Art, Sex & Anne of Green Gables
By Leandra de Valois-Franklin
At the Arthouse Cabaret Scandelles performance I attended back in September at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, mischievous mavens Sasha Van Bon Bon and Kitty Neptune were busy pulling feather boas out of their vulvas and dancing naked in gorilla masks…I know, awesome! This duo of Canadian Cabaret superstars and their burlesque troupe were once again up to naughty antics with their absurd new interdisciplinary production which explored, through Dadaist strategies, western cultural notions of beauty and communication. Appropriately titled Who’s Your Dada?, the show ended its two-week sold-out run at Buddies on February 9. The cabaret featured sixteen vignettes, each one satirizing a different societal malady. The Scandelles approach their subject matter with humour and a broad range of references to pop culture, trash culture, and academia. It’s like attending a party co-hosted by Divine and Hedwig; granted, a little less shit, a little less dick, but a lot of fuzz… fun!
Before proceeding into the main performance area, audience members were treated to a whimsical art installation by multidisciplinary artist Noel Middleton, as well a sexy experimental film by the Scandelles in collaboration with the King of Queer cinema, Bruce LaBruce, called Give Piece of Ass A Chance. On the mainstage audiences were greeted by a giant projection of a sleeping Sasha Van Bon Bon, framed by the dreamlike stage set designed by Daniele Guevara. The show began with Sasha falsely awakening onscreen, crying “I want my DADA” …and suddenly appearing in the flesh across the room wearing just an oversized tee and socks. Panic ensued as she desperately chased a human R. Mutt sculpture (props to costume designers Marnie Sohn & Brenda Mozel for bringing the urinal back in fashion), before relieving herself into a golden chalice onstage…in the name of art, of course!
Further scenarios provided insightful sexual and social commentary, including a sex class which employed a little more than your typical birds and bees discussion, a Japan-based Anne of Green Gables late night phonesex infomercial, an international striptease (fitness) competition, and a gender-bending stripper cop with flower petals bursting from his/her bust. Despite certain scenes which suffered slightly from incomprehensibility and poor choreography, there remained a consistent method to the troupe’s madness, which is further strengthened the relevant homages paid to great surrealist icons Yoko Ono, Luis Buñuel, Marcel Duchamp, and David Cronenberg, among others. Not to be forgotten is the tribute to the film Un Chien Andalou, paid by the Countess Christsmasher, who, sporting a flamboyant Dali mustache, performed brilliant remixes of the Pixies’ songs Debaser and Where is My Mind? The show was held tightly together by its didactic host Sasha, whose dream logic allows her to travel seamlessly through the Dada-inspired landscape, until she ultimately realizes her identity as the anthropomorphic “raccoonteur” (dressed as such), offering life lessons to a playground of other furry creatures. As always, the Scandelles ended with some good old audience participation, with furries and audience members waltzing together in a scene of adorable bestiality.
The Scandelles are adept in the field of raunchy, risqué, conceptual cabaret, shamelessly exposing society’s perversions (and themselves) and subverting them in a spectacle that never fails to incite ecstasy in their adoring audience. If you missed them at Buddies, don’t get your knickers in a knot, as the Scandelles are a staple of Toronto’s neo-burlesque scene and are busier than Dali’s lobster phone hotline! I urge you all to check them out at their next performance, which will be listed on thescandelles.com. Leave your inhibitions at the door and let the Scandelles shower you with gold!
