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Dixie
Evans, by Michelle Carr
This
interview was originally published
in the June 22, 1999
Velvet Hammer souvenir programme.
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Velvet Hammer: What would a gal today need
to conquer the world as a burlesque dancer?
Dixie Evans: Well, I think the girls today
are gorgeous and they really can do it. I just think they need to
think a little bit more about what they are doing. You don’t
have to get down and dirty right away, right off the bat. I mean,
show a little bit of talent first. Everyone thinks that men are in
it for the sex and so on, but why not give a little entertainment
first? Strip clubs nowadays are just one girl after the other doing
the exact same thing, Running up and down, grabbing the pole. They
don’t get to chose their own music. Even today I could pick three
songs that would make sense. Burlesque encompasses a show; striptease,
comedy mimicking and the girl would be doing a comedy-type act. But
the striptease dancer is the burlesque show. The burlesque dancer
is kinda brash, she’d shake her can and shake her can.
Velvet
Hammer: What do you think about boob jobs?
Dixie Evans: I
don’t know. The only thing I do know is that if you were very
thin, you just couldn’t go in to burlesque. They only wanted
girls that were very Zaftig and fluffy. It might have been the era.
I think it was the Twiggy craze when it became in to be very, very
thin. I think the fleshier girl is more popular, not just what I believe,
but I do get lots of letters that say, ‘I don’t like the
modern-day bag o‘ bones.’ But as far as boob jobs, you know,
a lot of girls come here and they wanna be strippers and they have
no bosom at all. I’ll tell them, ‘See that girl over there
on the wall? That’s Lili St. Cyr, the most famous exotic dancer
in the world and she had very little bosoms.’ It’s what
you do. It’s an attitude. It’s an attitude if you want to
be sexy, you just have to pump yourself up. ‘You don’t need
these bosoms,’ I’m always telling these young kids. If you
have a lot of beautiful hair, you throw that hair around. You girls
here (Michelle, Rita and Elvia) are individuals and you are performers
and actresses and if you want to do something individual and different
then that’s what you should do!
Velvet Hammer:
Aw, shucks!
I can’t even begin to describe the surreal and overwhelming atmosphere
that Exotic World possesses. The best thing to do is go out there
and see it for yourself. Take it all in and meet a real underground
superstar with tales innumerable. Pay respect to Sherry Champagne,
her urn is right in the museum as the centerpiece to her shrine. Her
spirit is there and I know ’cause when I was pointing out the
urn to my companion I fell over and landed on my can. The ghost of
Sherry Champagne pushed me down! Or was it the four vodka tonics that
kicked my cha cha heels from under me? I like to believe the former.
Dixie Evans is a sheer delight, go and meet a real live burlesque
star before the end of the century and you’ll see why we will
happily carry the torch that is burlesque!
the
end!
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