Burlesque performer and show producer Raquel Reed aims to leave an impression. “You want something where people go home, and they’re like, ‘What the heck did I just see?’ … That’s a great feeling,” she tells the Weekly.
The former Absinthe performer and creator of Downtown’s new burlesque revue The Jiggle Room says that impression doesn’t have to be any one thing. Each performer puts their own, daring spin on the art form, and that’s something Reed hopes to amplify in the show.
For her, it’s performing a striptease to Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” in a full gorilla suit, an act she has perfected over the years.
“Burlesque isn’t polished and perfect. It’s edgy and dangerous and reckless, and you take chances,” she says.
On top of producing and performing in The Jiggle Room, held each fourth Friday at Fremont East’s Cheapshot, the 35-year-old also recently produced the first-ever Sin City Burlesque Festival. The Weekly sat down with Reed to talk about that event, the new show and the state of burlesque in Las Vegas.
You produced the Sin City Burlesque Festival (held September 8-9 at the Space). What does it mean to you? The burlesque festival is just me and my husband. … He’s building all of the set pieces. I took, basically, a lot of the money I’ve made from Absinthe from five years, and I’m trying to start this burlesque festival. It’s a dream and a goal of mine to have something that I’m connected to when I’m older in burlesque. If I’m not even able to perform any more, I wanted to be able to hopefully give an opportunity to other performers around the world. I’m not making any money off of this festival. But I wanted to try and do something for my industry.
Unfortunately, a lot of people in our industry and burlesque, we’re very unknown. You know, even me. We’re not seen a lot, because it’s very risqué. So I wanted to try and have an opportunity for people around the world to be seen by actual Vegas producers. That’s literally the whole point of the festival.
The acts in The Jiggle Room offer a lot of surprises and unexpected turns. Would you say there’s a lot of deviation from traditional burlesque? I love all kinds of burlesque. And I wanted to show different sides of burlesque for people who’ve never seen it before. In this show, we have a mixture. So, usually an artist will do a classic burlesque striptease, and then they’ll do a neoclassic, which is more alternative burlesque, something a little quirky, a little different. … Everyone kind of shows two sides of themselves. That’s the idea behind the show.
In New York, this is kind of the traditional cabaret show. … It’s very raw and not polished and you can hear people yelling from the back, that’s the fun of it. It’s just a raw burlesque show … not choreographed, it’s very free. And that’s why I like it so much.
Would you say burlesque is having a moment in Las Vegas? I’ve been performing on the Strip, and it was good. People understand burlesque ... [but] outside of the Strip, they’re a little weird with the laws here about nudity in Las Vegas. You’d be really surprised. So a lot of shows off the Strip, the more local shows, sometimes have issues [where] we’re not allowed to show our breasts, so we have to wear a sheer bra, or [on] our bum, we have to wear full fishnet. So I hope that gets a little better.
It’s still not mainstream [in Vegas]. The local shows off the Strip are really thriving, and the burlesque scene here is very good. We have the Burlesque Hall of Fame here, and the Burlesque Hall of Fame festival every year. So there is burlesque here.
THE JIGGLE ROOM October 27, 8:30 & 11 p.m., $20. Cheapshot, thejiggleroom.com.
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