Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...at the New York Burlesque Festival

Whenever there’s a possibility to see glitter and glamour, I’m there. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, I’ve been going to the New York Burlesque Festival almost every year since I moved to the city. I’ve written about and shared images from the festival before on my blog, and I thought it would be fun to also share some this year on TinyLetter.

The New York Burlesque Festival is now in its 16th year, a four-night event (Thursday-Sunday) that regularly sells out. Jen Gapay of Thirsty Girl Productions, who co-produces the festival with burlesque legend Angie Pontani, was kind enough to have me at the festival’s Premiere Party at Brooklyn Bowl this past Friday. As ever, the glitter and glamour was more than just a possibility, but a fully realized, nonstop sparkle extravaganza.

Even arriving and perusing vendors, there were intricate rhinestone pasties in the shapes of flames, butterflies, and emojis. Long studded gloves in all manner of colors. Another burlesque legend Jo Weldon with her new book Fierce, about the history of leopard print.

I don’t remember exactly why I went to a burlesque show the first time, but I knew almost instantly I’d be back. I love burlesque for how it creatively parodies or exaggerates (or, uh, burlesques) sexuality, how it’s used to make us laugh, how it spins taboo on its head and asks us to see the theatricality and comedy and even beauty in something we’re so often taught to hide. Performers fully own their bodies, and their pride is inspiring.

Soon, with the rest of the audience, I will be enveloped in a swirl of striptease, of comedic and glamorous (or both) performances by entertainers with deliciously punny names like Broody Valentino, Rosie Cheeks, and Taradise. Their acts will be inspired by the likes of everything from Satanism to peacocks, Space Jam to romance novels, Sunset Boulevard to Jesus Christ Superstar.

But first, go-go dancers shimmy and swivel across the stage in heels, dollars tucked into garters and mouths and corsets. Broadway Brassy, with her red and black hair and gold sequin-encrusted wrap dress opens the show with her band, the Brass Knuckles. She sings covers of tunes like Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto’s “The Girl from Ipanema” and Amy Winehouse’s “Valery.” The evening’s hosting duties will be split between Albert Cadabra (yes…) and Shelly Watson, “The Singing Siren." She’ll be flanked by “her two ginger giraffes,” as she calls them, two sky-high showgirls dripping in red fringe. They will introduce acts from all over the world, as far away as Japan, Argentina, and Montreal, and as close as our own New York City. Aria Delanoche is a glamorous peacock, Miss Orchid Mei is a fluffy leopard kitten, Harvest Moon and Jason Mejias swing across the stage on silks and ropes, and more.

How do they get the glitter to stay on their lips? Their fringe to shiver so sensationally? Their costumes slip away with such style? Headdresses to balance without bouncing? I am, as ever, entranced.

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Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with JD Ricafort

After a few years working in tech, JD Ricafort decided he wanted to follow a passion for musical theatre and he just...did it. Having spent much of his life singing and dancing, he actively refined the skills before leaving his job, then was cast in a number of productions. JD recently returned to his home base in Astoria to develop a new project, Super Smack. “The Nintendo Switch of rappers,” Smack is a rap alter-ego inspired by the self-described nerdy pop culture of his youth: video games, Toonami, Star Wars, and more, as well as a recent freestyle dedicated to Crazy Rich Asians that got a shoutout from George Takei. He’ll release his EP, “Fan Fiction,” in December.

JD discovered a love of writing and performing his own work after being accepted into Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal’s “BARS” program at The Public Theatre, which celebrates “the poetry of speech.” Working in tech again with a flexible schedule, he continues to craft Super Smack, who he sees as a bold, braggadocious version of himself.

JD often writes at Prince Tea House in Astoria, where I meet him on a Saturday. We sip teas and he tells me about his creative work, about finding growth in the writing process, the evolution of Super Smack, the balance of life and art.

Next we take a walk through Astoria, to the ferry that goes to Manhattan, and it’s the first weekend in a while that requires a jacket (JD’s is vintage, a gift from an uncle). I haven’t spent much time in Astoria beyond its main throughfares, so it’s delightful to have a tour from a resident. JD himself hadn’t explored much because he had been performing in various parts of the country for a while, but now he’s back and knows just where to take me. We start with the Filipino grocery store, where he gets a calamansi juice, a classic Filipino lemonade/limeade made from teeny tiny citrus. He also points out favorites of Spam and pork egg rolls, as well as various ulam (the Filipino word for main dish) and other classics like banana ketchup and chicharrones.

Continuing on, we pause at the Welling Court Mural Project, a section dedicated to street art and graffiti-inspired murals. JD is especially drawn to one with bright blues and reds--it reminds him, of course, of the Nintendo Switch. When he performs as Super Smack in the future, he’d love to have a jacket adorned with such hues.

The East River isn’t far now, and we make our way to the dock. JD has ridden the ferry from Astoria to Wall Street and back to write, an almost meditative practice. Now, though, he’s on his way to Manhattan for a rehearsal with North Coast, a hip-hop improv comedy team that performs nationally and internationally. Tonight is JD’s first performance with them, and he’s excited. He sips the calamansi juice as the ferry chugs along the river, water frothing in the wake behind us.


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Miss Manhattan Hangs Out...with Julia Chesbrough

Julia Chesbrough opens the door to a light-filled apartment on a semi-sunny Saturday. She unwraps a pack of petite canvases and smiles. She’s going to teach me how to paint The Ladies.

“The Ladies” is Julia’s ongoing series of silhouettes, painted with the curves and swerves of gloriously imperfect female forms, in black gouache on stark white canvas. Her minimalist paintings play with how this delightfully, notoriously complex form can be revealed in just a few lines. The work has become a regular part of Julia’s artistic practice, which also occasionally includes the collages and poetry that hang on her walls.

By day, Julia is a marketing graphic designer at Hinge. Before that, however, when she graduated college with a psychology degree, she worked as a behavioral health technician for autistic children. Ultimately realizing she’d rather pursue a more artistic field, she moved to New York and did a graphic design bootcamp. After completing the course and taking on short-term clients, she was hired at Hinge a few months later. There, she’s been working in UX Design, which she feels is a happy marriage of her art and psychology experiences.

We start with our canvases, pencils, slim paintbrushes, and a tiny dish of water at a sleek white high-top table in her living room. It occurs to me now that the work we’re doing--all slim and petite and elevated and taking up little space--is perhaps the perfect practice for a New York apartment.

Julia adds a small dollop of gouache to a silver tin for me and for herself--a little bit goes a long way, she says. She draws an elegantly sweeping L shape on the canvas, an inwardly curving line for the back that evolves into an outwardly rounded line for the bottom, and invites me to do the same. I make an attempt that results in a much more lumpen, less refined shape only slightly improved after manic erasing jags, but Julia is kind and patient and waits for me. Soon we move onto the gouache, which we’ll use to outline the pencil on the canvas. Julia’s elegant lines emerge yet again...as do my lumpen attempts. It occurs to me that I am very definitely a photographer, but I enjoy painting and watching Julia paint. It’s a meditative experience, watching the black lines and their feminine shapes emerge on the canvas.

With paintbrushes poised, we talk about dating and marriage and the modern and antiquated versions of both. I’m more honest than I would be with a total stranger. I wonder if this is regularly what happens to people when they paint, that what spills from their lips is more unedited because their brains and hands are otherwise occupied, or if Julia’s warmth and kindness just makes for a comfortable space to share. Julia finishes her Lady and embarks on another, circular canvas piece.

Eventually, the gouache dries. Julia moves our canvases to her fire escape, spraying them with lasting sealant. And voila! The Ladies are done.

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