EMPRESS STAH IN ZERO G A GLAM CIRCUS, NEO PUNK CABARET SUNDAY AFTERNOONS 5TH, 12TH, 19TH, 26TH APRIL @ The Brickhouse, The Truman Brewery, 156 Bricklane, E1 6RU www.EmpressStah.com www.ticketweb.co.uk

I bear all for the Gay Boys ; ) !!!

http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?mid=wpdwqg#/page30/

My achievements gratefully acknowledged in Time Out, London .....

Alternative nightlife editor Simone Baird names her highlights of 2008, and asks the scene’s leaders to share their 12 months of mayhem.

While the main neo-cabaret guard – notably Jonny Woo, Justin Bond, Empress Stah, Dusty Limits – all did exceptional new work and furthered their trajectories into the mainstream, the most heartening thing about 2008 was the precocious quality of the next generation.Thanks to Bourgeois & Maurice, Ryan Styles, Dickie Beau and La John Joseph, the future of the artform is in very safe hands.

To read the full article click below

http://www.timeout.com/london/alternative-nightlife/features/6466/Best_alternative_nightlife_of_2008.html

Empress Stah presents 'Ice Palace of Malice – A Christmas Cabaret Rated X 

Serving up Santa in a daiquiri of CIRCUS, MAGIC, MIME & SONG

The all star cast includes Empress Stah, Marisa Carnesky, Ruby Blues, Ryan Styles, and Rasp Thorn, presenting freshly concocted interpretations of their signature acts. Join them for a shot of Christmas Spirit as they take over The Brickhouse to present a darkly sinister, wintry, east London side show of Circus, Magic, Mime & Song. Drinking and Dancing will follow till late with David TG.

T'is the night before X-mas and all through the palace,

Not a creature is stirring they're all frozen with malice.

The stockings are flung on the floor without care,

Black lumps of coal are all that is there!!

SUNDAYS 30^TH NOVEMBER, 7^TH, 14^TH, 21^ST DECEMBER

 4 NIGHTS ONLY @ The Brickhouse

                                    The Truman Brewery

                                    156c Bricklane

                                    London E1 6RU

                                    www.thebrickhouse.co.uk

 TICKETS

30^th November – Preview   Seated £15

                                            Standing £10

7^th, 14^th, 21^st December       Seated £25

                                            Standing £15

 TICKETWEB.CO.UK / 08 700 600 100

OPENING TIMES

Doors Open:         7pm

Show Time:          8:30pm Sharp – 10:15ish

After show Party: 10.30 - Late

 

After show party free to ticket holders or £5 on the door subject to availability

NB: Seating varies from cabaret style tables on the ground floor, booths on the first floor mezzanine and beds on the top floor. Allocation is on a first come first served basis.

 The Brickhouse will NOT be serving food at this event.

The show contains explicit nudity and adult themes.

I ended my summary of the Adelaide Fringe by agreeing that it was not hard to see why Le Gateau Chocolate would, in some people's eyes, steal the show. I would like to explain my point of view and also take this opportunity to remind everyone that I knew, before anyone in Australia, just how talented Le Gateau is because I was the one who booked him and took him on tour in the first place, genius casting on my part!

 

Adelaide V London, What elements of the production were different and how did they effect the final product?

The Adelaide venue, The Umbrella Revolution, is a beautiful  (on the ouside) black and white striped, red roofed Big Top, that has been erected and laid out to facilitate the producers biggest selling show, The Tom Tom Club, which is an energetic hip hop, beat boxing, flying acrobatic spectacle. The stage is at one end and then there is a vast floor space in front of it, spanning around 8 x 6m - in which they performed a teeter board act - around which is wooden bleacher style seating. For our show there were 10 small cabaret tables dispersed around this floor, dispersed to allow room for my Chandelier performance, Ryan's balloon act and fire exits, so the majority of the audience were seated about 8m away from the stage in very unglamorous surrounds.

Now enter 3 performers. One a bald, tattooed and pierced cabaret lady who is weilding a variety of sex toys, a hypodermic syringe, a string of diamonds in her pussy and a gold balloon up her arse (not all at once and not only that), then an exquisite, surreal mime artist with gentle ,conceptual performance pieces that require insight and interpretation and finally a booming black drag queen with a microphone who roams the audience, sits on peoples laps, gives them party poppers and sings covers of popular songs.

Now who is going to appeal to the average Joe?

So what was lost in translation?  I say lost because in my opinion the London show outstripped Adelaide 100 to 1 in terms of achieving my vision.

The venue in London was the Soho Review Bar, an intimate, decadent cabaret club that nurtures the kind of atmosphere that best supports the presentation of small, quirky acts. It was my venue for the evening and doors opened 1 hour before show time so the audience could make their way in, take a comfy seat, order food and drinks to their table and were serenaded by the tunes of my own favourite DJ, David Torture Garden.

The one thing that the Umbrella Revolution venue offered that the Soho Review Bar didn't was the space to rig my Chandelier and perform 2 aerial acts, which is of course, my forte. Though the Umbrella Revolution was a shared venue and my audience had to queue outside in the hot, dusty park for up to 45 mins as the shows before mine ran over time. … Not a good way to get them on your side!

 Then there is the poster image. In London I used a picture of myself on all fours with a diamante butt plug up my arse while in Adelaide I used the picture of myself hanging from the Chandelier. While both pictures are of exceptional quality and taken by Perou, of Make me a Supermodel fame, they say completely different things. The show has the tag line 'Erotic Circus / Live Art / Neo Burlesque' and the  title 'The Very Best of Empress Stah', which when you look at it alongside a picture of me with the light of diamond shining from my arse, tells you that I am not taking myself too seriously, and you should expect the unexpected. The chandelier image though suggests a more mainstream circus burlesque act, and the listing in the Cabaret section of the program led some people to believe they were coming to see the next La Clique, which it is obviously not. La Clique follows a classic vaudeville circus format that nudge, nudge wink, winks at the borders of respectability whilst my show tramples all over them.

It was remarked that the show would have been better suited to a club environment and helped by having a director, I agree. All of the acts I performed were originally conceived for and premiered at the worlds largest Fetish, Body Art, Burlesque Club, Torture Garden in London. There is a popular misconception that I design my acts in order to 'shock' but this is entirely untrue. Anyone who has been to an international fetish event will know that the people that are there, on the dance floor at 1.00am in fabulous, crazy, imaginative outfits are not going to be 'shocked' by my performance, rather they are going to be entertained, and this is what I aim to do, entertain those who have already been around the block a few times and live their lives in the fast lane. It has been an interesting excursion taking the work out of it's safety zone and presenting it to the mainstream.

We had a director in London, a fabulous lady by the name of Di Sherlock, who spent 3 days with us in the venue, looking at the acts, the entrances and exits, the links, the lights, the whole lot – we were slick! There was no money for a director in Adelaide and has I have already mentioned we had only 4 hours in a 48 degree tent to bump in the show and we only got through half of the lighting queues before we opened, the technicians hadn't seen half of the acts and for that matter Le Gateau Chocolate hadn't seen them either.

Le Gateau was a last minute addition to the cast when our original host, Mr Dusty Limits was unable to make it. I had racked my brain for a suitable host but could think of none and then I remember this crazy queen I had seen at John Lee Birds exhibition and decided that it would be better to book a singing act that could fill the vast space of the circus tent and double as a host. And so it was that I called him and he accepted, though he was doing a pantomime somewhere in middle England so we only had one meeting before we left for OZ and he had never seen any of mine or Ryan's performances !!! If you can't rehearse it, Wing It, and hope for the best – one way or another, the show must go on.

For reasons I won't go into, I had changed the running order of the show from what it was in London and this meant that I also had to wear a different pair of shoes for the opening act, A Gold Star. I cringe every time I think about it – opening the show, wobbling on a new pair of shoes that I had never rehearsed the choreography in, not a good first impression - ouch! Eventually I changed the running order back to the original and wore my trusty red shoes and everything improved from there, but the reviewers had already been in.

I could go on and on about the logistics of touring to the other side of the world, taking a months holiday before the opening of the show to visit with one's family and long lost friends (I am originally from Australia), sitting on a beach drinking beer and eating crisps instead of training a the Circus Space does nothing for ones aerial fitness. The absence of a personal assistant to help source props in a foreign city (I am not from Adelaide) meant spending hours every day scouring the Tea Tree Plaza and Rundel Mall for all sorts of bit's and pieces from water based lube to cheap plates, and have you ever tried to keep fresh red roses hydrated in a heat wave? A back stage with no flushing toilets or handy running water and a camp shower over a blow up paddling pool to wash off the gold glitter made even the smallest tasks tediously difficult.

So knowing everything I know now, would I still have done it, Hell Yeah. Will I do it again the same way? Fuck No. I will be back but next time it will be with a Funded, Directed, Devised for theatre show, Produced in the intimate surrounds of the Bosco Theatre ….. with a Personal Assistant.

Until then you can catch me at any of my forthcoming shows in London, Rome, Düsseldorf, Tokyo or Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert.... as I continue on this, my 11th consectutive year, as a solo freelance performance artist ... with no other source of income.

That's a wrap ladies and gentleman.

Well I had a hunch that all of the people out there who did love the show were too busy enjoying life and all it has to offer, to be sitting at home being a critic, and I was right !!

Below is a copy of the messages I received in my inbox in response to the posting of my blog as a bulletin, I thank them for their words of encouragement and support and look forward to seeing everyone again in a couple of years time.

 

Hope you are well love.

Interesting read Stah - I will leave just a short comment here as I could write for hours with a response to those 'misogynistic pricks'. The Fringe is about entertainment, experimentation and the chance to experience something unique. If you are a boring stiff who is easily offended, why do you buy tickets to an R rated show which is honest in its description in the guide?

On behalf of a large number of my friends, colleagues and family who went and saw your show I would like to congratulate you for having fantastic talent, energy, humour and uniqueness in what you brought to the audience. I loved it - you, Ryan and Le Gateau Chocolate. I was especially impressed with the hearfelt and honest 'speech' you gave to us at the end of the show.
We hope you come to Adelaide Fringe again - it would be a very boring world without performers like you. Never change.


Dahlia x

well i saw your show and i found it to be the best thing i had seen from the previous years of the fringe guide.
i think that anyone that didnt like it should shove their head back up their butt.

i found everything of the show amazing, even the choice of music.

dont feel bad, adelaide is a shit town due to the up-themselves people but you just need to find the right people. if you come back next year, there will be many others to marvel at your skills and suffer in the heat, word will get around.

Olivia

You really are remarkable, Thats all that I need to say.

Mikka

Andy is an ass who obviously has nothing better to do with his time than sit at home and reply to all the positivity you were recieving...lol :)

corinne grant is quite funny but your show was awesome... im not usually into the whole cabaret thing (which is how your show was described to me before i saw it) but i loved it! it was daring and cutting edge! i left with a smile!

I think any show that leaves people talking or gasping or in shock is a success... :)

awesome job :)

xx

 Wonderful Empress,

People are always going to be vicious about things that challenge them when they are not up to the challenge. Please let the constructive criticism taken you to even greater heights and as my mama would say "say goodbye to bad rubbish". I love what you do and I happen to have exemplary taste!

Love,
Lena Marlene XXOO

Saw you. Loved you.

Adeladians seem to be a little "old fashioned" and very sheltered. They would be BEGGING for your show in Melbourne!!

Hope to see you back in sleepy old Adelaide again soon...

(I'm moving to Melboure in a few months but will be sure to venture back to Adelaide for your show!!)

miss stah

i feel like i am having a dejavu...well a trip back in time

but really "fuck em"

i am not saying that a postmortem cabaret style is not good but really - dont go there.

the life of a creative is difficult enough without the vile bile and hatred of the average frustrated australian...

i remember you from SOOOOO long ago.

pre JACKSUE

you always have and always will want to go your own way - which is vital.

and i know we are not in communique but because of your bulletin i really felt compelled to get in touch.

i think australia is horrible - i know you may feel differently but - yes, i have some old freinds and family - but come on....and maybe this is my problem i am ashamed of being an 'australian' - but when i read things like this i have flash backs and remember why.

DONT STRESS, DONT feel the need to validate yourself and THE most and ONLY question worth asking is were YOU pleased with what you did? If yes, great if no - well you need to know how and where and why you want to change...on your terms for you and for your pleasure.

the roller coaster of development is rigorous...and i can see you are open to the process but also be stubborn and be resolved to be generous toward yourself.

i know its the festival and its meant to be a big deal (questionable) - but tune the voices out and tune yours in - and keep the bind faith required to do what you want to do.

anyway - thats enough from me....eat some good food, drink good wine and maybe look at a beach - thats what australia is good for.

take care

kind regards

Vanessa

Dear Empress Stah,

first congratulations on having the balls to take a show to the Adelaide Fringe on credit cards.
Or at all.

Second- to divide a crowd; how truly fabulous. To cause people to react for good or bad is far more impressive than to have them shrug their shoulders and walk away.
Well done.
I have some video footage of you at the Bongo Club doing your Aerial hoop routine to Donna Summer BTW, from the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh last year. It is beautiful. I'll be posting it on Youtube so let me know if you want a copy/ don't want that to happen.
I'm running the Bongo Club Cabaret this year, through the Bongo CLub hence the name change back from Vaudeville. If you're up, we'll always have you back, and I'm going for a much more twisted edge this year....

Kitty x

Good on ya Stah. Great to hear about your trip and show.

I've got an old faded t-shirt somewhere thats got a picture of JR "Bob" Dobbs smoking a pipe, with a delicate italic script above that reads;

'FUCK 'EM IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE'

;-)

big hugs x

John Gee

Adelaide Fringe Festival, Australia: 16th February - 15th March 2008

 

Is The Very Best of Empress Stah groundbreaking burlesque or hardcore strip show? Audiences seem divided over the artistic merit of some of the London based aerialist and cabaret performer's more sexually explicit acts.

 

Talking Point – The Adelaide Advertiser, 23^rd February 2008

 

"This is certain to be one of the most talked about and controversial acts of the fringe".

 

Georgia Gowing – The Independent Weekly 26^th February 2008 

 

Appalling, talent less and self defiant, lame shock value, over the top, pointless acts of cheap porn, crap,  pathetic and sad, no substance whatsoever and completely unfulfilling, sublime and ridiculous, daring, intelligent, very funny, trapeze and burlesque artist extraordinaire, a picture of style and grace, pure porn and shockingly good fun.

 

A selection of comments made 'about me' by reviewers and the paying public.

 

Now is the time to sit back and take stock of my bullet proof and nerves of steel forming Adelaide Fringe experience and as those mentioned above were happy to make their feelings known to all, so shall I.

 

So let me start by setting the scene. The Adelaide Fringe Festival is the 2^nd largest in the world, following hot on the heels of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Adelaide is physically located in the middle of nowhere, Australia, just about as far away from London as it is possible to get, without going on an arctic expedition.

 

The show was produced by me, with no funding, no manager and no assistant - only my canny intuition and exemplary organisational skills! On the other side of the pond, our venue, a cavernous 350 seat 6 pole circus tent known as The Umbrella Revolution, was produced by Strut n' Fret in The Garden of Unearthly Delights, which is a park in the middle of town that came to life with a bevy of exquisite venues, bars, performers, freaks and locals.

 

I might mention here that Adelaide was in the grip of a severe drought, with tight water restrictions and an average daily temperature of 38 degrees C. On the day of our 'bump in', the meagre 4 hours that we had to set the props, inform the stage managers, set the sound levels and plot the lights, it was a sweltering 48 degrees inside the tent and when we lowered the Chandelier down from the top of the tent it was so hot that you could not touch it, forget an aerial rehearsal.

 

Show time was around midnight each night, give or take half an hour, so it was definitely the R rated slot. Around about 3000 people saw the show over 20 performances and I made enough money to pay off the interest free credit cards that financed the entire venture. I am told that if you break even at a Fringe Festival then your show was a success!!!!

 

But what about all of the criticism that has been levelled at my performance? Talk about moving out of your comfort zone, where you know people know and love you!! The official reviews were fair, good but not brilliant, around 3.5 – 4 stars, people were coming up to me on the street telling me how wonderful I was and then there are the scathing remarks  left on the Talk Fringe website.

 

The Talk Fringe website is a place where your audience can go and air its feelings, for good or bad, better or worse, their opinions are there for the whole world to see. This is where the ones who hated it went to vent their experience. Now I am the kind of person who takes time to reflect on things, so after my initial horror subsided and I could look at these spiteful words again, I found that some of the comments resonated with me, yes I agree I could improve that while others were obviously written by misogynistic pricks, who missed the point. I have a question for Andy, the guy who was so taken by me that he kept returning to the page to slag off anyone's positive remarks, Who is Corrine Grant and What the Fuck is Interpretive Dance?

 

On a brighter note, my boys Ryan Styles and Le Gateau Chocolate were wonderful on every level of the production. It is not possible for me to comment on their performances as I never got to see any of them, I was too busy getting changed though occasionally I could peek through the curtains to see them shake their thang. From what I have read though I can say that Ryan's work was met with enthusiastic mixed reactions and some just not understanding, especially for the intimate and quite piece Old Age, though everyone unanimously loved the Balloon show and thought that he was beautiful. Le Gateau Chocolat was the crowd pleaser extrodinaire, for some he even stole the show and it's not hard to see why.

 

The plush intimate surroundings of the Soho Review Bar in the heart of London saw the shows first incarnation, with Ryan Styles and Dusty Limits as the host. A runaway success; it immediately sold out and was declared 2^nd best show of the year by the social section of Time Out, London. It was on the strength of the DVD from this event that I secured the slot in Adelaide. So how was the Adelaide show different from the London show? What was lost and what was gained in this trip around the world? How will I do it differently next time?

 

SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS - 3 & 1/2 STARS

The sublime and the ridiculous collide with the comic and the erotic in this mixed bag of adults only circus and burlesque. London - based Empress Stah is part aerialist, part bucks night entertainment as she produces glitter filled balloons and strings of jewels from her exposed nether regions, between often beautiful displays of acrobatic prowess while suspended from a hoop or shimmering chandelier.

In between, mime artist Ryan Styles shows himself to be an exquisite clown, enveloping himself inside a giant bouncing balloon, or donning drag to become INXS's gelignite-belted Suicide Blonde.

Finally, the gigantic, cross dressing opera singer Le Gateau Chocolat simultaneously exercises his penchant for body-hugging lycra and his magnificent deep voice with a series of outrageous yet moving numbers.

RIP IT UP - ADELAIDE STREET PRESS  -   ROSIE VAN HEERDE

All that glitters is gold - and Empress Stah absolutely breaks the mould. Her performance moved between the sensually weird to the erotically bizarre, and back again. Her trapeze skills are awesome and Gold Star, an entertaining exploration of ego was a dazzling way to start such a unique show. Other highlights included Love To Love You – absolute sensuality in motion – and her finale Swinging From The Chandelier was a breathtaking experience. Queen Of The Night was pure porn and shockingly good fun. Ryan Styles, a miming drag in a bubble; his physical skills a joy to watch. A nice surprise was Legato Chocolate; a big, beautiful, booming black drag queen with a killer baritone - in tight, leopard print spandex. His renditions of Circle Of Life and All By Myself were complete show stoppers. Not the place for timid souls but definitely one to catch if you like your cabaret crude, sexy and way left of centre.

THE INDEPENDANT WEEKLY - GEORGIA GOWING

Be warned: Empress Stah and her lovely ladyboys are not for the easily offended or the faint of heart. This show, which plays at the appropriately late hour of 11.30pm, is a little bit Bangkok, a little bit dungeon and a lot Las Vegas. The Empress is a trapeze and burlesque artist extraordinaire, but for Stah, nothing is going too far: there are vampire tricks, drips of hot wax, fire eating and some very graphic antics with a sex doll that will shock many.

The Empress opens the show by sashaying onto the stage wearing nothing but gold glitter and her costumes become steadily more extreme until the final act, when she ends up clad in just three spangled red hearts and a pair of red patent fetish shoes. Her strength and skill on the trapeze are nothing short of astounding and it is all done with the serenest of smiles.

Stah's support acts are Ryan Styles, a gorgeous drag artist who does incredible things with a giant balloon, and Le Gateau Chocolat. Le Gateau is a delicious roly poly confection wrapped in lycra, but he has a huge singing voice. The show's soundtrack is marvellous, ranging from pure cheese to classic rock, from Broadway to opera. This is certain to be one of the most talked-about and controversial acts of the Fringe. Umbrella Revolution in the Garden of Unearthly Delights until March 15.

ARTS HUB AUSTRALIA - ROHAN SHEARN

It's been called politically incorrect, pornographic, colourful, and humourous. The Very Best of Empress Stah is all that and more. Fresh from London's underground circuit, Empress Stah and her troupe are on their first visit to Australia at The Garden of Unearthly Delights.

Empress Stah is an award winning aerialist and twisted cabaret starlet who clearly aims to shock. Making her entrance in only a suit of gold glitter dust, Stah moves through a series of vignettes, each building in intensity from pouring hot candle wax over her body to drawing blood to enjoy as part of a champagne cocktail.

However, it's Stah's aerial work that is her forte. Her aerial hoop routine was a picture of style and grace, and her finale by swinging from a decadent chrome chandelier designed by Regis Hertrich, shows off her physical skill, wearing nothing more than some modestly placed hearts.

In between, drag mime artist Ryan Styles and audience pleaser, Le Gateau Chocolate dish up a variety of treats that is both entertaining and at times extraordinary.

Styles'performance is nothing short of surreal. From her dishevelled rendition of INXS's Suicide Blonde, resplendent in a fire red overcoat to her bubble routine with an over-sized balloon to reveal an Esther Williams inspired outfit, Styles is entertaining if not for the outlandish make-up.

Le Gateau Chocolate is an opera singing, bearded lady with a lycra fetish. From her opening number of The Lion King's 'Circle of Life' to the joyous ejaculation of party poppers in her rendition of Puccini's Nessum Dorma, Ms Chocolate holds this show together with some witty banter and interplay with the audience.

The show is a visual feast that only loses the occasional momentum with some awkward cross-overs between acts. But be warned: this performance is aimed squarely at a liberal minded audience, so keep the kids at home!

ADELAIDE THEATRE GUIDE - KYLIE PEDDLER

This Cabaret spectacle is eye-catching, humorous, exotic and at times pornographic. Definitely only for the liberal-minded adult.

Empress Stah's signature "Chandelier Swinging" and "Love to love you" (an aerial hoop routine) are a highlight of the evening. She executes her stunning trapeze moves with elegance and grace. So much so that it's difficult to accept other entrances and routines that are awkward or clumsy.

Ryan Styles' make up is an art unto itself. When complemented by his outlandish costuming, he entertains with glitter bombs, feathers and balloons. However his routines are often repetitive and on the dull side.

The biggest crowd pleaser is Le Gateau Chocolat, the opera singing diva, whose powerful warm sounds are easy to applaud. 'The Leopard in heels' singing the 'Circle of Life' demonstrates his love of lycra and captivates his audience with drag entertainment at its best.

A number of technical difficulties made the transition between artists unnecessarily long. The lighting design lacked variety, often leaving performers in shadow or washing out their facial expressions in its brightness. The exception was the creative silhouette effect of Styles' bubble act.

If you are looking for some late night entertainment, love glitter, unexpected eroticism and breathtaking aerial skills then you will find a lot in this show to please.

 

..> ..>

My show BEST SELLER in Garden opening weekend - Adelaide !

Hey Everyone Just wanted to let you all know that my show 'The Very Best of Empress Stah' with Ryan Styles and Le Gateau Chocolat had the biggest audiences out of any show in The Garden of Unearthly Delights @ The Adelaide Fringe, Australia.... for this opening weekend at least. We still have 18 more shows to go and 1000's more tickets to sell and the reviews will come out this week so the best is yet to come !! We have had loads of good press with a segway on the Channel 7 news, A huge picture and feature in the Adelaide Advertiser and a colour pic in the social pages. So with around 400 people in attendance over the last 2 nights it argues well for the rest of the month ..... I am so relieved ... phewwwww !!! So if you are in the area then come on down and join us. www.adelaidefringe.com.au Empress Stah xxx