CORE ARTSIST for the 2006 EDITION
These core performances will be fleshed out with works by local and visiting guest artists.

LES HEUREUSES LIBERTINES (25-minute bilingual play)
This year, le Boudoir will remount Nathalie Claude’s first naughty Vaudeville play performed one night only in 2001. Chock full of classic moments of mistaken identy and over-the top sexual innuendo, Les Heureuses Libertines is set in a baroness’s manor where Mme. M impatiently awaits the arrival of her secret lover, Mme. F. The manor’s maid, Armandine, facilitates their encounter, but is alarmed when she recognises Mme. F’s secret identity. The plot unfolds until the surprise return of the baroness.
Written and directed by Nathalie Claude. The players are Nathalie Claude, Suzanne Lemoine, Félixe Ross, and Nadine Sures, with live accompaniment by Mimi Blais.

Nathalie Claude has been creating and performing professionally for over 15 years with, among others, Carbone 14, Pigeons International, and Momentum. Her own creations include five physical theatre solos and several critically acclaimed full-evening works. An integral collaborator of le Boudoir since 1997, Nathalie has, for the past five editions, written and directed a one-act lesbian Vaudeville play, accompanied by live piano. An instant audience favorite, the high production values, intelligent writing, remarkable costumes and extraordinary casts of these plays, elevated le Boudoir to a new professional standard.

MIMI BLAIS (ragtime pianist)
Mimi Blais joined the Boudoir team in 2001. Classically trained, Mimi has performed concerts across North America, as well as in Belgium and Hungary where she regularly receives standing ovations. A ragtime specialist, Mimi performed for the Olympic Celebration Arts Ashore ’96 in Savannah, Georgia. She has released five CDs and mounted a critically acclaimed one-woman show, An Afternoon with Jean-Baptiste Lafrenière, inspired by the pianist who was the first person to compose and publish ragtime in Montreal.

THE BANNER GIRLS
Alyson Vishnovska and Carrie MacPherson will animate the stage between the acts, with cocky pantomimes.
Carrie has photographed past editions of le Boudoir (see photo page) – but this will be her first time performing for the event. Alyson Vishnovska has infused the underground performance scene with her resonant dance since 1994, challenging diverse audiences in art galleries, nightclubs, parades, television, urban and natural environments and in theatres. Her own work has been presented in Montreal and New York.

THE MAMBO KING TRIO
The Mambo Drag Kings were an act formed in 1995 especially for le Boudoir, opening the show for many years. While known for their debonair style, they also explore other genres (Tom Jones was a favorite for years, and they’ve been known to strip down and drop their drawers in front of large audiences). Their underlying homoeroticism renders their sexuality a mystery to this day. When several core members had babies and left the city, the kings took a break from the stage. This year they are reformed as the Mambo King Trio, and will once again provide an opening number… Join the heart-broken Trio on a sweltering night in a hot salsa club in La Habana, as they pine for their lost Yolanda.

With: Tommy Boy (aka Cindy Mancuso), Julien St.Urbain (aka Julie Podmore), Max A. Million (aka Cathrin Winkelmann)
Choreography: Mary Ann Lacy

SASHA VAN BON BON (Toronto)
This will be Sasha’s third consecutive appearance at le Boudoir, where she will perform two historically inspired salacious solos.

Sasha Van Bon Bon is a performer and founder of Toronto’s burlesque troupe, the Scandelles, as well as a syndicated sex columnist for eye Weekly, the Montreal Mirror, and the Uptown in Winnipeg. She has also written for Flare, THIS, and the Globe and Mail, and has appeared on numerous national radio and TV programs.

LA FLOR DE LA CANELA
Choreographed for the first time by Nadine Sures, La Flor de la Canela is a long-standing tradition at le Boudoir. Ditsy does the Desert is an adventure epic. Lost in a far off desert-land, Ditsy stumbles across magical creatures who entice her to perform weird and wacky whimsical whats. Meet the Three Crouching Cocti, Josephine Bagel, Feather Mirage, and Hunted Hussy in an epic extravaganza your nipples will go neptuous over. With Émilie Monnet, Carrie McPherson, Nadine Sures, May Kwan, and Alyson Vishnovska.

Nadine Sures has worked professionally in theatre and dance since obtaining her B.F.A. in acting from the University of Alberta. She has performed her own creations in public spaces and venues across Canada and abroad, including the Edgy Women Festival. This will be her first creation for the Boudoir.

KSENIA VIDYAYKINA (New York)
Ksenia will present 2 solos from her award-winning repertoire. In SKIN, a 1920's primadonna is taking off her clothes, and then some. Classical and seedy, graceful and horrific, it is a striptease taken to its extreme. SWAN is inspired by Ksenia’s dashed childhood dream to be a ballerina - the St. Petersburg Ballet said her legs were too short.

Russian born dancer-actress-singer-costume designer Ksenia Vidyaykina began her performing career in Russia where she worked with Do-Theatre, a Butoh-inspired Russian troupe, and Formalny Theatre, a Grotowski influenced St. Petersburg company. In 2000, after a year of intense study at the EDDC in Arnheim, Holland, she moved to New York, where she has worked with Yoshiko Chuma's School of Hard Knocks, Robert Wison, Cathy Weis, among others. As a singer, Ksenia is an integral part of the nationally known avant-cabaret group Barbez.

IT HAPPENED IN THE STACKS (film)
A film noir melodrama about a a librarian’s struggle as she encounters the capricious behaviour of a client in search of a reference. Intrigue, romance, crime and punishment… in between the stacks of the city’s oldest public librbary.

Directed by Hope Thompson in 1997.
Featuring: Eileen O’Toole, Sarah Stanley, Moynan King, Sky Gilbert.

THE SHAPE OF THE GAZE (silent film)
A beautiful experimental hand-processed and optically printed film which implicates viewers in the gaze between the lesbian filmmaker and her self-identified butch subjects.

Directed by Maia Cybelle Carpenter in 2000.

SILVIA GONZALES (circus artist)
Now based in Montreal, and a member of Les sept Doigts de la Main, Silvia Gonzales is a circus artist from Barcelona. She will perform a flamenco solo and a knife-juggling act.

BABES WITH BLADES (Chicago)
BWB is a diverse ensemble of artists working together to expand opportunities for women in the world of stage combat. By exploring theatrical violence as a storytelling tool and as a means to entertain, educate, and enlighten, they challenge traditional expectations, push personal limitations, and celebrate the historical role of the woman warrior and her modern evolution. This will be their first presentation in Canada.