Ring Leaders

by A.D. Amorosi

Burlesque

I hate the circus, and burlesque bores me. Still, the tacky glamour and abrupt comedy each offers is part of my DNA. The only right thing to do will be investigate this week's Vanguard Sunday (at L'Etage), to catch a trio of perf-artists and wheeler dealers from New York City that the night's booker, Earl Dax, calls the most intelligent and distinctive artists working in New York today. "Certainly, they evoke the circus with their vibrant, colorful costumes and a sense of showmanship in their roles as misfits and tramps," says Dax. For the spandex-bound Scotty the Blue Bunny, a Manhattan nightlife doyen and Bindlestiff Family Cirkus member whose act is a premiere presentation along the East Coast's gay vacay circuit, this means everything from playing with toy violins to eating fire. In between that, he's been known to croon a tune or two and, er, walk on big balls. And the highly politicized, tonsorially tortured Taylor Mac (The Face of Liberalism) offers hyperraving monologues and rapidly sung soliloquies culled from quick-witted theater pieces, like his due-soon Tarred and Feathered. But dancer/choreographer Julie Atlas Muz (pictured), a P.S. 122 regular and 2004 Whitney Biennial participant, gives us a rethinking of the burlesque mentality. Muz's best works, including I am the Moon and You are the Man on Me, warily take on the strip-teaser's ditzy salaciousness with an almost medically altered horror at its heart. Think Madonna meets Joel-Peter Witkin, and you'll get the joke. The effect is no less thrilling than a high wire act or lion tamer.

Vanguard Sundays, with Julie Atlas Muz, Taylor Mac and Scotty the Blue Bunny, Sun., Feb. 20, 9 p.m., $15, 21+, L'Etage, 624 S. Sixth St., 215-592-0656.