Bomb Threats, Dottie Lux and Red Hots Burlesque
On any given Friday night, the corner of 11th and Folsom street is packed with patrons of the many bars and nightclubs in the area. So it wasn’t surprising when I saw a crowd as I approached the area to chat with Dottie Lux, creator of Red Hots Burlesque.
But as I got closer, I realized the crowd was there because the street was blocked off by police tape.
A bomb threat was made over the phone at DNA Lounge, a nightclub across the street from Beatbox, the gay nightclub and event space that has hosted Red Hots Burlesque for over a year.
I asked a police officer or two if I could squeeze by to meet with Dottie, but no dice. Thankfully, Dottie wasn’t allowed to enter either.
After a quick hunt through the crowd for the woman with green hair, we were able to share a sidewalk chat about future plans for her burlesque show. Beatbox had just announced it would be shutting down for good after five years.
Michael: So I can say, without a doubt, that this is the first burlesque interview I’m conducting directly outside the vicinity of a bomb threat.
Dottie Lux: Yeah! Talk about going out with a bang.
Michael: Red Hots Burlesque hasn’t always been stationed here at Beatbox, right?
Lux: No, we’ve moved around a lot. We started in 2003 in New York and I took the production with me when I moved to San Francisco. Then we were at El Rio for seven years and that’s how we got the whole happy hour vibe.
In New York City, most doors don’t open until 10 or 11pm, but El Rio wanted us to go at 7. I thought it was crazy for a burlesque show to start so early, but it’s actually a great way to end your work week and we’ve kept that time since all of our movements. We’ve been at Beatbox for a little over a year, but not for much longer.
Michael: When did you find out that they were shutting down?
Lux: I found out a few days after it was final, and it went public just a couple days after that. It’s been a little bittersweet to start our last month. It almost feels like we’re getting booted out of our apartment, you know? Sort of a “You have 30 days to vacate the premises” kind of thing.
Beatbox has been a really great spot for us, but we’re going to take this time to get a new wash on us. Get a new feel for what we will look like. We’ve been full of fanciness for over a decade, so we’re going to try to have a sleeker look.
We have had burlesque as our focal point for so long and it’s not necessarily a definition that is universal. Everybody thinks burlesque means something different. So we’re using this opportunity to define ourselves a little bit more.
Michael: I must admit I’m curious to hear how you define burlesque as the creator of a burlesque show and how it differs from someone else.
Lux: For me, and for most people who understand the definition, it means the same as tease in that it has a double meaning of tantalizing someone with your body and wiles. But also tease can be a joke. And burlesque has a double definition as well. It means a parody. But Red Hots is also a modern circus. We have acrobats and contortionists and trapeze artists and jugglers and clowns of all sorts. All of those things are burlesque, too. They’re all examples of farce and merriment.
Michael: I get it! So you’re hoping to help further define burlesque so people will know what they’re getting themselves into when they attend a Red Hots show.
Lux: Our shows are really a smattering of people who have been there a million times, and the people whose mouths are agape, thinking they are going to see Christina Aguilera and Cher do dance routines. Instead, they see a girl staple pornography to her naked body. Tonight we have Kyoko hanging from the ceiling doing a gorgeous aerial routine interpreting a heartbeat. My bush will be blazing tonight.
Michael: That was not in the film.
Lux: No, not at all, and that’s part of our motivation for the show. We want to be there for our community, of course, but we also want to expose our art to the tourists. If they want to see some real San Francisco, well they should come to Red Hots, because they need that entertainment and provocation.
Michael: It sure sounds provocative. And oddly powerful.
Lux. Absolutely. Listen, the whole universe is for men and burlesque is the one thing that we can make ours.
I think that female sexuality is something that has a lot of power and that’s why people are trying to strip women of it or make them feel ashamed of it or to take it from them. I think all of that is sexuality and power and burlesque plays with that.
Michael: Do you have any special ideas for your last performance at Beatbox before taking time off?
Lux: Oh, we aren’t taking time off. We don’t know how to do that. We have been San Francisco’s longest running weekly burlesque show since 2008 and we can’t stop. We might have moved where we’ve been, but we’ve always had a show on a Friday show at 8. After this month, we are going to perform at The Stud on Friday nights before they throw their weekly drag party, Club Something. So we’ll be there for the month of July, and I always think Club Something is a drag show in the same way that Red Hots is a burlesque show. It should be really fun and very San Francisco.
For more on Red Hots: http://redhotsburlesque.com/
Performance Photos Via: https://www.facebook.com/redhotsburlesque/photos_stream
Note: This article originally appeared on Ripple.co, which has been acquired and now appears on Hoodline.
