Art (especially Surrealism, German Expressionism, Art Nouveau, Deco, New Grotesque, Objets Trouvees and installations, some Pre-Raphaelites. Klimt and Mucha)...and making art.
Writing. And Reading... especially biographies, works of off-beat magic and critical analysis. Pages and pages of dense prose. Angela Carter. Beat poetry. Diaries.
Streams of consciousness.
Hollywood's Golden Age
The archaic, and getting things wrong. Like early cinema doing historical or the Victorians doing ethnic.
Pin-ups and photography (Atget, Brassai, abandoned assylums and lost spaces). Taking photos.
Random facts. History.
Collecting. A natural, though cheerful morbidity. Momento Mori.
Proper tea. London cafés. Watching people. Gin, cheese and other fine foods. Champagne.
Falling in love with cities and ideas and people.
Rock and Roll.
Treading the fine lines of life and very often crossing over. Ignoring rules. Decadence.
Things that are too clever by half.
Fashion, costume history, making costumes of all kinds and restoring vintage clothing.
Patent winklepickers tied with ribbons.
My small-scale Victorian theatre.
Not making sense.
And friends (as I can never say that enough).
Music
You can never choose a finite list of things you like if you don't just like one thing. And I think people only pick favourite bands to make people like them more.
But at the moment I'm especially partial to psyche Garage, low-down-dirty-Blues-N-Roll, Beat and Electro. Make of it what you will.
Oh and I play too: I'm a trained singer and I play random things with keys, strings and circuits (learning the Theremin at the moment).
Movies
Again, too many! But I do like:
Tim Burton
Ridley Scott
Tarantino
Films of Hollywood's Golden Age
Film Noir, especially of the hardboiled sort
Ziegfeld's Follies
Horror
Metropolis
Cabaret
Performance
Almadovar
Cocteau
French New Wave
Argento
Hitchcock
Billy Wilder
Old trashy movies, like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill Again!
Troma films, late night Cult films
I like films that have been banned. And reading about them.
Television
ZZZZzzzz....
Books
I like biographies. Stories are better when they're true...
Jean Genet
Jean Cocteau
Mervyn Peake
Kurt Vonnegut
Comte de Lautrement
Emily Bronte
The Beats
Edith Wharton
Henry James
Kenneth Anger
Gore Vidal
Octave Mirbeau
William Gibson
Rimbaud
William Burroughs
Books about movie stars, pin-ups and Burlesque Queens of the past.
I do read more than this... I love to read.
About me: "Part Burlesque starlet, part innovative performance artiste, part music hall Vaudevillian, and all dreamer. But don’t be fooled by her impish allure - Vicky Butterfly’s elegant, classic style comes with a twist.
The daughter of an Irish showgirl and an eccentric Viennese aristocrat, her shows reflect her unusual background, with clouds of butterflies that really fly out from her clothes as she hovers en Pointe. True to the original spirit of Burlesque and Vaudeville, her beautifully choreographed routines take in everything from the ethereal, the breath-taking and the beautiful to the macabre and the comic: with influences including everyone from Anita Berber and Loie Fuller to Rita Hayworth, David Lynch and Maya Deren, taking in everything from the Pre-Raphaelites and French literature to Surrealism and more along the way.
She is a Carnival Queen with a show-stopping 17” corseted waist, a doll, a butterfly, a peacock, a swan, a silver-screen siren, a living Klimt painting, a sorcerer - and anything her imagination can create! Fusing old-school glamour with even older-school strangeness as well as an up-to-date sense of humour and fun, her performances utilise elements of her varied performance background, including ballet, tap, circus, acting and even opera.
In demand all over the world and having amassed an enviable list of past clients (including Roberto Cavalli and the Paris Ritz) and sparkling reviews, you can also see her making her mark on the big screen and in a brace of music videos for top bands.
As well as having all the style of Hollywood's Golden Age or a Victorian ingénue she is also clever with a mischievous sense of humour. As such, she is currently collaborating on a book - on Carnys, no less.
Not only is Vicky a classic beauty with a true vintage look and an all natural 34-22-34 figure, but her skills as a trained costumier (honed during a degree at Central Saint Martins) ensure a range of spectacular and unique costumes and corsetry. As an avid collector, her wardrobe is a museum of eclecticism and contains almost 1000 pieces of original vintage.
With her magical repertoire, elaborate wardrobe, 8ft cresent moon and her own travelling Victorian Vaudeville Theatre, Vicky adds the essential flair of mischief and mystery to any show.
Catch her if you can..."
PERFORMING SINCE 2002, CREDITS INCLUDE:
MUSIC VIDEOS for The Verve, The Fratellis, The Hoosiers, The Noisettes, Elliot Minor, Girls Aloud, Client, Driver ft. Ebony, The Killers, Fear of Music, Michael Ashanti and Scott Matthews.
She has also featured in TOUR PROJECTIONS for artists including Kings of Leon and Paul Weller.
On TELEVISION in 'High Society's Favourite Gigolo', ‘A Waste of Shame’, 'Fear of Fanny’, 'WAGs Boutique', 'Murphy's Law' and 'Identity'.
On FILM in ‘I Want Candy’, 'Harness Your Immensity' (recently shown at the Milan Film Festival), the Bollywood film 'Raftar: 24/7)', 'Dead In Her Throat: The Last Song Of The Bird-Woman', ‘Wolf!’ and other independent films.
ADVERTS for clients such as 'Wound' Magazine (shown in Times Square, NY), 'Imperial Leather Foamburst’, Playstation TV and 'Ocado'/'Waitrose'.
MAGAZINES such as French Playboy, Italian Vogue, Disorder, Bizarre, Tank, Stimulus, Tales, The Chap, Alternative Magazine, Playground Magazine, Wound Magazine, Night, Metro, Kill Pop and many more...
THEATRE in the Ministry of Burlesque's ‘Victorian Values', 'Burlesque-esque' and various other productions.
CATWALK for Mark Powell, Philip Normal, Maria Morris, Mint Siren, Lady Lucie's Corsets and Miss Hussy/Zoe Lloyd.
She will be appearing in a forthcoming BOOK featuring British Burlesque performers by Neil Kendall, a book on 'Burlesque Grotesque' by Alexandra Jasper and Claudia Andrei and an art book about The Midnight Society by Francis L. Brooks, as well as collaborating on a book of her own on Carnys (she is also writing a novel).
She has danced on stage with numerous LIVE BANDS (including the Sohodolls, The Puppini Sisters, Kindle, Men and Gods and Cuckoo Savante), as well as being in a few of her own and collaborating on a tour with Acey Slade.
She is a MODEL for Mint Siren lingerie (who have named a set of tassels after her), Vivien of Holloway, the face and body of both Tonia Bastyan and Deadly Nightshade, was the cover girl for the 2008 'What Katie Did' retro lingerie calender and can also be seen in the 2009 calender for the Ministry of Burlesque.
She is also still a practicing ARTIST, with an exhibition of her work due later this year.
BOOKINGS CAN BE MADE EITHER VIA THIS SITE OR THROUGH: bookings@vickybutterfly.net
ACTS include:
Peacock Lament, Victorian Butterfly, The Swan Bride, Beautiful and Damned, Morphine, Belle Epoque, The Snow Queen, Classic 1930s Fan-dance, Queen of The Night, Lily, The Winter Bride, Noir, 'Where The Wild Roses Grow', a classic Serpentine dance, Salome, Ziegfeld Showgirl, Living Doll (with real revolving key), The Masochism Tango, 'Never Was There a Woman Like Gilda' (Rita Hayworth)... and more!
Props include: travelling Victorian Theatre and 9ft rocking crescent moon.
PRESS REVIEWS:
"Vicky Butterfly, le papillon victorien qui cartonne en Europe, nous précise que c’est
un pouvoir qu’exerce la femme artiste. En quelque sorte le pouvoir de parvenir à un érotisme en sollicitant les courbes et stéréotypes de la femme, pour mieux l’en affranchir." - French Playboy
"Miss Vicky Butterfly is lush. She has the extraordinary curves, the bee-waist and ripe thighs of a Regency poule de luxe crossed with a Bettie Page vixen's face... all of us at the table, irrespective of gender, have developed minor crushes and we watch mesmerised as the butterflies that cover her pearly bosom flutter off on to the floor... making delicious little moues, she engages us in flirtatious eye-contact: when the peacock feathers waft from Miss Vicky's body during her Peacock Lament, it doesn't matter if you temporarily lose the ability to wield cutlery. But we had fun. Whoop whoop and hell, yeah."
- Marina O'Loughlin, the London Metro
“…wittily deadpan…(her) way with feathers gave me faith in burlesque.”
-Time Out
"...notable as a real innovator, lacing her costumes and routines with a bewitching dose of fairy-tale surrealism that stands her sharply apart from the crowd."
- The Metro
"Already threatening to achieve legendary diva status, this classic, mysterious siren is leaving us breathless."
- Bizarre Magazine
"Avant-garde princess..." - The Ministry of Burlesque
"Spectacular... a corsetted Isadora Duncan with the grace of Steichen's 1920 photograph on the Parthenon's steps."
- Alternative Magazine
"Darling of the hopeless Romantic set, a living Pre-Raphaelite sorceress with a wasp-waist and drown-in-me eyes" - Dusty Limits, cabaret bon viveur
"In the sultry yellow light, the porcelain skin of the girl seems phosphorescent... she radiates an ethereal energy. Something about her suggests that she's a creature of the night - a lunar being who's most alive in the witching hours. Perhaps it's her moon-pale complexion, which contrasts with a cascade of deep red hair, or the way the shawl draped over her delicate limbs makes her resemble an antique doll that lives in a walnut chest in a high, cobwebbed loft, and magically springs to life when the stars come out to play... the revered Burlesque artiste with a tiny 17" corsetted waist."
- Bizarre Magazine
"A performer whose act harks back to the music hall era, with butterflies billowing from her clothes as she performs acts that balance eroticism, humour and horror..."
- Peter Harrod, Spoonfed.co.uk Arts website
"London's favourite ingénue" - High Tease Edinburgh
"...it (The Victorian Butterfly) is a really stunning piece because she dances so balletically, performing en pointe. Her routine is a fusionof veil dancing, dancing with Isis wings and sand dancing. It is quite unique to mix all those styles in one piece. It is the ultimate in evocative Victorian burlesque striptease. Very reminiscent of the old music hall routines of Loie Fuller and Mata Hari. It's all about the tease and not the sleaze. A lot of time and energy goes into creating just one single routine and when it's done right, it is just beautiful." - Edinburgh Evening News
"...the provocative form of Miss Vicky Butterfly...an artist that will carry a stylish, mischevious show that unites love, music and performance... very spicy, but never vulgar.”
-Micca Club, Rome
"Perfection incarnate. And an amazing dancer!"
-Gentry de Paris
"Nymph-like..." - The Metropolitain Hotel
“...an amazing highlight of the night.”
-Slingshot Studios
“Vicky Butterfly is one of the most original and best dressed Burlesque performers I’ve seen... She performed last month and we had to have her back IMMEDIATELY! Move over Dita!’’
- One For The Lovers
"Spectacular."
- View From The Top Gallery
"Togged up in breath taking outfit, Miss Butterfly injected life and ooh-la-la into the ballroom, while dancing to the tinkling of a musicbox...I was sent to a dreamy state for 5 mins."
- SP: 'Loose Lips, Hot Gossip'
"The evening opened with a bang with the fabulous Miss Vicky Butterfly..." - QueerID
"Demonic Darlings" - Alternative Magazine (on Les Enfants Terribles)
Vicky Butterfly has PERFORMED for:
1 Temple Place (Lord Astor's former residence),
5 Cavendish Square,
43 South Moulton Street Members Club,
Adam Street Private Members Club,
Annabel's Private Members Club,
Le Bal Palladien (Paris),
BB Queen (Italy),
The Bizarre Ball,
The Bloomsbury Ballroom,
BNP Paribas (Paris bank),
Bordello (L.A.),
The Very Cherry Burlesque Ballroom (Rotterdam),
The Cafe de Paris,
Cannes Film Festival with the MoB (Cannes),
CHMPGN (Amsterdam),
Chelsea Arts Club (celebrity charity auction),
The Coronet,
Divan du Monde (Paris - made famous by Toulouse Lautrec!),
Dr Sketchy's (Paris and London),
Download Festival,
Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster after-show party,
The Erotic Awards,
The El Cid theatre (Hollywood),
Eurostar private event(Paris),
Exotic World (Las Vegas),
Fashion Week VIP Room (Metropolitain Hotel),
Gasoline (Milan),
Gentry de Paris (Paris),
The Great Eastern Hotel Masonic Temple,
The High Tease Revue from the Ministry of Burlesque,
Home House,
The Hootchy Kootchy Club (Stockholm),
The Hoxton Music Hall,
The Kerrang! Music Awards,
The Kills after-show party (Paris),
Koko,
Lady Luck,
La Fête Fatale (Berlin),
Latitude Festival,
Le Baron (Paris),
Le Lup (Paris),
Les Pin-Ups invitent au Sens (Paris),
London Chocolate Week,
London Fashion Week VIP Room,
London on Film Festival,
M1NT Private Members Club with the MoB,
The Marie Antoinette DVD launch,
Mark Powell's tailoring show,
The Met Bar,
Micca Club (Rome),
Murder Suicide presents... (Paris),
Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful cosmetics,
The Nomura bank Christmas party,
The O2,
Palais de Tokyo (Paris Museum of Modern Art) (Paris),
Palais Mascotte (Geneva),
The Palms (Las Vegas),
Pangea,
Paris Tease: Feathers and Lace,
Patek Phillipe luxury watches launch,
The Pigalle,
The Puppini Sisters (band),
Richard James (Saville Row Tailor),
Roberto Cavalli (Milan),
The Ritz (Paris),
The Scala,
Sex City (Innsbruck),
The Sohodolls (band),
Storan Theatre (Gothenburg)
The Strokes after-show party,
Supergrass album launch,
Tease @ 3's (L.A.),
The Theatre Museum,
Tip The Velvet (Gothenburg),
Torture Garden,
UK Bartenders Guild,
Umbaba,
V&A Museum,
Very Cherry presents: Burlesque Ballroom (Rotterdam),
Voodoo Deluxe (Milan),
The WAGs Boutique,
The Whoopee! Club...and more, including exclusive clients whose names shall remain confidential!
Her costume work includes designs for Miss Polly Rae of Hurly Burly Cabaret, the West End play 'On Religion', 'Couture Clubbing' fashion performance, three costumes for 'Jack The Ripper' short film for The Vincent Razorbacks, props and costume for the cover of an Alison Moyet album, and pieces for Agent Provocateur's 2006 Christmas Windows. She was also assistant to the fabulous Miss Hussy: Burlesque Costumier.
She is sponsored by Vivien of Holloway.
The Verve: 'Love Is Noise'
The Hoosiers: 'Cops and Robbers'
The Fratellis: 'Chelsea Dagger'
....
Client: '6 In TheMorning'
Elliot Minor: 'The White One Is Evil'
Kings of Leon: 'On Call' (tour projection)
Scott Matthews: 'Passing Stranger'
Fear Of Music: 'Better Living'
Hooligan Night: ' Rubbish & Nasty' feat. Ruby Blues
Haha, well in that case take them as hugs kisses from me :) I was there in the last week of June but those bloody petals do stick around. Hope you're well laydee. We'll have to catch up when you're back. Been so long. x x x
Time To Pick Your Poison: Heaven in High Heels or Hell on Earth.
Welcome to the darkest summer in the history of Birmingham burlesque, and the culprit behind this black summer? None other than Gehenna of the Silk Stocking Striptease Show. However, never fear, bringing the light to the event will be Angel LaVey of the Silk Stocking Striptease Show. Whether you want something, light and comical or dark and deviant, the 9th Silk Stocking Striptease Show will have something for you. Pick your poison, light or dark, we have it all and we guarantee to satisfy your cravings.
The Silk Stocking Striptease Show Nine will be taking place on the 8th of August 2009 at The Flapper Pub. Tickets will cost you £7.50 in advance from www.birminghamburlesque.com and will be on sale until midday on the 8th of August. You will be able to buy tickets on the door at £9 each, subject to availability. The doors to the show open at 7:30pm and the show will begin at 8:30pm.
The Silk Stocking Striptease Show is sponsored by WWW.SMELLYOURMUM.COM offensive slogan t-shirts
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