Two Chicago girls at the Texas Burlesque Fest: first person visitor report

Natasha Minsk and myself (Red Hot Annie) were lucky enough to be asked to be part of the 2009 Texas Burlesque Fest, and we made our trip down to Austin from May 14-18. We did a number of exciting things while in the fair city of Austin, and here’s the reader’s digest version!

We shot with Chris Ledford of Bluebonnet Bombshells - who does the best burlesque and pinup work in Austin. We had brought along a number of burlesque costumes as well as some of Natasha’s Cheesecake Vintage dresses.

We also snuck in and shot inside the Driskill. It’s gorgeous. Next time I come to Austin, I know where I’m staying…at $250 a night, I’d have to do a lot of burlesque shakin’ to make enough to stay there!

Around 7 p.m., we headed down to the bridge on Congress to see the bats! We’d heard from a number of sources about how amazing it was. We ended up getting there pretty early, and we had to wait sort of a long time before the bats came out - but when they did…Wow! We expected a minute or two of bats flying out, but they must have been coming out for 10-15 minutes in beautiful ribbons. And in our spot, down by the river, the bats were actually flying right over our heads. Frightening, but worth it!

One of the first vintage stores we found was along Congress Street - Lucy in Disguise. When you walk around a costume store like that, you get about a billion ideas for other costumes you could use on stage. We each walked out with a couple adorable sequined goodies for shows and photo shoots.

We stopped at a couple other thrift stores, including Lux Revival (where I found a celluloid Jesus!) and New Bohemia where I got a great big fuchsia skirt that I couldn’t resist wearing that same day! Delicious cupcakes at Hey Cupcake! I got mine with a shot of fresh whipped cream in the middle!

We also had dinner at El Soy y La Luna with the girls from Jigglewatts - I have to say, those girls from Jigglewatts are super-talented. We saw them perform later that night at the Texas Burlesque Fest, before they headed off to Dallas that evening for another show. Ruby Joule and Coco Lectric did amazing solos and even got together for a fan dance duet that knocked it out of the park.

We headed down to Emos to get a good look at the backstage area for the show! It’s a great outdoor venue, but some of the backstage parts were a little daunting - especially the catwalk between the stage and the dressing rooms. Little did we know - our show on Saturday sold out! Our acts went well, and the audience cheered us on like crazy. I was a little nervous about performing, which is a rarity for me these days - but being in front of a totally different audience can be a little daunting. Still, I think both of our acts went really well, and we can be proud!

After the show, we had a very early 3 a.m. breakfast at Magnolia with a couple great girls, including Katherine Lashe, Renea Le Roux (who is competing this year for Miss Exotic World) and Cha Cha Velour! Wee!

On Sunday, we had a photo shoot with Steve Hopson. He shot a variety of great images of the two of us together and apart. We shot at his studio on the south side of Austin, where we pulled out some burlesque costumes, as well as some vintage swimwear from my personal collection.

For our final professional commitment, we got a last minute shoot in with Wylie Maercklein - in our hotel room, and walking around the streets of Austin. We’ve already gotten some of our pictures back from him, so you can see those at our respective websites!

It was a wonderful trip, and Austin was incredibly accommodating and pleasant. Only one day of rain, and the rest of the trip was warm and sunny and delicious - especially to Chicago girls like us!

Love,

Red Hot Annie and Natasha Minsk