Title: I am Buttercup
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Creative Experience
In the years leading up to the pandemic, I was at my busiest. I was a parent to a toddler, teaching burlesque to others, building costumes and feather fans, producing a monthly burlesque show at a local bar as well as a quarterly show for the Burlesque Hall of Fame museum, which is where I worked during the day. And, I was performing in professional productions, such as Opium and Brian Newman After Dark, on the Las Vegas Strip at night.
When the lockdowns started, my opportunities to perform came to a halt. I couldn’t go to work. My costume commissions and opportunities to teach dried up, too. Stuck at home without my usual creative outlet, I had to sit with many hard feelings. These feelings of being stuck, not in control, and not being able to express myself brought back traumatic feelings from my childhood experience. In exploring my traumatic past, I realized just how intertwined it is with my creative outlet: burlesque. I wrote down how I felt as a monologue with the expectation that I would one day have the courage and the stage to perform it. This is that performance.
Biography and links
Buttercup is a burlesque performer, producer, instructor, and costumer in Las Vegas, Nevada. She hails from New York City, where she studied at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Along with her skilled voice and movement, Buttercup incorporates traditional burlesque elements into her routines.Buttercup produces multiple successful burlesque shows, including Tease: A Burlesque Revue for The Burlesque Hall of Fame and Revusical, a live Jazz and Burlesque revue. Buttercup is Program Coordinator at the Burlesque Hall of Fame, managing its School of Striptease.
** Buttercup contributed to Sophie Lavender's Tassels Off project through her extraordinary insight into the mind of a burlesque dancer with a long career in the business.