Dr. Lucky’s Surrealist Burlesque Presents

DADA BALL

Coney Island USA
Burlesque by the Beach
1208 Surf Ave. Brooklyn NY 11224-2816
(D/F/N/Q train to Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue)
Friday, August 23, 2013, 10 pm
$15 (Advanced tickets strongly recommended:  www.coneyislandusa.com)

Marking the 5^th anniversary of Surrealist Burlesque at Coney Island USA Sideshow by the Seashore stage, Dr. Lucky presents the Dada Ball, a spectacular show featuring an all-star cast of provocateurs, site-specific installations, and a modern interpretation of the Dada Manifesto.  The Dada Ball will utilize while subverting the “bourgeoisie” by featuring large-propped acts by leading New York City burlesque and variety performers, as well as era-specific inspired costumes, fantastic production numbers, all set within the context of high camp and parody.  Art and video installations, Happenings, and a Dada Poem making station round out the evening, making spectators an integral part of the show.  Patrons will be invited to wear black-tie and formal attire to the decidedly middle- and working-class setting of Coney Island.  The Dada Ball ascribes to Dada’s call of artistic free thinking.  The Dada Ball says Yes to informal undress, YES to independent art, YES to non sequitur beauty.

Hosted by “Cabaret Legend” (Le Cool Magazine, Dublin) Armitage Shanks will take us on this Surrealist journey through the imaginary intersection of the Dada movement and the Gay Masquerade Balls popularized in the 1910s-1930s.  One of the world’s most sought after MCs, Armitage Shanks has been designated “a Victorian Music Hall barker” by Dan Savage.  Featuring a Special Guest Appearance by World Renown Burlesque Legend, Dirty Martini, Photo Booth Installation by Gretchen Heinel Photography.  Starring PhDoubleD of Burlesque and darling of the intelligentsia, Dr. Lucky; regular Surrealist contributor, choreographer, and sexy siren, Peekaboo Pointe; awe inspiring vocal cartoonist, Zero Boy; tapping sensation plucked out of the roaring ‘20s, Gin Minsky; “Most Original” Bizarre Burlesque from Dangrrr Doll; camp meets surrealism from the Varsity Interpretive Dance Squad; the Girl that Goes Bump in the Night, Nyx Nocturn; Burlesque’s Dirty Little Secret, Melody Jane; & the Wild Filly from Philly, Dottie Riot.  And introducing your new favorite body part, FACE.

Black Tie Attire Highly Encouraged.  Suggested Dress:  Masquerade Balls (1910s-1930s), High Dandyism, Bowery Realness, Fairies & Sprites, Sepia Toned Surrealism

About Dada Manifesto(s):

First read at a Cabaret in Zurich in 1916, Hugo Ball’s Dada Manifesto introduced the art “movement” that was explicitly anti-war and anti-bourgeoisie, an early progenitor of the concept of art for art’s sake.  The aim of Dada was not the product but the concept(s); as Andre Breton would later claim, “Dada is a state of mind.  Dada is artistic free thinking.”  A precursor to Surrealism, the Dada movement was born from the turmoil of WWI, and sought to create art that did not ascribe to one ideology, as ideology became synonymous with political strife.  In the “Dada Manifesto of 1918,” Tristan Tzara adds:  “And so Dada was born of a need for independence, of a distrust toward unity.  Those who are with us preserve their freedom. We recognize no theory. We have enough cubist and futurist academies: laboratories of formal ideas. Is the aim of art to make money and cajole the nice nice bourgeois?”  We pay homage to these manifestos – and the writing and actions of the Dadaists — in the Dada Ball.

About Surrealist Burlesque:

Surrealist Burlesque aims to present shows that are epic, multi-disciplinary, collaborations that challenge audiences to experience entertainment with their bodies and their minds.  Surrealist Burlesque shows have been featured in the New York Times, Brooklyn Paper, Animal, Time Out, and many others.

In 2012, Surrealist Burlesque presented Society of the Spectacular, a show inspired by Guy Debord’s seminal text, Society of the Spectacle.  The show featured an “intimate theatre” walk through experience in the museum, live interactive music in the Freak Bar, and a show hosted by a television which was given a wine bath in the finale, a Coney Island Sideshow tradition.  As featured in The New York Times, in 2011 Surrealist Burlesque took over the Coney Island complex with “Animal Funhouse” based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm.  With a lush set –including a giant roast pig –and an epic cast of over 20 of New York City’s most spectacular nightlife creatures and burlesque stars, Animal Funhouse presented the largest and most elaborate spectacle ever staged at Coney Island USA.  In 2010, Surrealist Burlesque brought “20,000 Legs Under the Sea” to the Coney Island USA complex.  Inspired by Salvador Dali’s “Dream of Venus” at the New York World’s Fair (1939-40), “20,000 Legs Under the Sea” invited artists from a range of disciplines to collaborate on sound sculptures, video installations, mini lectures, and live performances.  Other Surrealist Burlesque shows staged at Coney Island include: “Phantasmagoria:  A Land Where All The Beauties are Monsters and All the Monsters are Beauties” (2009) and a durational performance art piece entitled “Coney Island and Spectacle as Total-Body Experience – A 12-Hour Academic Spectacular in Which We Find Our Heroine Chained to a Podium for an Interminable Period, With All the Agony and Sublime Joy That This Might Entail” (2006).

Animal Funhouse Video by Joel Simpson.  20,000 Legs Under the Sea Video by The Great Fredini.