caravan burlesque
Caravan burlesque is one of the world’s most extraordinary variety shows transformed especially for regional & remote Australia!
After 7 years of exciting invitations to bring Finucane & Smith’s legendary salon The Burlesque Hour to regional and remote Australia, frequently defeated by the tyranny of distances and costs, Finucane & Smith leapt at an invitation from Regional Arts Victoria to create their own inimitable road train of the risqué… Caravan Burlesque was born, a Night to Rival the Nullarbor! Hot Hot Hot and full of stars!
Now on a 7 month Australian tour from Portland to the Pilbara, Margaret River to Tennant Creek, Sydney Harbour to Alice Springs, Mackay to Melbourne, CARAVAN BURLESQUE is a travelling emporium that fuses Parisian salon with Indian dance, backroom ballet with underdressed sirens, live art exotica with balloon popping hysteria, circus & sideshow, butoh & disco, the deadliest cabaret star in the business with NT chic & tuxedoed style, Bollywood love gods and gothic Queens. Decked in satin lanterns, candlelit cabaret tables, and luscious brocades, Caravan Burlesque tips a velvet wink to Australia’s hundred year history of wild vaudeville and variety tours and transforms everything from grand old theatres to bowling clubs into an unforgettable night of Provocative Variety!
CARAVAN BURLESQUE IS A CULTURAL EXCHANGE ON WHEELS, collaborating with extraordinary local talent from award winning Indigenous artists in Darwin to the legendary cabaret community in Alice, to budding music theatre stars running a wild menu of community exchange and offering workshops from Bollywood dancing to singing Fly me To the Moon in Gurindji!
THE BACK STORY
Eleven years ago Finucane & Smith’s Burlesque Hour premiered amidst great anticipation; “Is it too wild?!” “Are audiences ready for this?!”, and went on to become a global legend. A luscious cabaret salon was opened in Melbourne in the middle of winter 2004, decked in velvet, festooned with Chinese lanterns, satin covered tablecloths, and packed to the rafters with electrifying, seductive and subversive acts; part circus and sideshow, showgirl and show-stopper, striptease and cartoon strip, boho and butoh, backroom ballet and gothic spectacle, music hall and mayhem all to an eclectic electric soundtrack from hard core industrial to kitschy Jap-pop.
Selling out the night it opened, The Burlesque Hour has played for over 80,000 fans around the world, has won 8 theatre awards, been acclaimed in ten languages, had 40 seasons around the world, including 3 sell out seasons in the Sydney Opera House. It has played from Croatia to Tokyo, London to Lubjliana, Budapest to Trieste to Taranaki, ever evolving and ever surprising, attracting guest stars from around the world including Ursula Martinez (UK), Miss Behave (international sword swallower), Meow Meow (kamikaze cabaret star of no fixed address), Rhonda Burchmore, Toni Lamond, Paul Capsis, Deborah Conway, Vika & Linda Bull, Pamela Rabe, Christos Tsiolkas… to name a few.
BUT, if you can conquer Hungary in Europe’s largest music and cultural festival (350,000 people on an island in the Danube!), why on earth can’t you make it to Hobart or Horsham? Caravan Burlesque was born, and is now coming to a town near you!
Reviews
“Caravan Burlesque, fantastic, entertaining, surprising. So glad I saw it”
Camille Fong Lim, DARWIN
“It’s the biggest thing to come to Bruthen,’ was the catchphrase of many before the show. It was as though we’d left Bruthen and stepped into a 1930s Vaudeville theatre. People of all ages glowed red from the light cast by Chinese lanterns. Psychotic kittens terrorised the audience, strawberries were fed to the crowd and bananas were pulled from unusual places….punters couldn’t believe their luck that such an extravagant show had come all the way to Bruthen.”
ABC GIPPSLAND
“This beats the f**ck out of Friday night footy” GEELONG patron
“We had the best time ever with Caravan Burlesque… we sold out, we sold gallery seats, everyone loved the show and was blown away by the variety and professionalism. All of Margaret River was talking the next day, all of them wishing they had come… your touring crew was the best ever…congratulations”
Jan Fairleigh Arts, MARGARET RIVER WA
“The show was amazing … the buzz around town is electrifying. What a lovely bunch of people, we wanted to keep them all. I wish now I have asked for 4 nights it would of sold out every one of them. Everyone is asking what’s next”
Jo Porter, Trafalgar Organiser, TRAFALGAR
“Caravan Burlesque is an aesthetic feast that surprises and provokes, celebrating the true art form of Burlesque.”
ABC DARWIN
“Caravan Burlesque is the start of something new for the town”
Daryl, local resident, BRUTHEN
“My face is so sore from laughing, my cheeks feel like they have coat-hangers in them”
Tina, KATHERINE
“Wow’d by the cast of Caravan Burlesque @ C2 Townsville. Just the right amount of risqué & a ton of wild. Loved it!”
Jason, CDT, TOWNSVILLE
