Burlesque & Chill's LEVEL UP Burlesque Workshop

Join us for burlesque classes and a workshop geared toward intermediate burlesque performers with at least 1 year of performance experience.

For Burlesque & Chill's fourth burlesque workshop and class series, we've invited Vixen DeVille to teach a class and as our expert adjudicator for the peer review workshop in a beautiful, small theatre space built in the 1930s in Pasadena, CA thanks to our friends at Act I Act III.

You can join us for one class, both classes, our workshop or all three! Get information on our class offerings and details about our workshop below.

1pm - 2:15pm - In Your Feels with Mae Lust

2:30pm - 3:45pm - Reveal Your Narrative with Vixen DeVille

4 pm - 5pm or 6pm - Peer Review Showcase

Emotion, Volume & Intensity in Performance

1pm-2:15pm

Access and integrate genuine emotions into your performances for a more striking and authentic connection with your movement and your audience.

In this class, you'll:

• Learn about the fundamental range of emotions
• Locating emotion in your body
• Explore varying emotional intensities expressed through movement and music
• Identify a personal movement set that authentically conveys your emotional range through sensual movement

Utilizing handouts and movement exercises, students will identify personal emotional expression and play with different 'volume levels' with which to articulate them in their performances.

We will be exploring a practice accepting & integrating all the shades of our glorious emotional selves into our art - rage and sadness alongside desire and joy.

This queer, campy, kinky and curvy femme has spent over 25 years in theatre & has been a fixture in the Los Angeles burly scene for the past 14 years. An award-winning director, she founded Lusty Kitten Productions in 2013. She produces and hosts multiple monthly shows in L.A., and you can find her performing with both the LKP and Burlesque & Chill troupes in SoCal as well as digitally!

Engaged in education and curriculum-building for decades, she also mentors burlesque and teaches somatic movement workshops, drawing on her theatrical knowledge as well as her therapist training. She holds degrees in film from USC as well as an MFT from Pacific Oaks.

Storytelling Techniques for the Burlesque Artist

2:30pm-3:45pm

Every shimmy, strut, and reveal tells a story! So let’s make that INTENTIONAL and MEMORABLE!

What you'll learn:

• Character Development: Easily create a distinct persona and instantly colour your performance with meaning
• Story Structure and Strip Progression: Take your audience on an intentional emotional journey, and make every moment count
• The Audience as Your Scene Partner: Evoke emotions through your storytelling and draw them into your narrative world
• Strip with Attitude: give specific meaning to every peel and reveal to keep the audience emotionally engaged
• Purposeful Props: Discover techniques to maximise your props effectiveness to enhance your story
• Music and Soundtrack: Examine and refine your approach to music selection and use of sound effects or voice over

Add depth and meaning to your performance and elevate your acts from choreographed sequences of movements, to a captivating story that draws in your audience. This workshop offers essential skills and techniques to enhance your storytelling expertise, create emotional connection and, above all, a memorable, show-stopping performance.

Vixen DeVille is an award-winning, multi-talented, international Variety Burlesque performer, and live event Host, specializing in fire-eating, glass-walking, aerial hoop, and magic.

Prior to starting her burlesque career in London, England in 2006, Vixen graduated from Middlesex University with a BA(hons) in Devised Theatre and Solo performance. In 2004 she co-founded Theatre Company "Room For Pudding" which specialised in devised and immersive theatre, and it is these techniques of theatre creation and solo performance that Vixen thrives in bringing to her burlesque creations and to that of her students.

She founded the Vixen DeVille Burlesque Academy in 2014 with the goal to empower humans of ALL ages, abilities, shapes and sizes, to break free of others’ restrictive and damaging labels and, to instead, rediscover and celebrate their inner badass, their inner goddess, their inner Vixen!

"So much work goes into creating an act and yet, with just the extra tweak here and there you can take an act from something that is pleasing to the eye to something that is nourishing for the soul - It's great to see a beautiful act on stage, it can be life changing when it really means something!"

*Photo from our workshop with guest instructor/adjudicator Lili VonSchtupp

If you’ve got an act that you are ready to take to the next level, we’ve created a safe space to receive critiques and feedback from peers and local show producers.

4pm - 5 or 6pm (depending on number of registrants)

Get structured, verbal feedback from instructors and peers, written feedback from peers, and a video of your act and verbal feedback.

Getting structured, actionable feedback from not only fellow dancers, but the people who do the booking allows you to zero in on what is holding you back, or what you need to take it up a notch.

This workshop is intended for performers with at least 1 year of performance experience and want to...

• Put the finishing touches on a new act prior to debuting it
• Polish an existing act for festivals and show submissions
• Revisit an act to gain new perspectives on its strengths and weaknesses and spark ideas for revising it

A stack of notecards will be handed out to all participants and viewers. Each notecard will have a performer's name on it who is showing work. Participants will be notified of the order they will be showing their work in advance and the performances will be filmed for the performer's review and to use as they please. Participants will also kitten for one of their fellow performers.

Upon registering

You will be sent a form with some questions about your act, your comfortability with receiving feedback, if there is any specific feedback you are wanting to receive, and you will be prompted to upload your music. You will also be given a code to invite a partner or friend for encouragement and emotional support for free!

Before the showcase

You will be given a "show order" letting you know when you will be showing your act and who you will be kittening for. The order will be completely random.

During the showcase

Every performer gets 15 minutes of "performance time" to show up to 5 minutes of their act followed by structured, verbal feedback from instructors and their peers. Participants and viewers are encouraged to use verbal feedback questions as jumping-off points to guide their written feedback for each performance. Kiva Siani will be providing live feedback during their act which participants get a recording of after the workshop.

Feedback will follow this structure:

1. What did you see? (No positive or negative judgments allowed, simply describe the act you just saw.)
2. Address performer's specific feedback - if requested
3. Was anything confusing or unclear?
4. What's the biggest area for improvement for this act?
5. What are the performer's strengths and the strongest component of this act/what really worked or what made it great?

End of the showcase

At the close of the workshop, performers will get their stack of notecards containing their written, peer feedback to take home and review on their own time.

After the showcase

Within one week, performers will receive a video of their act and the discussion that followed for review, plus, get a comp ticket to the Burlesque & Chill show of your choice.

Reach out to Miss Lady Legs at [email protected] or via IG DM @burlesqueandchill

*Above photo by Meredith Carlson

Event Venue

Crown Theatre, 140 South Rosemead Boulevard, Pasadena, United States