NEW YORK, NY—The appearance of this performance troupe, fielded by the organization Suicide Girls, was the 30th stop on a two-month tour covering most sizable cities in the USA. For those unfamiliar, SG is a website-based and online community of exhibitionistic young women, almost all of whom are stunningly beautiful, extensively tattooed and pierced. The organization likes to think of itself as “beauty redefined.” SG are so far out and beyond women’s lib that they are blissfully uninterested in—and blatantly disrespectful of—the conventions of both feminism and of society’s traditional rules for women. Female sexuality is the core theme of SG, and there is an admitted undercurrent of bisexuality that runs through the group’s culture.
Katherine Suicide, official voice of Suicide Girls, came on stage sporting fire engine red tresses (on the website she appears with very different and various hair colors) to welcome the audience in her slight British accent. Have you noticed? Nothing is more suggestive of wanton decadence and sexual libertinism than a British accent. Besides addressing the audience and charging them up, Katherine made a frank appeal for photographers in the crowd (who isn’t one now?) to provide free promotional advertising for the show and the website by inundating the various social networks with pics of the goings-on, and she offered a few free subscriptions—which entails unlimited, members-only viewing—to the website for those selected by the backstage judges.
Choreographed dances involving the same three or four girls resembled nothing so much as a cross between traditional 20th century burlesque and the kind of antics you’d see in any go-go bar today. There was a lot of rolling the head around with hair twirling that highlighted the wildly unnatural coloration of the extra-long tresses which all the dancers seemed to sport.
DJ Mel Clarke played rock tunes with a heavy drum-and-bass style, few of which were recognizable hits with the exception of Marilyn Manson’s “Beautiful People” and the 1966 Sonny & Cher antique, “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).” The eerie sci-fi wail of a theremin served as accompaniment to mistress-of-ceremonies Katherine’s striptease act. Performers started each routine in skimpy outfits but sooner or later stripped down to g-strings, tattoos and an X in black tape on each breast. They were often barefoot or shod in socks or flats or sneakers, never high heels.
Some skits had them wearing gorilla masks, helmets, facemasks, barbarian style bikinis and a Batgirl cowl, making loose and incomprehensible reference to Planet Of The Apes, Star Wars and Game Of Thrones. One lanky, lime-haired beauty named Razzi lugged around a bottle of Jack Daniels on stage throughout the night, taking swigs now and again and sometimes spray-spitting the whiskey out over the front row spectators. The performances in general were more athletic than esthetic, loosely choreographed, pointless and surprisingly tame. The girls were certainly gorgeous to gaze upon, but the look was hippie-natural rather than glamorous. These were not the Rockettes.
As is often the case, things come full circle. Thus, in their attempts to shock and titillate or simply for lack of imagination, the SG/Blackheart Burlesque skin-show finds itself treading trodden trails. Some of the music and much of the show itself drew heavily from, not your father’s, but your grandfather’s burlesque peek-a-boo fan dance and all.
