This cheesecake is topped with a message

By Chris Brown on January 10, 2019.

cbrown@medicinehatnews.com @MHNBrown

A show called The Cheesecake Burlesque Revue and performers with names like Champagne Sparkles can only mean the audience is in for a one-of-a-kind performance.

The Cheesecakes will perform at the Esplanade at 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 17, a night after hosting a workshop called Sass Class 101. They’re out to prove that everyone is sexy no matter their age, shape or size.

“People in general but women in particular really get a lot of targeted messaging from mainstream media about what we should look like, how we should be a certain size, a certain age or shape,” performer Sparkles said. “We kind of think that’s bulls***. We are all human beings and deserve to love ourselves no matter what shape we currently happen to be in and that we deserve to love ourselves and to be loved and to feel good about ourselves.”

It’s a message that rings true for the troupe and many who see the show. When the performers first got together more than a decade ago they had no idea they’d have an impact on the audience beyond giving them a fun night out.

“We discovered very quickly that when you put a diverse group of women of a wide range of ages, sizes and ethnicities on stage, that in and of itself is a political act. It’s something you don’t see very often and we don’t see celebrated,” Sparkles said.

She added the audience often comes away feeling good about themselves because they could identify with the performers.

“To see someone that looks like yourself on stage, it gives (the audience) something to relate to and think ‘wow, if you can get up there and do that and feel great then I can feel great about myself too,'” she said.

Sparkles describes the show as vaudevillian variety show with a twist. Vaudeville shows historically had a male comedian, some sort of circus-style act and a lady who would do a striptease, Sparkles explained. The Cheesecakes put all of that into each individual performance in the show.

The audience leans heavily toward women but the show can be enjoyed and appreciated by everyone, men included.

“We get a lot of couples, we get a lot of women together for ladies’ night out, a lot of mother-daughters,” Sparkles said. “But anyone that is respectful and is going to celebrate the show is totally welcome and encouraged to come.”

The only restriction is the show is adults only.

Sass Class 101, though, is restricted to women.

“It’s a way to explore an alter ego or exaggeration of yourself,” Sparkles said. “We have so much fun with so much laughter. We do some movement, we talk about bumps, grinds, shimmies, shakes, that kind of thing.”

Anyone who attends the class and has a ticket to the show has the option to join the Cheesecakes for a short performance in the show the next night.

Asks Sparkles, “When else are you going to get a chance to come out and twirl tassels?”

Tickets are available at tixx.ca, by calling 403-502-8777 or in person at the Esplanade box office or the Medicine Hat Mall customer service desk.

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