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Burlesque

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Before going home for the holidays, I watched my first ever burlesque show at The Slipper Room on the Lower East Side.

It was a festive holiday burlesque show, presided over by a woman wearing a thong and knee-high socks, who was ready to show us “the reason for the season.” 

This was not the kind of burlesque show where the women wore Santa hats and have tassels hanging from their nipples, but the kind where the women do trapeze stunts over the audience.

I spent the evening with a good cocktail and a nice date, watching half-naked women fling themselves through the air like it was nothing and then unravel onto the stage. 

My favorite performer was a woman who was dressed like Eve, which is to say that she was in a nude bodysuit wrapped in fake ivy, as she swung from the rafters with an apple in her mouth while the song “MOTHER ATE” played. For those unfamiliar, MOTHER ATE contains the lyrics “crazy how the very first sin was a woman who ate” and “devoured, no crumbs left in sight.”

Another woman hung from her hair and acted like it was nothing, even though I had a headache just looking at her. 

I felt like I did when I was 14 and watched a street performer in Italy hula-hoop with a ring that was lit on fire. I was impressed by the talent and the artistry, with a dangerous sense of “I could do that.” 

“I could wind up in the hospital” is more likely. 

There was a puppet show. The poodle puppet was wearing cheetah print pants, a cheetah print coat, and black, knee-high boots. I have that exact outfit at home.

I’d had other plans for the night and seeing the burlesque show ended up being my back up. It’s not often that you think you’re going to see a movie and then end up watching women hanging from silks while a Chapell Roan song plays. 

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

Vibe Fine Arts Grand Opening

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There are many ways to observe that period where summer ends and your new semester begins.

One of the ways is to spend an evening at Le Bain, a nightclub that more than lives up to its name “the bath” by having a hot tub carved into the dancefloor, where fully-clothed patrons go for a dip and (possibly) contract HPV. Not really folks, calm down.

Another way is to enjoy a night of Bossa Nova and flamenco dancing, the kind that’ll maybe make you question your sexuality, at a tapas bar for your cousin’s 21st birthday.  

A final way is to go to a rooftop party with your friends from Columbia to listen to a mutual friend DJ to a crowd of interesting people.

This is what I was getting up to when I met Zac Presley, one of the curators of Vibe Fine Arts. Vibe Fine Arts is a dreamy new SoHo art gallery that would be making its debut a month later.

I hadn’t been to an event like this since I went to see Mahmoud Hamadani’s work in undergrad, so I was thrilled when I made the list for the grand opening. 

@vibefineartsnyc

I was excited to see the artwork of Jule Waibel, a German artist who I also met at the aforementioned rooftop party, and whose work would be on display like a jewel in the crown of the art gallery (pun very much intended). When I met Jule at the party, she had her infant son strapped to her chest. When I saw her again at the opening, I found her, sans baby, standing in front of her artwork. 

She explained her pieces to me, how she made one of the paintings after her mother died and processed the grief through her art. The painting, which is of two women crying in their underwear, shows their grief and vulnerability. Stomach rolls are visible as one woman lays on the other woman’s lap and she tenderly places a hand on her friend’s back, the tears gently filling up her eyes. 

@jule_waibel

Another painting of Jule’s captures her life in Brooklyn, with a vibrant scene that brings vitality to the simple domestic task of a mother and daughter getting groceries.

Her work is beautiful and fortunately there are four pieces currently on display at the gallery that proves this. 

The gallery more than lived up to its name. There was finger food, champagne that kept flowing, and men respectfully hitting on you. I wanted to take home several of the paintings, but knew that that would mean having paintings to hang in an apartment I could no longer afford. 

The paintings weren’t the only type of art on display, as people milled around the gallery with coach bags, black sequined party dresses, and the SS22 Oscar De La Renta dress that Taylor Swift wore at the Grammys (or a really good knockoff of it). It was like walking through the style section of the Sunday New York Times.

By the end of the evening, I’d gotten a full dose of art and fashion and was ready to call it a night (by which I mean making a quick pit stop at the Marriott Marquis bar and then going to bed). 

It had been a long night and an even longer summer of me being a woman about town, acting bougie at art galleries that I had no business going to. I’d finally experienced the SoHo art scene, a thing of legend in Manhattan that I had yet to explore. Now the only things left on my New York City bucket list are the Met Gala and an Eyes Wide Shut party. (I kid).

I’ll continue spending my time exploring the SoHo art scene and going to places with “vibe” in the name, two things that have yet to fail me when searching for a good time.

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel