Champagne Bubbles, Burlesque & Baths

Champagne bubbles, burlesque, and baths are three of my favorite things and I was able to combine them all in my recent Burlesque act for Cabaret & Cocktails virtual show in April 2021.

I was reading a fabulous book, Goddess of Love Incarnate: The Life of Stripteuse Lili St. Cyr by Leslie Zemeckis. The author Leslie Zemeckis also wrote Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America. I highly recommend checking these out, they are page turners that you won’t want to put down until the very last page.

One of Lili St Cyr signature numbers was taking a bath on stage and then trying on different outfits and allowing the audience into her private world. I was so inspired by this and since we were still creating numbers from home this was the perfect time to take advantage of my outside bath tub and create an act.

The cherry on top, was the amazing Headmistress Jo Weldon, burlesque star, burlesque historian, author and headmistress with the New York School of Burlesque was offering an online class (www.schoolofburlesque.com) where she was going to teach how to do a strip tease with a bath towel!!! She was going to teach choreography, amazing tips on watering proofing pasties & thongs and tell stories from her own experiences on stage. It was a such an amazing class that I was able to experience at home on a Sunday. Check out the other classes they have available online, a perk of the changes in our world, has been the ability to take virtual classes with performers from all over the world.

My Bathtub Burlesque Act was becoming a reality.

The last piece to add was the Champagne bubbles. I love Champagne. My signature Cabaret & Cocktail drink, the Lily O Lei, is made with 1 bottle of champagne & a splash of Lilikoi juice (passion fruit) = 1 serving

Headmistress Jo also talked in her class about pouring champagne on herself and how the audience would just go wild…so over course I had to try that.

I was pretty excited with how the act was turning out. The story idea was that I am home in between gigs and am having a bath and drink before heading back out for my next performance. An hour before we were to start filming Sadie Vine texted me – Do you want to sabre the champagne bottle open?  I mean, how do you say no to that?! Hell, YES I want to open the bottle with a knife!!! So, we added that to the act.

Three tips to sabering a bottle –

1. Find the seam along the bottle, it’s the weakest point. You slide the knife along the seam and hit the lip of the bottle.
2. Don’t hesitate, one solid sweep up the bottle, commit to it.
3. AND the MOST important. The bottle has to be ICE COLD. Like in a freeze cold ice bath, just chilling and only pull it out when you are going to open it. Don’t stand around, holding the bottle around letting the bottle warm up even a little. It needs to VERY, VERY cold. And those are my three tips…

I am getting the stitches out soon, just kidding. I still have all my fingers and kept the cork as a reminder of my favorite things. Champagne Bubbles, Burlesque & Baths.

Cheers – Lily O Lei