Local burlesque performer Bella Sin insists Cleveland once was a hotbed of your grandfather’s brand of burlesque. Now she’s set on making us your nephew’s burlesque capital too.
Sin is organizing a first-of-its-kind Ohio Burlesque Festival. She’s also churning out a burlesque documentary titled Rustbelt Bump and Grind.
The film project germinated earlier this year when Sin was acting in a local indie horror flick. She convinced the filmmakers that the time was ripe for a Cleveland-centric burlesque movie. And they agreed. Production began last month.
“We started by focusing on interviews with girls locally who are in the new burlesque,” says Sin. “We’re going to lay out how Cleveland in its heyday was the place to go for burlesque. We’ll follow the story of the Roxy and Short Vincent, where the concentration of people was. We’re figuring out the performers who used to be here.”
Sin hopes to have a trailer finished to show at the Ohio Burlesque Festival, slated for early August at Twist nightclub and the Beachland. She aims to submit the complete film to the 2012 Cleveland International Film Festival. — Anastasia Pantsios
This article appears in Jul 13-19, 2011.
omfg…i am sorry but Terra and Elle are the shit! nobody is more exciting or provocative then they are!!