April O'Peel - Vancouver Burlesque Performer

Alot of Burlesque (in my very humble opinion) has to do with imagination; whats your story!? And how does it consequently play out!  You need to use yours and make the audience use theirs in order to create something worth watching; something that is entertaining!! A formula we like to use when explaining how to create a fantabulous Burletta of yer very own is the ole’ set up, build up, and pay off. You want to create expectation, build tension, and then resolve your story with the biggest bang possible (this usually involves boobs..SHA-POW my friends.. shhhaaaa-pow!!) In the last few years we have used this formula when creating short sketches to be slotted between acts; the Bananas being a regular feature but we have also tried other characters. Usually we will have a reoccurring scene happening about three times throughout the show; the first two being shorter in length involving just one gag or a reoccurring gag. Either of these will then escalate during the third scene.  A set that I have particular fondness for are the Bugs!! I swear we must have been really really high on life when we decided that this was clearly the funniest thing we had ever thought of. I really enjoyed this set!!! This was party because of how silly the characters were. They were so much fun to play! I’m serious!! Go ahead and act like a bug for 2 minutes and see how happy it makes you!!  The scenes featured myself, Sister Madly and Whats-Her-Name as a Bee, a Lady Bug and I guess a Stink-Bug?? You'll see what I mean. The first 2 sets were short and featured happy bug dancing with terror from a lawn mower at the end. The lawn mower was our reoccuring gag within each dance. I'm not quite sure it really came across but maybe if I let you in on that detail you'll understand what the eff we are doing!!!! 

The other reason I feel warm feelings in my heart about these skits involves the choreography; I honestly do not know what this style of dance is called? I call it “wocka-wocka” dancing. Its basically influenced by what I think comedic or soft shoe dancing at a Vaudeville show looked like. Something I can only reference by what I’ve seen in cartoons, on the muppets or in Musicals. I would love to know and learn more about what it is I think I’m doing!!! The closest I’ve seen to it would’ve been at this years BHOF on Legends night when Rubber Legs performed! Oooooohhhh myyy gooodd!!!! I can’t even describe it!! It was basically a comedic dance where he was pretending to be drunk but was dancing in the most amazing way. Almost spilling his beer, spinning it around!! I can’t describe it- I just can’t! I have never seen anything like it ever!!! The closest I can find on youtube is  Joe Frisco, who was an American vaudeville performer.

 I seriously want to do this!!! . As far as I can tell, this is what early jazz dance looked like; Strange to think of its evolution between this and what I knew as Jazz dance aka the 80s. I’ve also found some super neat clips of the dance duo Al and Leon from around that same era! It's making me think that if I take some Lindy Hop classes, I might have a better idea where I want to go with this. 

I honestly have the goal of trying to do a comedy number that emulates this style and doing it really well and having it be super high energy. I want to be someone who is cool enough to do a tribute number to Rubber Legs one day! I guess I will just have to stalk the shit out of him at next years BHOF haha! Until then, I leave you with the bugs; which is definitely less technically adept but hopefully silly enough to compare on the fun scale! 

This number came together sooooo easily for me. Sometimes the process of what I’m trying to do will take quite abit longer to get together.. but this one? I guess its all my experience as an aspiring crazy cat lady. 

 I was inspired firstly by the song. It reminds me of the scene from the 80’s childrens classic, “The Last Unicorn” where the bumbling magician Schmendrick accidentally brings a tree to life and it basically starts to rape him. I’m sorry but tree rape IS funny!!!  I essentially felt the song demanded that type of Elmyra character and proceeded to find inspiration in the relationship between me and my cat Joey Lawrence. I love Joey.... but Joey does not love me!!! WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME YOU BASTARD CAT!!! WWWHYYYYYYYYYYY!!!! It turns out that cats do not like  a.) pretending they are mink stoles  b.) playing Angelina and Maddox or c.) being clenched tightly by a love barnacle such as myself. Stupid Joey. So yes.. the desperate wanting of a cats love I am familiar with. I just used a sketch formula that I learned from the super awesome amazing Morgan Brayton to beef up my storyline. 

Basically what I learned is that every sketch, which like comedic burlesque is a short, self-Contained, scripted, hilarious scene. This scene needs to exist in a comedic reality. Anything can happen here (as long as its funny)!! And within your story you need a premise, some complications, an ending. In my story the premise is that I’m a crazy cat lady (yaaah.. the premise is that i’m a crazy cat lady.. the premise...), my complication is that my kitty does not love me as much as I love him, and my ending is.. well I’m going to make you watch the video!! HA HA!!  Now I do love my kitty but I will say I haven’t yet reached the level of insanity where I would actually do any of these things to any cat that my character does in my ending (just the level necessary to think it is really really funny..); but I also learned that in your comedic reality the best way to find your ending is to let the situation escalate and you will find your answer there. How would your character react to the conflict?  You will also probably be able to note my reference to the crazy cat lady from the Simpsons. A little homage to one of my favorite comedy shows and probably the best crazy cat lady ever.

 So in closing, I post pictures of me torturing my cat and the wish that you enjoy this small glimpse into my future. For more kitty-cat antics, please join me and the rest of the Chickens at this weekends edition of the Taboo Revue. I will be performing a sort of follow-up piece to this number. I KNOW YOU CAN’T WAIT!!! 

Yes I seriously called it that!! Did you get it?? Like Sunday Bloody Sunday but more haha?? Oh nevermind.. but annnyywayyyy.. once of my finest accomplishments to date has been the masterminding of our entry into the Burlesque Hall of Fame entry for the 2010 pageant. This was one of the largest and most elaborate undertakings I have ever attempted. We wanted the number to be available to anyone who was interested in heading down to Vegas aka another all inclusive number. Little did we know that over 30 members of Screaming Chicken would end up in Vegas this summer. Our number consisted of 23 performers from our membership!! You read me correctly... twenty freekin three. Insert migraine here. Ok it wasn’t that bad but there were definitely some challenges. Most of them involving scheduling, performer abilities, me spraining my ankle, and a last minute change in choreography. At one time there was to be a singing section but, c’est la vie, it didn’t pan out- this is were we learned to be adaptable and we created a new section of spoon-wielding-malt-shopping cute faces. Overall we made it through (somehow) and I’m pretty sure we did alright! Being accepted to compete at all was an honor and I’m pretty sure everyone had a blast performing for their contemporaries and heroes. 

Now I had never been to Exotic World before but it was my understanding that the majority of the acts that are entered and that do well consist of a classic style. I had been doing lots of research on Burlesque history in the last year for my ABCDD’s of Burlesque blog and I had plenty of ideas I wanted to incorporate. The actual idea of an ice cream sundae number belongs to Melody Mangler; I just took the frame of the idea and interpreted it thusly. 

We figured out awhile ago that the best way for us to do jumbo group numbers is to break the group into 3 or more sections. This way, no one will need to remember more than a minute or so of choreography and hopefully ensure the number will look nice and tight! My big vision was that we would have 4-5 groups representing different parts of an ice cream sundae and different elements of Burlesque history! A three minute homage to the past! 

Now originally, we had some grandiose plans about a singing section. They were to be dressed as malt shop employees and singing in 4 part harmony with live accompaniment. OoLaLa! The song we used, had been chosen for the group by the talented songstress Nicky Ninedoors; “My Sugar is so Refined” by the Hi-Los. I had been having the worst time trying to find something that had to do with ice cream and had a vibe I felt I could create to so I was SUPER grateful that she had found something.  Unfortunately plans fell through for our singy types so I made the decision to use canned music and slot the malt shop kids into the already choreographed number! This was... tricky. I was a little less inspired with their group in terms of Burlesque history due to this development. Ima all like “uhhh.. you can have giant spoons!!! ya!!! thats what we need... giant prop spoons to eat the sundae with...”  In retrospect I can say that this element had definitely been inspired by the giant prop everything trend that is currently so popular so really, it ended up being a nice combo of old meets new! Perfect! I also must give ample credit to the infamously adorable and innovative Joanie Gyoza for building us our spoons!! THANK YOU JOANIE!!!! I LOVE YOU MORE THAN A NARWHALE LOVES THE ARCTIC SEA.... WHICH IS ALOT.. CUZ HE WOULD DIE IF HE DIDN’T HAVE IT.. SO YA..ITS ALOT!!!!! 

The first group to enter originally would’ve been the Ice Cream girls! I had this vision of how we could use flip skirts to create the image of ice cream scoops. If anyone was asking me.. I thought this was pretty fecking clever. But really..I say vision. Not skill to make. I like me some dancey dancey. I HATE me some sewy-sewy.  For these imaginings to take place we desperately need the skills of Andra the Diamond Minx. Andra took charge as our costuming director. And she was AMAZING!! Oh my god the hours she put in.. and the patience she had working with us! She managed to direct even the most useless of us tailor types into becoming functioning Sergers (I USED A SERGER!!OH EM GEE!!!) as the Coop became some sort of really pretty sweat shop. The element of Burlesque history I had been influenced by with the Ice Cream ladies were Zeigfeld style showgirls. Lots of pageantry and elaborate costuming. Classy ladies!!

The next ingredient in our sundae just happened to be the sauce! I had wanted to showcase bump and grind golden era movements combined with a Bellydance aesthetic, both important parts of BurlyQ history. A mutant combo of bump and grinders with scarves basically!! 

Next came the Bananas!!! Turns out we are making a banana split!! Boo-ya!! This seemed especially obvious to us as Screaming Chicken already had their own resident banana group! The bananas usually consist of meself, VaVa Vunderbust, and Joanie Gyoza. The bananas are always up to their banana-sleeves in high-jinx and tomfoolery during Taboo Revues!! Their wacky styles seemed a perfect element to incorporate in order to pay homage to the wocka-wocky style of the baggy pants comedians. We didn’t realize it at the time but it ended up being even extra more perfecter (I know.. perfecter is not a word.. but it was!!) when we found out that Vaudeville comedians were often ranked as “Top Banana”, “First Banana”, and “Second Banana!!!” How perfecter is that!!??  It ended up working out better in terms of man placement to have the ultimate Super-vaudevillian Sex Luthor take my place as a banana. Altho I was sad to see the bananas having fun without me, he did a super awesome amazing job!!! All the bananas gave great face!!! 

Now what sundae is complete without whipped cream and a cherry on top!? The casting in terms of these parts was pretty easy. Combine our tallest member, Duncan Teabags, as the whip cream man... with one of our most petite and not to mention ginger, Voodoo Pixie, as the cherry on top... and we have ourselves an Ice Cream Sundae!! I wanted our final picture to be a throwback to the epic Tableaux Vivants of yesteryear. Now... my one oopsie was that I didn’t realize we could just ask them to lower the curtain on our final pose and be done with it. I DIDNT KNOW!! sigh. And one of the items on the judging criteria was:

Entrance to and Exit from Stage: Don’t forget that first and last impressions count!

That is copied and pasted right from the flipping application people!!! So I orchestrated this really nice exit for each of the groups, one group at a time, so it didn’t look like a complete clusterfuck of 23 people tromping off the stage. Like really.. it took me 3 minutes just to get them all on there! But this took an extra 30 seconds in a pageant that runs about 6 hours... everybody just wants shiz to get going right fecking now. Soooo unfortunately..we looked like assholes. Miss Astrid made fun of us. Fuck. IT’S ALL MY FAULT!!!! I’m sorry team. I thought it looked nice.. and really... our number was 3 minutes long.. everybody elses ran at least 5!!  Waah, Waah! In my defense, I would also like to add that I saw alot of people schlumping off after their acts. We may have looked like assholes BUT at least we looked like assholes who gave a shit about their exit. But jeepers, lesson learned! To everyone out there who is wanting to enter a group or even a solo.. LEARN FROM MY PAIN!! Just get them to lower the effing curtain...IT IS AN OPTION!  

I really wanted this number to be an Ah-Ha! sort of thing. I didn’t want people to know right away what was happening..but have it all fall into place as the number progressed! The issue with this.. was that some people would have no idea what just happened. One reviewer called our number a “fever dream.” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! I was devastated. I also think he might actually have been on mushrooms cause he describes Duncan as being on roller skates. Uhh.. no. I can see how you would.. no...actually I can’t. You are on mushrooms guy! There were no roller skates at any point! It does make for a better story tho. In another article however, they noted how it all fell into place for them... annnd she even said “Bing!”  YAYYYYY!!!


I have to say that this number caused me alot of stress. I wanted so badly for us to do well. It was alot of pressure!!! And there were alot of setbacks.. alot, alot. Buuuut...ultimately I am happy with the overall concept of the idea. I am proud of how hard everyone worked and came together to create a really memorable experience. I also am grateful for the experience in that it taught me to be adaptable, how to be a better leader, the value of organization..and not to mention the extreme value in the help of your friends. Thank you so much to everyone who helped make the number a reality, to the performers for their beautiful performance and for putting up with me when I was being a freakshow! I love you so much and I couldn’t have done it without you!! Our baby might have looked like a hallucination caused by extreme fever to some, but it was our baby and I think he is beautiful! 

Sooo.. all that said and done!! And I have no final video of our performance at BHOF!!! Boooo!! I am hoping its out there somewhere and that I can one day share it with you! You’ll just have to imagine it till then. History combined with the themes of fantasy, class, and inclusiveness within our group making our number a truly unique contribution to the pageant.  

Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society had been cranking out female burlesque performers through our signature program Becoming Burlesque for some time. But now... at long last.. it was finally time to see if there were enough man types out there daring enough to learn how to make it and shake it. 

Lo and Behold the first graduating class of Becoming Boylesque! I ran this class with Boylesque champion, Evil Bastard in May of 2009. In just 6 classes we had turned the boys next door into a whole lot more! This was especially impressive considering the girls usually have an extra 2 classes to master their final group dance. They did an amazing job and have gone on to perform this number at a Taboo Revue and at the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival where they received a standing ovation!!  Dang boys! Look at you now!! 

Choreographing for boys is a whole nother ball game. Especially for untrained (mostly) hetero doods. I had to find a way for them to be able to dance but still look and feel cool and confident and possibly not too silly (at least until the end har har). Because I choreograph mostly for the female of the species, I had to make sure I was utilizing moves that didn’t come across too “girly.” I had to think about famous man dances and dancers and try to find a style that would be appropriate.  

Now it was obvious to me at least that we wouldn’t be doing any Baryshnikov inspired pieces (at least not right away har har) and even Gene Kelly style soft shoe seemed abit ambitious for a first attempt at a group number... But then it occurred to me that I had desperately been wanting to do a Motown inspired piece for some time. The boy group dancing of that era would be the perfect fit in terms of simplicity and cool. 

My inspiration for the first part of this number came from actual footage of the Temptations. You can see where I blatantly stole some of their moves for the boys. Evil Bastard suggested the second song of “Too Many Dicks” from Flight of the Concords and it proved a perfect contrast to the first song. I often use the ole switcharoo in choreography. First setting up the audience with a slower song establishing character-which in this case were super slick and suave manly men dancers. The switch occurs after they all start to compete for the attention of “My Girl,” and leads to some funny man dancing. As we teach in the class, comedy in Boylesque, is the fastest way to get the audience on your side. It can be really hard for a man to come across as “sexy” when dancing. It can be done, but its alot more challenging. Comedy is in my opinion a very major and necessary ingredient for most Boylesque routines. When you make your audience laugh, they will automatically like you because of it, and your job gets a whole lot easier. Besides, nothing is sexier than a good sense of humor, a dash of self deprecation and lets not forget about confidence!!! I was really happy with the end result and am proud to say that many, if not most of the boys from the class have gone on to enjoy successful performing careers within Vancouver’s Bur(boy)lesque community.   

If you are manly or know someone manly who would be great at or interested in becoming Vancouver’s next Brolesque sensation, I will be co-teaching another session of Becoming Boylesque this October. I will be joined by the infamously dashing Boylesque ingenue Teddy Smooth and together.. we will guide... and teach you the electric slide!!! For more information, please contact april@screamingchicken.net. 

The second video is the one I used for blatant move stealing

Here is a link to their performance at the VIBF; they managed to replace  dancer AND practice it up to tip top standards all by their lonesomes!! My doves have wings!! *sniff sniff 

One of my more controversial pieces was inspired strangely enough, by Showgirls. Although alot of my choreo is inspired by Vegas Showgirls, the Showgirls I’m referring to here is that amazingly craptastic 90s movie starring Jesse from Saved by the Bell. I LOVE her character in that movie. So ridiculous!! She is just pissed off at everything! The whole movie is her being pissed off and running away. My favorite scene is when she is angrily eating her fast food. Hilarious!! Got me to thinking about the relationship between the action of being anger and comedy. Basically roots back to the idea of incongruent comedy; the inconsistency with set ideas usually ends up being funny. What could I be angry about that you aren’t normally angry about?

I went with angry Dad because at some other point I was trying to think of different things I could shake other than ma boobs. I remember when I thought I was so clever because I shook a martini in a Burletta. Turns out that one had been done.. alot.. by people way cooler than me. Not so clever. My thought process basically went like this:

“Maracas? Tamborine? Martini? Baby? BABY!! hahah ya.. thats it.. shake a baby..”

I knew that this would be challenging to pull off. I mean how can you win against a baby?? Everyone likes babies... in theory anyway. But I felt that if I made it ridiculous enough with dance movements it would create enough of a comedic reality for people to feel safe laughing. I think that my downfall was my costume. I orginally had wanted it for the character to look like a 50s Dad. The Dad from Leave it to Beaver. But I ended up looking like a Beastie Boys video. I think it might have gone abit better if I had been a redneck Dad. Someone the audience could feel superior to. Unfortunately I think I ended up looking abit like an angry Italian Dad. Annnd they are scary in real life; poor abused Adult children of angry Italian Dads probably did not like this one. I also had creative differences with producers of the show who wanted a happy ending instead of me booting the baby a final time. Fair enough. Like I said, it’s hard to get people to like you instead of the baby. I ended up doing my alternate ending at a different venue. All in all.. I thought it was funny and I learned the importance of character costuming. This number is officially retired but lives on in youtube land. Maybe in the future I will try another number featuring the angry. but no babies. Hope you Enjoy! 

note: for alternate ending click here 
note part 2: you think its kinda funny.. kinda.  

One of the best parts of doing choreo is being able to collaborate with other awesome people that I super admire. This number was completely inspired by his majesty of the tight and bright, Spandy Andy.  Spandy is a local street performer in Vancouver whose goal in life is to make the world a happier place. He achieves this goal by sporting his signature spandex and busting moves all over town (usually English Bay).  I spotted Spandy at a Burlesque show I had performed at and recognized him from his appearance on So You Think You Can Dance Canada. I then proceeded to stalk the shit out of him on Facebook and asked if he would be interested in doing a number with the Chickens. Luckily he agreed and I was over the moon. 

I wanted the number to feature Spandy in all his glory; I knew that he deserved the recognition from our audience and that they would love his energy and mad skills and style. I also wanted to make it as easy as possible for him to be able to jump into the group. I ended up making up choreography for the girls first without Spandy. The idea was that the girls would set the scene but then end up as back up dancers while Spandy did his thing up front. I picked the most annoying song about dancing I could find for the first part. “I could have danced all night” from My Fair Lady so that the the two songs would really contrast. The song lent the idea that this was at the end of the night after the party so I thought that we would start in nightgowns. I originally wanted pretty PJs but the characters and choreography ended up more like hyperactive children so I went with granny jammies instead. This met with abit of backlash! Listen to me Mother @$@!%S! The second song I picked from Spandy’s playlist. How can you not want to dance-hump when you hear this song? It really spoke to me in terms of comic potential. I was aiming for a comedic number so I chose lots of movements that I think are really funny and silly. How many times will I put that FlashDance run in a circle move into a number? I can’t tell you. But I’m probably not going to stop. We tried to hip hop but we definitely don’t have the same abilities as Andy so it was a good thing he was there. 

I chose dancers from SC that have either shown stronger dance ability, comedic chops, or a giant crush on Spandy.  I also wanted to be able to get some of the newer members on stage that I thought would be able to hold their own in terms of comedic presence. 

Overall I was really pleased with the number. We had great audience reception and it came across as super fun and full of energy, just like Spandy!! Hope you enjoy!! 

note: all Spandy’s choreo is his own; I just took care of the ladies
note part 2: for an up close and personal look at the second half click here
note part 3: SPANDY FOR PRESIDENT!  <3 

This piece was one that was completely inspired by the music. According to Wikipedia:

"Seeing pink elephants" is a euphemism for drunken hallucination, caused by alcoholic hallucinosis or delirium tremens. The first recorded use of the term is by Jack London in 1913, who describes one sort of alcoholic in the autobiographical John Barleycorn as "the man whom we all know, stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots; who walks generously with wide-spread, tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees, in the extremity of his ecstasy, blue mice and pink elephants. 

So there! And we all of course remember the scene from Dumbo where he gets drunk and hallucinates all sorts of wackety-schmackety elephants. I love this!!!  So much imagination, fantasy and action!  I was striving to create something that was just as much of a fever dream and that would have the same intensity using  movement and live performance. 

I wanted this to be an all inclusive number; meaning it was open to any member of Screaming Chicken Theatrical Society that wanted to be part of my weirdy vision. I was counting on the visual effect of many many dancers in crazy pink costumes. My challenges with this piece involved the varying levels of dance ability in the group and the fact that there were so many of them!! Listen to me  Mother @$!@$s!!  This was also hard because of scheduling!!  Absolutely impossible to have everyone in the same room ever!! Therefore it was important to keep the movements simple and easy to pick up in case you had to miss a rehearsal. You can see where I added a second group after the first two minutes.   They were basically the group that couldn’t make it to the first rehearsal!  I tried to incorporate movements that suggested weight and insanity.

 I felt that the diversity of the group helped the number overall by creating spectacular imagery and helped the choreo as we were able to use the different skill sets for differing sections of the dance i.e. Lacey L’Amour as the Ballerina and Star Buxom as the Belly Dancer. I felt very happy with the overall result but feel that I could have incorporated more tease into the choreography. Hope you enjoy!! 

Note: Star Buxom’s solo is all her own choreography! I just told her when to go and she did!! 
Double Note: D'oh! Only our rehearsal in on Youtube! If you would like to see how we did at showtime, check out http://vimeo.com/8814209
Triple Note: I've also included the original scene from Dumbo so you can contrast and compare.. we are obviously much better ;)