Empire Burlesque Fest '17

Part of my search for being an empowered female super star has led me to taking some Burlesque classes and workshops. I have been a fan of Ithaca's Whiskey Tango Side Show for several years and now they've created the Empire Burlesque Festival! Boy, do these fancy ladies put on a fun show!

Let's get right down to it! The Empire Burlesque Fest. is a two day festival with workshops during the day led by the head liners of the nightly shows (say what?!). Last year was the first Empire Burlesque Festival so they only offered two classes on Saturday. This year there were five workshops offered throughout Friday and Saturday. Then of course during the shows some of the dancers/artists vend their wares. ;) Usually handmade pasties, shirts, hair accessories, undies and some times custom bras.

I couldn't get the time off to attend the Friday workshops with Red Hot Annie and Danielle Saint Velvet, of Whiskey Tango, BUT Eric and I made it to town for the first night's show! It featured members of Whiskey Tango, Queen Bootyca, Mister Twister, Eye Candy Burlesque, Red Hot Annie and many more! Friday's headliner was Lil Steph from Philadelphia, PA (to the right). She was also my teacher for one of the Saturday workshops, Booty and the Boa. As always, it was a great show.

Non-festival related Saturday events consisted of checking out of our Air BNB, which I highly recommend, and grabbing breakfast over at Ithaca Bakery. We stopped at the Ithaca Farmer's Market to enjoy the sights, artwork and the sunshine peaking through the clouds. Before I headed off to the workshops, I dropped my husband off over at the Ithaca Beer Company. Not a bad place to hang for a couple hours while your wife is out dancing!

As mentioned earlier one of the Saturday workshops was Booty and the Boa with Lil Steph. We were all given practice boas to dance with, while Steph has one that was about three times her size! We learned a few tricks for moving the draping of the boa on our body and worked on some booty moves! 

The other workshop was titled Struts, Bumps, Grinds, and Shimmies with Angie Pontani. Angie hails from New York City and was the headliner for the Saturday night show. I enjoyed the attention to detail in the way she taught. At one point she even went around to check everyone's form in a pose before moving on to the next one. She taught us a few specific moves and then put it all together into a mini choreography. 
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We grabbed dinner quick at the Bandwagon Brew Pub, always a favorite of ours, before heading over to the Saturday night show. Angie Pontani, Pearls Daily, Penny Dreadful, Janna Deadly, last year's head liner Calamity Chang and many more delighted the stage. Once again Whiskey Tango hit it out of the park.

Thanks for a lovely weekend get-away! Already looking forward to what next year will bring.
​- Jenn