Les Filles Rouges
Les Filles Rouges is a vintage Pigalle-style show inspired by Melinda’s time spent in Paris and Berlin, two cities instrumental to burlesque’s development as an art form. This European-flavoured burlesque is more vaudevillian than most American Neo-Burlesque seen today; song, dance, and underpants take center stage, with stripping an occasional side effect rather than a main event. Featuring a gaggle of gorgeous gals and their devilish MC, Les Filles Rouges is progressive-burlesque – empowered entertainment, with a dash of literary lasciviousness. Surprisingly classy, side-splittingly funny, and occasionally poignant, it’s burlesque at its best!
Burlesque to Bihar
As most of my dear readers know, I spent much of the last year in India, in a tiny town in a big country, where women are second-class citizens at best. Now, returned and exhausted, I find myself again in a tiny town in a big country. And women here, though worlds above those in Bihar in terms of rights, are still not on equal footing with our male counterparts. Our own country contains unequal pay strategies, blatant sexism both in the workplace and out, objectification of women, and stereotypes that feed distorted body images to a deadly degree. As a girl, as a teenager, as a professional woman, and throughout these stages as a dancer, I have experienced all of these issues first-hand, and they have guided me to my work with victims of sex-trafficking and prostitution.
Polaris Dance Troupe
Polaris Dance Troupe was born in 2001 with the goal of bringing quality choreographic works of integrity and heart to rural communities. Inspired by the belief that everyone has their own North Star - their own Polaris - to by which to navigate their life, founder Melinda Miller-Klopfer assembled a group of artists who believed in the transformative powers of dance, and began performing. Their pieces range from the ridiculous to the sublime - from tassel-twirling, booty-shaking burlesque to political protest pieces and ritualistic dances rooted in Paganism and Neo-Feminism. Polaris Dance Troupe is dedicated to bringing social awareness to the stage, and to spreading the healing powers of dance to performers and audiences alike throughout Northern California.