have put together and gave us some great advice to spur us on and inspire us.
I'm not going to post any spoilers before the show, but as you can see from this picture we certainly know how to rock out, retro style!
If you've got the burlesque bug and want to unleash your inner showgirl, you can now book a place on the next Showtime Beginner's Course with The Cheek of It!
Week 5
The excitement for the show has kicked in already! Or maybe it is the effect of our naughty easter eggs...
Tonight we were off to a flying start putting our show routine together, we got the whole introduction blocked out and learnt!
It's very encouraging and empowering to be dancing with so many fabulous ladies, there's so many brilliant ideas flying around, we hope to blow our audience away on show day!
We shall be spending our week practising our shimmies and wiggles, and getting our costumes together, all in preparation for a cheeky showcase for Lady Cheek herself. She will be coming along to class to see how we are getting on!
Ticket information for our Easter Sunday extravaganza shall be arriving soon, I will make sure I post the link to buy them EVERYWHERE as soon as I get it. Watch this space.
Week 4
Tonight we all got our thinking caps on and brainstormed ideas for our show routine!
After a recap of the last few weeks, and a couple of brilliant striptease freestyles (with the whole class tassel twirling of course!) we focussed on devising a story and moves for the fast approaching Easter Sunday burlesque show extravaganza!
So far we have a starting point, what with it being Easter, it's got to be CHOCOLATE! All sorts of associations with this magical food stuff of the Gods were flying around. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, picnics, Candyman, easter eggs, and cheeky chocolate treats hidden in naughty costume places!
We also discussed a possible cutesy start with a dark twist involved that makes us take our clothes off!
Current music suggestions include 'April Showers', 'Candyman', and Alice Cooper's 'Poison'.
Watch this space everybody! Next week we have a break, consider it a 'half term', but we are all going to get together for wine and I will be teaching my fellow Cheekettes how to make nipple tassels!
Week 3
This week we got down to our 'bare' essentials and learnt the art of striptease! As you can see from the picture above, we ended up rather scantily clad!
We did start fully clothed/covered up, with gloves, heels, stockings and bras to remove!
Of course everyone must've been feeling a little nervous, I know I was! But once we had mastered the skill of sticking on our nipple tassels (some of the girls bought some beauties from Gaby Kennedy who kindly came along with a selection of her sparkly wonders!) we were ready and raring to go! Trixibelle Firecracker was going to show us a few of the tricks of the trade.
First came the art of the glove, and the face that says 'Oooh isn't this the softest material/piece of skin I've ever run my fingers across!'.
Then came the skill of taking off stockings, we mastered both a sitting down and a standing technique (with the support of a chair!). This was the bit I enjoyed the most, although the standing position made me realise I need to become a bit more flexible haha! Practice makes sexy!
We then slowly removed our dresses/silk jackets to get down to the nitty gritty. Bras.
It looks a lot trickier than it is. Just simply tuck your elbow into your side as you slide your arm out of the bra strap! The build up to the bra drop/peekaboo was fun! And in a flash we were all triumphantly standing together in our tassels and knickers!
Our final success was learning how to twirl those tassels of ours! Thankfully, my homemade tassels stood the bouncing test! Trixibelle was a real pro and it was great to be given so much amazing advice and guidance by her!
All us Cheekettes were brilliant! We totally supported and encouraged each other. I'm so excited to start practicing my new striptease moves and looking forward to putting our act together for the show!
I went for my favourite purple MAC lipstick look tonight, and here is a picture of some of Gaby Kennedy's tassel creations!
Week 2
I've just got back from another fun filled class focussing on sharing our ideas and inspirations in order to develop our burlesque characters - Ophelia is proving to be a real challenge to harness, she's decadent and sexy, so I could really use those qualities in a sensual, extravagant act. However there's other characters I feel are sitting around waiting to be let out of their box...
One I am particularly interested in is Theodora Lee (aka Teddy Lee) the tomboy occasional transvestite. My inspiration for her comes from the Music Hall cabarets of the early 1900's (a la Tipping The Velvet).
But is it ok to have multiple burlesque personalities?! If there are any experienced burlesque performers reading this, I would love to get some feedback on whether this is an 'ok' thing for one person to have a few characters?
Anyway, I found it so exciting to see other people's characters and inspirations, it showed me how much variation there really is when it comes to performing burlesque. We had all examples from cute to grungy, to androgyny and comedy!
Next week is... *Drum Roll please*... STRIP WEEK!
Week 1
I met the other fabulous ladies that are taking part on the course, and our gorgeous teacher Trixibelle.
We did some fun exercises to get us strutting and posing, then worked on a routine to unleash our inner showgirls!
Lady Cheek also surprised us with yummy cakes at the end of class, as you can see in the picture, we loooooove cakes!
We have been assigned homework to develop our characters, I'm looking forward to bringing Ophelia Bataille to life and to find out what inspires the other ladies in the class.
More next week! xx
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