Review: HOUSE OF NOIRE Burlesque Sets The Laurie Beechman Theatre Ablaze

Heigh-Ho Friends & "Family"! Bobby Patrick your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Putting the silent T in CABARET to bring you all the T.

Oh, my darlings! If you had had the night we had at Pearle Noire's HOUSE OF NOIRE BURLESQUE then dear hearts, you would need a cigarette and a cocktail, because these ladies of Burlesque BRRRROOOOOUGHT IT!

Now my loves, you all know which side of the rainbow Bobby lands on, so you might be scratching your heads wondering: "What was SHE doing at a girlie show?" Well, all we can say is that it was intense curiosity that took us to the Beechman (on a SUNDAY no less) to see ladies in lingerie dance, gyrate and slink their way through 70(ish) minutes of modern-day performance B-U-R-L-E-S-Q-U-E. The beauty of the ladies and the artistry of the performances transcended notions of naughty, sexy and sexuality as all walks and types made up Pearle and her girls' audience, and with good reason. The show Ms. Noire has put together is a sensual journey with the 7 deadly sins as a theme that completely delivers on Pearle's promise that her show is "Just as much about the heart as it is about the pasties." Opening the show with I WANNA SEX YOU UP followed by STAMPER'S GRIEF, Pearle's girls wander the audience with long stem flowers, touching and tickling onlookers in a kind of floral baptism that leads perfectly into Pearle's Fan Vignette to ALL OF THE LIGHTS in which she gives us a taste of Sally Rand with Mae West's curves and Cynthia Erivo's fierceness. In their turns throughout the night, Noire and her Six Sexy Sinners take the stage to the hoots and hollers of their audience as they interpretively dance (and strip-make no mistake dearlings) to songs like; DO I MOVE YOU, I'VE BEEN LOVING YOU, GIRL WITH THE TATTOO (Boob Boob a Doo).

The ladies of The House Of Noire are a diverse sisterhood empowering themselves and each other with femininity of all curvaceous shapes and skin tones, from Ms. Noire's compact endowed figure to queenly Tutu's Amazonian presence as Lust; from smooth and sleek fellow fan dancer Joyce as Sloth to Bizzy's bleach-blonde Vanity, and the ginger spice of both Darlinda and Mademoiselle - the evening's firey embodiment of Wrath. All of the ladies displayed their backgrounds in legitimate dance as evidenced by their high kicks, pirouettes and port de bras (and port de NO-bras, I'm jus' sayin') giving the whole evening the wonderful artistic feeling of being the best of performance art - a burlesque for the 21st century. As the evening wore on, and without getting "darker," the show got naughtier as these 7 sinful ecdysiasts traded off working the stage to working the house, never afraid to touch, slink and slither their way between the tables, teasing their crowd while making them feel they were getting it all. Saving the finale for herself, Noire heated up Maddona's FROZEN with her use of the entire theatre as her playground, at one point using the Beechman's bar as her ballet BARRE, her final moment being the payoff to all the titillations that came before.

So those of you queens and queenesses reading this who are anal-retentive enough to keep count are wondering about lady #7... Well, Noire knows a show like hers needs a crew for scene changes and setups and, while this may not be IATSE approved, the Stage Diva for the night was young and gorgeous Heartless Malone who's bustier and stiletto adorned set changes tantalized the room as much as her dancer castmates.

All the ladies' creative use of feathers, fans, chiffon, and skin along with their connections to the people in the room, spread a certain energy amongst the crowd, and as we looked around we noted coupled-up pairs leaning into each other, nuzzling and getting little feelskies here and there, generally going with the sensual flow of their evenings' entertainment.

The House of Noire returns to the Laurie Beechman on October 6th, and if any of my rainbow connections reading this are looking for a hot time in the chill of Autumn you should take a date and see these Divas of exotic dance do it to music.

We give this one a solid 5 Rainbows out of 5.

Follow The House of Noire on Instagram @houseofnoiregems

Pearle Noire

Darlinda Just Darlinda

Tutu Tousaint

Joyce LeAnn

Mademoiselle Estelle

Bizzy LeBois

Heartless Malone (Stage Diva)

Pearle Noire

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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