Bella Sin, renowned as the “Cleveland Burlesque Queen" (as well as a Cleveland Magazine "Most Interesting Person" from 2011), has been setting the stage for burlesque in Cleveland for nearly two decades.
As the owner and executive producer of Cleveland Burlesque LLC and the Ohio Burlesque Festival, Sin will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Cleveland Burlesque on March 30 at Beachland Ballroom, with the Nouveau Decadence Burlesque Revue performance.
With an international cast and local talent, Sin and their team deliver a professional burlesque entertainment experience like no other. The event will include performances from world-famous burlesque dancers such as Ms. B LaRose from Chicago and Cha Cha Nova from Las Vegas. The show will also feature local starlets including Ruby Rabbit from Akron and Lola Loveletter from Cleveland.
We talked to Sin about their accomplishments in the burlesque realm and what influence it has on Cleveland’s history.
Cleveland Magazine: How would you describe burlesque? What’s its purpose?
Sin: I would describe burlesque as a show where you will not only see beautiful, lavish costumes; fantastic, energetic, beautiful performances — storytelling, opera and singing of varieties that have over 100 years of cultural theatrical significance in the world; that also includes the art of disrobing.
It is a bygone era of glamor, elegance, and over-saturation of rhinestones. The mission of it is not only to empower one as a person, but also to get you away for two hours in one of the most fantastical shows, where you're going to put your phone away and laugh and cry and cheer and hoot and holler, and have delicious drinks and food and just be around a bunch of different people from different walks of life, where you're going to see a diverse and inclusive production that is going to make you feel good. We want to entertain every single person that's coming there. I think it’s all about the excitement of live theater, but for adults.
CM: What is special about the 20-year anniversary? What are some of the accomplishments achieved in the past two decades?
Sin: We're the only burlesque show that has been recognized by city officials, state officials. We’ve received proclamations from our city officials as well as our mayor. We have been featured in NPR, the History Channel. We have won multiple awards for the Ohio Burlesque Festival and for Cleveland Burlesque shows. We have worked with the Cleveland Film Festival. We have worked with the Cleveland Opera Company. We have not only become the go-to for burlesque purveyor or independent booking as well as aerials, fire drag and opera singing.
On top of that a book was written about my work and our mission, and the work of Ohio burlesque and Cleveland burlesque. It’s called Rust Belt Burlesque: The Softer Side of a Heavy Metal Town by Bob Perkoski and Erin O'Brien. That book is in every single library in the country, including the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Nevada.
We do a lot of volunteering and activism as far as our local community to help aid anybody in need. We're really big about building Cleveland, and Clevelanders have built us and helped us so we're very much about that.
CM: What is the history of burlesque in Cleveland?
Sin: We’re preserving the history of burlesque in Northeast Ohio. Not only are we teaching it through a string of talks in the Cleveland Library this year, but we are constantly working to preserve the stories of old Cleveland and its burlesque community and the burlesque industry that used to be here. We were the fifth largest city in the country, so we had so many theaters, and a lot of those women and men that were a part of those theatrical performances, we still talk to them and take care of them because they’re our elderly now. They’re our legend.
I think that the biggest win for me is when I sit on the corner of St. Vincent and East Ninth Street where The Roxy used to be. But I sit on that corner and just imagine the hustle and bustle back in the '40s and the '30s of Cleveland when that theater was up, and I just imagine that those people are not being forgotten.
CM: What goes into the making of the costumes?
Sin: Every costume you will see on stage we have made by hand. It’s very labor intensive. All the rhinestones go into those costumes by hand, one by one. It’s part of the learning process in our Cleveland Burlesque Academy, which has been open for 15 years. We teach people how to make and sew and build their dream act — from the underwear, to the pasties, to the bras, to the gowns and obviously the rhinestones, everybody makes their costumes. You're going to see a beautiful array of handmade custom costumes that each performer has made themselves, and it's mind-boggling to some people that we come up with these ideas. We’re sitting there sketching our costumes and putting them together and investing so much in this five minute performance. But you’re essentially going to see that allure of the feathers and lace and rhinestones and shimmer and all that is here in Cleveland. You don’t have to go to Vegas.
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