Rising Stars
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Vanessa White
Vanessa “Sugar Dish” White is a burlesque-performing triple threat: choreographer, producer, and certified sexpot. In an art form where booby tassels are de rigueur, White’s troupe — Babes in Boinkland — fuses the classic (striptease, sketch comedy) with the uncanny (a hot pink vibrator, hula hoops) to create performances that transcend stereotype and deliver socially-conscious-yet-sexy examples of what burlesque is all about. White’s hugely popular — and slightly askew — take on the traditional Nutcracker ballet, The Slutcracker, took over the Somerville Theatre last winter, with White herself starring as the Sugar Dish Fairy; the show was such a hit that it’s slated to run for two weeks this year.
White has more than 20 years of dance experience, but the 31-year-old former ballerina writhed her way into burlesque entirely by accident, learning the basics while working as a writer and editor for the now-defunct Boink magazine. Of her seemingly unlikely transition from ballet to burlesque, she says, “Often when you’re a ballerina, you’re not you; you’re the paint on the canvas. With burlesque, I’ve been able to be the painter and the paint. I get up on stage, and it’s me.”
Big things lie ahead for her ever-adventurous troupe: Babes in Boinkland are gearing up for a show on April 10–12 at this year’s Great Boston Burlesque Exposition and Vintage Fashion Fair, where White will also be judging the Main Event competition. On Labor Day weekend, they’ll take their show on the road, heading to the Coney Island Rockabilly Festival for a 12-hour burlesque show with performers from around the country. Plus, the troupe recently got invited to audition for America’s Got Talent.
White traded in her tutu for tassels, and Boston’s burlesque scene is all the better for it. “I’m of a firm belief that anyone can be a burlesque dancer, as long as they know that they’re the sexiest person on the planet,” she says. “And you can even fake that.”
