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| (courtesy Buckaroos USA) |
(As posted on Capitol Hill Seattle Blog)
It’s time for the Moisture Festival, Seattle’s annual cabaret of comedy, dance and burlesque that spread its wings to include Capitol Hill in 2012 and has been coming back ever since. Since 2004, the Festival has presented a month of events around town in the early spring. This year, the venues include the Festival’s “home” site of Hale’s Palladium, a performance at Teatro Zinzanni, and a solid block of performances at the Broadway Performance Hall, March 28-April 13. This year, there’s a new show in town on the Hill and some big screen action you might want to check out.
“I’m a straight football player who started dancing later in life,” Jonathan Betchtel tells CHS about Buckaroos USA, a new addition to the Moisture lineup. “I started dancing late in high school and went to Cornish for modern and ballet training. I’m kind of obsessed with masculinity on stage and how to make it comedic, and it can be nude and fun and outrageous at the same time.”
Most of the performances at BPH will be of the 18+ burlesque, um, variete — though, there will be two all-ages Sunday afternoon performances that also will include fundraisers for The Backbone Campaign and The School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts.
The schedule of performances can be found here.
The one-night performance by Buckaroos USA is Thursday April 3, at Broadway Performance Hall. The Buckaroos were formed last summer after Betchtel, a dancer at the Can Can, mulled how the venue had become an unintentional destination for bachelor and bachelorette parties. He thought that “there could be something bigger and more spectacle-based that fit that genre and that need.”
It was out of that exploration of comedy and masculinity that he came up with the idea of cowboy strippers. While, perhaps, not the first time anybody had thought of that, Betchtel thought it could be done funny and not too raunchy.
“It’s always my intention to make it a really fun night and never shock someone passed enjoying themselves,” Betchtel said.
“There’s a lot of trial and error as we try to learn the moves. Kind of a cliché sports montage mixed with a male stripping group.”
(See a video of their act: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scR71MrSc5Y)
“We’re very honored to be included in the Festival. We’re very new to the scene in this entity and so we’re excited to be a part of it,” Betchtel said.
Another special event is the showing of Burlesque Assassins at Central Cinema, April 10 at 8:00 pm. You can get tickets here.
The film showing, which has played around the world, will feature star Armitage Shanks in attendance. “A trio of femme fatales and Superspies, led by hero Johnny Valentine are a beautiful, deadly, and vital weapon in the war against tyranny, injustice and freedom. The Burlesque Assassins use the feminine charms of the dancehall to lure their way within striking distance of top ranking members of the evil regime. Witness the carnage and the cleavage as they embark on a mission to save the world from the brink of destruction. Their mission: SEDUCE AND DESTROY.” Sign us up.
You can learn more at moisturefestival.com.