Thursday

Host: Salem Sirene

NawFuck, Virginia’s own flirty feral fatale is the QUEER AF love child of Morticia Addams & Kesha. A part time pizza enthusiast, full time feminist nightmare we would hate to be on the other end of one of her hexes. A fierce champion for fat vanity she blends her natural elegance with a fierce intensity on stage thus creating the utmost seductive experience. 

The winner of the coveted “Hairography Master” award in 2016, the 2018 “Virgo” Award winner for excellence in coherence at the Discordia Days Burlesque Festival & headlining The Chrysler Museum of Art's 2019 Art Out Loud Exposed series opener she takes pride in her work on and off stage. As an instructor of the art of classic burlesque at The Academy of Tease, she loves teaching the art of burlesque to her students with fervor. Being one half of the dynamic Production duo for Nocte Covina Burlesque she strives to promote burlesque as the beautiful art form that it is.  She's the Spellbinding Bitch of Burlesque, Salem Sirene!

Stage Kitten: Violet Lace

Violet Lace has been burning up the stages over the past year and 1/2 and has been seen at Strangeways, the Firehouse Theatre, Ember Music Hall and at Basic City with Burlesque Right Meow, and Ellie Quinn Presents.  Most recently she debuted on the Gallery5’s new stage with Psycho7 Productions. Violet had her first show of the year in January for the  RVABF Fundraiser and is kittening for the Strangeways show Thursday night for this year’s opening night of the festival. Violet hopes to keep spreading a message of love and light with a heavy dose of metal.   

Bunny Noir

“Bucolic bosoms bouncing through the tapestries of time”

“THE Caramel Bombshell”

Always a crowd pleaser, Bunny’s routines are just as diverse as her ancestry. Raised in Southeastern VA, and proudly carrying Black, Indian and Welsh blood, Bunny is a bouncy country girl with a poets soul.  Injuries sidelined her dance expression for over a decade, and finding Burlesque has been life changing. In just over five years since she debuted with the final graduating class of Boom Boom Basics Performing Arts Studio in 2019, Bunny has performed on stages throughout Virginia and Maryland, as well as online! Bunny reimagines the past with theatrical flair and high energy to tell stories we can all relate to. Bringing the best of burlesque traditions to life, she's the Caramel Bombshell.... Bunny Noir!

*Proud to represent POC and alternative body images.* 

Tommy Gun

Tommy Gun has been gracing stages across the Midwest and beyond since 2017. This flying femme fatale is also an avid lover of the aerial arts, and teaches pole dance, aerial silks, and burlesque in Detroit. 

Pepper Palomino

Currently based in Philadelphia, Pepper has been captivating burlesque audiences in Pennsylvania and beyond since 2022. She is a life-long dancer with a BA in dance and psychology, and fell into the river of sparkles through the Philadelphia Burlesque Academy. Pepper performs in many genres and loves creating unique costumes for herself and other Philly area performers. Festival appearances include Salty Desert, and Burlesque-N-Beyond. Catch her performing with The Peek-A-Boo Revue, Philly’s award winning neo-burlesque troupe, as a flapper for hire with The Gimlet Girls, or as a high flying aerialist at Secret Circus. 

With a sultry stare and legs to spare, she is Philadelphia’s Fiercest Filly. 

Miss Violet DeVille

Miss Violet DeVille is a trans woman and a class act from a history that never was. The Timeless Trollop has been loving mixing performance art and nudity for over a decade. As with most artists from the Seattle area, she’s based in Seattle, acting, stripping, speaking, and improvising to delighted audiences all around the Puget Sound. She produces nerdy, quirky, and decidedly different shows and travels through the United States, Canada, and across the Atlantic performing in shows, at conventions, and festivals like the Dallas Burlesque Festival, Fierce! The International Queer Performing Arts Festival, International Stockholm Burlesque Festival, the Bagel Burlesque Expo, and Steampunk World’s Fair. She loves exotic locales like Sequim and Piscataway, Santa Fe, Montreal, New York, and Port Angeles. When not producing and performing she dabbles in absinthe cocktails, creates daguerreotypes and other photographies, and spends far too much time in her workshop making something sexy, new, and utilitarian. 

Katniss Everqueer

Katniss Everqueer is the filthy, food-covered performance artist with Green Mountain Cabaret based out of Burlington, Vermont. She loves blurring the lines between dancer and audience. Her numbers are often interactive and nostalgic, referencing the beloved to the slightly horrific and bizarre.

Katniss and creative partner Emoji Nightmare produce both digital and in-person shows celebrating fat burlesque and drag performers, with two annual shows, My Chubby Valentine and Beached Whales. Together they also travel the state through the Vermont chapter of Drag Story Hour, reading stories of inclusion, acceptance, imagination, and glitter and increasing representation of LGBTQ+ stories for young audiences. She’s a proud, fat, queer envelope pusher and advocate for queer visibility and body liberation. 

Jaeda

Jaeda is a Philadelphia-based professional bellydancer that shimmied onto the burlesque stage in 2016. Since then, she has performed in several area flagship shows as well as the Philadelphia Burlesque, Panama Burlesque, Burlesque-N-Beyond, and RVA Burlesque Festivals. She is the founder and co-producer of Philly's premier nerdlesque monthly show Dark Side Burlesque, producer of Melangerie: an all QPOC show, and several charity events. 

Bearcat Betty

Bearcat Betty is a variety entertainer specializing in burlesque and sideshow. Based in Maryland, her wit and charm permeate the East coast. Over the years, she has graced many stages and sticky floors with her talents and will travel to you for monetization of your adoration. She is an award winning performance artist with a range that spans comedy to classy, dramatic to dangerous, and weird to wonderful. She enjoys making costumes, and finally finishing the costumes she was making. She hopes to extract your laughter, tears, and exclamations. Among her lifetime achievements include declarations of “I’ve never seen that before” and “I still think about that thing you did.” 

*FEATURE PERFORMER* Phoebe Nyx

Phoebe Nyx is Charlotte's resident Amazon with a soulful contralto and a wicked sense of humor. On the stage, you’ll frequently see her with Elphaba, her lime green, rhinestoned ukulele, belting out a range of music from Tin Pan Alley standards to classic rock to parodies, femceeing the evening, or dancing to her heart's content all over the southeast, including the House of Blues!  This Chartreuse Chanteuse is a redheaded bombshell with legs for days, published pinup, Ms All American Pin-Up 2019, Heavy Rebel Weekender's Wiggle Room Princess 2020, and winner of the Slow Burn at Discordia Days Burlesque Festival.

In addition to her time performing for the burlesque audience, Phoebe is an avid costumer, cosplayer, character performer, folk singer, classically-trained cellist, RenFaire cast member, vintage enthusiast, pin-up, and all-around geek.