Ab SchSuicide Girls: Blackheart Burlesque
Friday, April 10 at 9 p.m.
Encore at West Edmonton Mall(8882 170 Street)
$29.50 (ticketfly.com)
When very limited representations of attractiveness are sensationalized, unconventional forms of beauty are often overlooked.
“What people think makes us weird, or fucked up, we think is what makes us beautiful”: This is Missy Suicide’s mantra for the Suicide Girls, an online collection of alternative pin up girls. Started in 2001, the website features pierced and tattooed pin-up models striving to redefine what is considered beautiful.
The brainchild of Selena Mooney (Missy Suicide) started at a point where the most celebrated form of beauty in the media were either waif-thin models or Pamela Anderson-esque buxom blondes. She wanted to recognize the beauty of the women around her on a public platform.
“I thought that the girls that I knew were some of the most beautiful girls in the world,” Mooney says.
“But everywhere I looked in the media there was no one like them at all. I wanted to showcase their beauty. So I took pin-up style photos of them and posted them online.”
Where Suicide Girls differentiates itself from other pin-up sites is the personality that each girl can bring to the blog they are provided when they create an account. They can share their ideas and their interests with their followers, giving them more personality than the average pin-up.
Since its conception, Suicide Girls has grown from a select few of Missy Suicide’s friends to almost 3,000 models from every continent (including Antarctica). 25,000 women apply to be a Suicide Girl each year — it has become such a worldwide phenomenon that expanding into a touring show seems like a natural progression.
Armed with nipple coverings and fishnet stockings, the touring Suicide Girls: Blackheart Burlesque was born.
“In the same way that the photosets are an update on the classic pin-up, the Blackheart Burlesque is an update on classic burlesque,” Mooney says. “So the girls get to bring their personalities and their interests.”
The burlesque features intensely choreographed dances, all with a geeky themes ranging from Game of Thrones to superhero to Fifty Shades of Grey. While the act is choreographed, the girls are allowed to bring their own ideas and interests to the burlesque. From stripping Hermione Granger to sexy Adventure Time, everything and anything is fair game.
“The girls have various geeky pursuits so we tailor the dances to be what’s happening in pop culture,” Mooney notes.
Just like the process for becoming a Suicide Girl, the process for becoming part of the Blackheart Burlesque troupe is difficult and strenuous. A tryout was recently hosted, where 80 girls auditioned for a chance to be a part of the group. They keep between 25–30 girls rehearsed at all times, and whoever is available for different legs of the tour go.
Along with rotating troupes, the show is also a little different in every country. The host of the evening changes frequently, along with some changes to the nature of the show. Mooney notes that after Canada, Blackheart is heading to Singapore, where because of different laws, the show needs to be a little tamer.
While aspects of the show may shift from country to country, the show always maintains the same goal of broadening standards of beauty. The Blackheart Burlesque promises three things: babes, boobs and a lot of body modifications.
“The girls get little black heart tattoos for every time they go on tour,” Mooney says. “So some have one and some have five, so that’s a little thing to watch for.”
