AS a classically-trained dancer, the unicorn-spirited doyenne of New Orleans burlesque, Bella Blue, is conversant with sharp pivots. These days, though, performance demands aren’t delivered by an uncompromising ballet teacher, but by a harsher taskmaster in the shape of a global pandemic.
I meet Bella at a Marigny coffee shop on one of those life-affirming New Orleans autumn afternoons, when the sun arrives with caressing breezes instead of gruelling humidity. People sit chatting and aside from the masks, and it could be a perfectly normal day. But it’s not normal times, and Bella, like so many, has had to change tempo and rhythm on a dime.
“Before the pandemic I was producing and performing in up to 25 shows a month,” she says. “I didn’t have time for much else.” Burlesque had including the beautiful, filthy chaos of the near-legendary Dirty Dime Peep Show at the AllWays Lounge, a glorious monthly explosion of unbridled expression. But the shows had steadily replaced other gigs, with stints as a domme and as a dancer in the Bourbon Street clubs diminishing as show life took over.
Just before COVID hit, Bella had started club dancing again, but not back on Bourbon. “I auditioned unsuccessfully,” she says, laughing at the fact that her pink mohawk was deemed too edgy for the French Quarter. “I ended up at Visions and you know what? It was really cool.”
The club is in New Orleans East, which might invite snobbery, but not from Bella. “I love that there’s all different body types and it’s racially mixed, it’s working class locals with no rules about how your butt can be exposed, or what parts of your own body you can touch.”
Strict strip club rules were imposed on French Quarter clubs after much-maligned raids, and new regulations have been dangerously disruptive for the women that work there. “How can a performer be on stage thinking about those arcane rules?” she asks. “You can touch yourself with one finger but two fingers constitutes a lewd act?” The irresponsibility of the new laws is a thesis in itself, but Bella found a home at Visions, cut short when March arrived.
With time on her hands, Bella went back to school, and reevaluated her relationship to burlesque. “My partner AJay and I decided a while ago to do a deep dive into applying anti-racism work to burlesque, to figure out our blind spots,” she says. “We had started but the pandemic was an opportunity to really consider the question: how do we want to keep doing burlesque? Do we want to keep doing it? Because I was getting tired, and my body and my brain and my heart were tired.”
Bella raised two sons, started a burlesque school and bought and renovated a house with AJay on top of the shows and her teaching, so the enforced break has had some unexpected benefits. “There are many down sides of course, but it kind of worked out timing wise, because we were trying to reevaluate anyway. I felt like the shows were a pack of elephants in a single file and if we tried to fix the front one, the others would collide into it, slamming into us.” Now Bella has space to breathe, and thoughtfully curate her future.
I meet Bella at a Marigny coffee shop on one of those life-affirming New Orleans autumn afternoons, when the sun arrives with caressing breezes instead of gruelling humidity. People sit chatting and aside from the masks, and it could be a perfectly normal day. But it’s not normal times, and Bella, like so many, has had to change tempo and rhythm on a dime.
“Before the pandemic I was producing and performing in up to 25 shows a month,” she says. “I didn’t have time for much else.” Burlesque had including the beautiful, filthy chaos of the near-legendary Dirty Dime Peep Show at the AllWays Lounge, a glorious monthly explosion of unbridled expression. But the shows had steadily replaced other gigs, with stints as a domme and as a dancer in the Bourbon Street clubs diminishing as show life took over.
Just before COVID hit, Bella had started club dancing again, but not back on Bourbon. “I auditioned unsuccessfully,” she says, laughing at the fact that her pink mohawk was deemed too edgy for the French Quarter. “I ended up at Visions and you know what? It was really cool.”
The club is in New Orleans East, which might invite snobbery, but not from Bella. “I love that there’s all different body types and it’s racially mixed, it’s working class locals with no rules about how your butt can be exposed, or what parts of your own body you can touch.”
Strict strip club rules were imposed on French Quarter clubs after much-maligned raids, and new regulations have been dangerously disruptive for the women that work there. “How can a performer be on stage thinking about those arcane rules?” she asks. “You can touch yourself with one finger but two fingers constitutes a lewd act?” The irresponsibility of the new laws is a thesis in itself, but Bella found a home at Visions, cut short when March arrived.
With time on her hands, Bella went back to school, and reevaluated her relationship to burlesque. “My partner AJay and I decided a while ago to do a deep dive into applying anti-racism work to burlesque, to figure out our blind spots,” she says. “We had started but the pandemic was an opportunity to really consider the question: how do we want to keep doing burlesque? Do we want to keep doing it? Because I was getting tired, and my body and my brain and my heart were tired.”
Bella raised two sons, started a burlesque school and bought and renovated a house with AJay on top of the shows and her teaching, so the enforced break has had some unexpected benefits. “There are many down sides of course, but it kind of worked out timing wise, because we were trying to reevaluate anyway. I felt like the shows were a pack of elephants in a single file and if we tried to fix the front one, the others would collide into it, slamming into us.” Now Bella has space to breathe, and thoughtfully curate her future.
One show borne of the pandemic is the bijoux Reserve Burlesque at NOLA Art Bar on Fridays, one of the few live shows happening right now, a choice that required a lot of consideration. “It’s a black-owned venue, with predominantly black patrons, and the venue is doing all the right things, safety-wise,” Bella says. “The dancers aren’t in your face, the tables and stage are very strictly spaced out, but people are just so happy to be out doing something.”
Bella performs with just one other burlesque dancer. “We do it small and keep it short and simple. I do the show with Juno and she’s amazing, a great entertainer with ambition. We’re the same age and we have a lot of shared experiences.”
With the school building and a new house still under mortgage, though, there’s a need for revenue streams and those deft pivots to multiple avenues. “I feel like I did when I was starting out,” she says. “I’m doing the OnlyFans thing, online strip club gigs, the AllWays Lounge Peep Show, plus I’m a part time nanny and I’m doing cuddle sessions and returning to domme work.”
OnlyFans has been an unforeseen creative outlet. “I honestly have fun creating content and it’s been a window for a lot of healing, which I really didn’t expect,” she says. “When we started to realise that things weren’t going to change any time soon, I thought - ‘OK, it’s time to get naked on the internet!’ But OnlyFans makes me think about how I want to engage and create.”
She suspects it’s been the same for others. “I like that through these sexual gateways, people have space to feel OK about themselves and their preferences, and through that, I see so much more value in what we do. I always saw it, really, but I used to see it in a different way. There’s something to be said for getting older!”
We agree that there are some vague positives to come out of these otherwise restricted times - perceived increases in consent-driven interaction, and how forming pods or bubbles is the new fluid bonding. “I wonder if it’s going to affect how people approach sex practices?” Bella wonders. “If we can ask if someone got COVID tested, we can ask, ‘Hey, when’s the last time you got tested for STI’s?’ I hope it’s normalizing those conversations.”
For now, it’s all about the immediate future. “We need the art and entertainment that’s rooted in our city and I think we’ll engage with that in very different ways: what shows make us happy, what are the shows where art and anti-racism can intersect?”
“It’s been hard, depressing, difficult and challenging, all of us having to reevaluate how we move through the world in so many ways this year, but at the same time, there’s been good come out of it. It’s good to focus on the positives!”
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Bella performs with just one other burlesque dancer. “We do it small and keep it short and simple. I do the show with Juno and she’s amazing, a great entertainer with ambition. We’re the same age and we have a lot of shared experiences.”
With the school building and a new house still under mortgage, though, there’s a need for revenue streams and those deft pivots to multiple avenues. “I feel like I did when I was starting out,” she says. “I’m doing the OnlyFans thing, online strip club gigs, the AllWays Lounge Peep Show, plus I’m a part time nanny and I’m doing cuddle sessions and returning to domme work.”
OnlyFans has been an unforeseen creative outlet. “I honestly have fun creating content and it’s been a window for a lot of healing, which I really didn’t expect,” she says. “When we started to realise that things weren’t going to change any time soon, I thought - ‘OK, it’s time to get naked on the internet!’ But OnlyFans makes me think about how I want to engage and create.”
She suspects it’s been the same for others. “I like that through these sexual gateways, people have space to feel OK about themselves and their preferences, and through that, I see so much more value in what we do. I always saw it, really, but I used to see it in a different way. There’s something to be said for getting older!”
We agree that there are some vague positives to come out of these otherwise restricted times - perceived increases in consent-driven interaction, and how forming pods or bubbles is the new fluid bonding. “I wonder if it’s going to affect how people approach sex practices?” Bella wonders. “If we can ask if someone got COVID tested, we can ask, ‘Hey, when’s the last time you got tested for STI’s?’ I hope it’s normalizing those conversations.”
For now, it’s all about the immediate future. “We need the art and entertainment that’s rooted in our city and I think we’ll engage with that in very different ways: what shows make us happy, what are the shows where art and anti-racism can intersect?”
“It’s been hard, depressing, difficult and challenging, all of us having to reevaluate how we move through the world in so many ways this year, but at the same time, there’s been good come out of it. It’s good to focus on the positives!”
Subscribe to Bella Blue's ONLY FANS
Find Bella online via her LINKTREE