Red Hots Burlesque Wrecks Conventions With Body TABOO defiance

Red Hots Burlesque just had its 10th anniversary, but also spawned a new multimedia midnight cabaret incarnation that will make Union Square weird as hell this Saturday night. Body TABOO defiance defies normal description, but producer Dottie Lux tells BrokeAssStuart.com, “It’s a performance art showcase of different interdisciplinary performance artists in the Bay, all loosely themed to the body”

These images give you a sense of the mindblowing outlandishness of Body TABOO defiance Saturday at the Shelton Theater.  Red Hots Burlesque every Friday at The Stud isn’t going anywhere, but Body TABOO defiance creates a new kind of burlesque show in more ways than one.

“There is not a host, which breaks away from the normal cabaret style,” Lux says. “Instead we use video and audio as transitions. It’s multimedia and immersively exciting.”

Image: Jake Jacobs Photography

Saturday’s show features pussy stunt artist Max Madame (“Oh, the thing we can do in theater,” Lux says), performance art creature The Abominatrix, contortionist Harvest Moon performing with something she describes as ‘The Apparatus’, and Kitty von Quim whom Lux says will be doing “some burlesque and some theater performance art about what it’s like to be a big person in a small world.”

Other performers include Mone’t Ha-Sidi from Black Arts Matter dropping poetry and vocal interpretation, and dance and drag sensation Miss Rahni NothingMORE. “Miss Rahni is also a trained opera singer, which most people don’t know,” Lux tells us. “It’s very exciting to see someone use those two mediums together.”

The show is a midnight cabaret at the Shelton Theater, but you really do have to get there before midnight. “We don’t do late seating. Once the show starts, we don’t seat anyone else,” she says. “It’s advisable that people get there closer to 11:30.” (The Shelton has two bars, so there are ways to occupy yourself.)

Body TABOO defiance runs at the Shelton on April 28 and May 26, with a possible extension to June, in a theater district that ironically does not have many burlesque shows.

“I’m very excited to be breaking out of a strictly burlesque and drag world, and really reaching out to folks who frequent the Union Square area,” Lux tells BrokeAssStuart.com. “You have a lot of people who are new to San Francisco, a lot of people who are visiting, a lot of people who enjoy the bars and restaurants in that area. Those are the people who we’re hoping to change, hopin to give them a moment that impacts them and leaves them inspired,”

Or as Dottie Lux said in a release announcing Body TABOO Defiance, “It’s like a month of our weekly show condensed into a thick bullion that you’ll be thrilled to slurp up and let soak into your digestive and circulatory systems.”

Body TABOO defiance, Saturday, April 28 and May 26, 8 p.m., at the Shelton Theater,  533 Sutter St., $20-$100, Tickets here