Interviewer: Laurie Kurutz
Interview Date: January 19, 2020
Location: Portland, Oregon
Duration: 0:35:52
Honeydew La Roux introduces herself as a Burlesque performer, singer, and sometimes arts event producer. She also performs under the name Lolita Von Honeydew. She is married to a musician and has a dog.
Honeydew defines Burlesque as an opportunity for self-expression that tells a story. Given her background in writing and storytelling, Burlesque is just another way to convey a story. Sometimes it’s about stripping and sometimes it’s not, it depends on the story. She describes her style of Burlesque performance art as being eclectic, although she prefers to use music from the African diaspora.
Honeydew observes that the Portland Burlesque community felt more like a little family when she first started 10 years ago. Now it feels a little more scattered to her, possibly because of the growth of the field in that there are a lot more opportunities now than when she first started performing. She feels that the Portland audience views Burlesque as just another good option for an evening’s entertainment.
She performs primarily in the Portland area, but traveled to Seattle as a performer in the all POC Festival What The Funk!?! in 2019. What The Funk!?! was the first all Person of Color 3-day festival in the Pacific Northwest, produced by Mx. Pucks A’Plenty. Honeydew explains how important it is to have a community and a festival that celebrates People of Color.
Honeydew goes into detail about the scheduling and logistics of running her massage therapy business in addition to creating new performances for Burlesque shows. She talks about the complexity of creating with music, choreography and costume. She talks about the connection in Portland between Heavy Metal music and Burlesque highlighted by the Burlesque troupe, The Sign of The Beast Burlesque.
Honeydew describes how she approaches dealing with cultural appropriation when she sees other performers doing questionable things. She often gets tired of having to teach others about what she thinks they already ought to know. To highlight a POC Burlesque group in Portland, she describes one troupe that she belongs to, the Brown Girl Magic Super Group. She feels Burlesque gives her the opportunity to tell her story and speak her truth without commentary or questioning from others. She uses her performance to comment on social issues. She finds this empowering. She wishes the general public would come to Burlesque with an open mind to experience what Burlesque is in that moment as performed by each individual performer. Her goal is to take her Burlesque performance art out to other cities to perform more.
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Description
Honeydew defines Burlesque as an opportunity for self-expression that tells a story. Given her background in writing and storytelling, Burlesque is just another way to convey a story. Sometimes it’s about stripping and sometimes it’s not, it depends on the story. She describes her style of Burlesque performance art as being eclectic, although she prefers to use music from the African diaspora.
Honeydew observes that the Portland Burlesque community felt more like a little family when she first started 10 years ago. Now it feels a little more scattered to her, possibly because of the growth of the field in that there are a lot more opportunities now than when she first started performing. She feels that the Portland audience views Burlesque as just another good option for an evening’s entertainment.
She performs primarily in the Portland area, but traveled to Seattle as a performer in the all POC Festival What The Funk!?! in 2019. What The Funk!?! was the first all Person of Color 3-day festival in the Pacific Northwest, produced by Mx. Pucks A’Plenty. Honeydew explains how important it is to have a community and a festival that celebrates People of Color.
Honeydew goes into detail about the scheduling and logistics of running her massage therapy business in addition to creating new performances for Burlesque shows. She talks about the complexity of creating with music, choreography and costume. She talks about the connection in Portland between Heavy Metal music and Burlesque highlighted by the Burlesque troupe, The Sign of The Beast Burlesque.
Honeydew describes how she approaches dealing with cultural appropriation when she sees other performers doing questionable things. She often gets tired of having to teach others about what she thinks they already ought to know. To highlight a POC Burlesque group in Portland, she describes one troupe that she belongs to, the Brown Girl Magic Super Group. She feels Burlesque gives her the opportunity to tell her story and speak her truth without commentary or questioning from others. She uses her performance to comment on social issues. She finds this empowering. She wishes the general public would come to Burlesque with an open mind to experience what Burlesque is in that moment as performed by each individual performer. Her goal is to take her Burlesque performance art out to other cities to perform more.