Coney Island
Saturday, June 20, free, 1:00
Parade starts at West 21st St. & Surf Ave.
www.coneyisland.com
Two years ago, there was almost no Mermaid Parade. This year, there will be no Mermaid Parade Ball, but the thirty-third annual parade itself is a go, led by the husband-and-wife team of Julie Atlas Muz (This or That!) as Queen Mermaid and Mat Fraser (American Horror Story) as King Neptune. An annual tradition since 1983, harkening back to the Coney Island Mardi Gras, which was held from 1903 to 1954, the parade gets started at West Twenty-First St. & Surf Ave., heads east onto West Tenth St., then turns south toward the boardwalk and Steeplechase Plaza, with antique cars, motorized and pulled floats, and tons of folks dressed in wild sea regalia. Over the years, the Mermaid Parade has gone from a relatively small, intimate gathering — we marched in it way back when, and we were a manta ray, not Batman, thank you very much — to a huge celebration, part Village Halloween Parade, part Gay Pride March. It’s just the right time and place to let it all hang out and release that inner sea creature that has been lurking within you, ready to burst free.
In Exposed, visual artist Beth B, who got her start in the 1970s underground scene in New York City, invites viewers into the inner world of burlesque, going behind the scenes with eight current performers who share intimate details about their lives and their shows. Beth B (Two Small Bodies, An Unlikely Terrorist), who wrote, directed, produced, edited (with Keith Reamer), and photographed (with Dan Karlok) the seventy-six-minute documentary, goes backstage at such New York venues as the Slipper Room, Le Poisson Rouge, the Cutting Room, Dixon Place, P.S. 122, Galapagos Art Space, and Coney Island’s Sideshows by the Seashore as burlesque performers discuss issues of gender, control, freedom, disabilities, power, nudity, femininity, personal and professional identity, and more. “What the world projects as normal, it’s just such an illusion, it’s such a fantasy,” Bunny Love says, “and I love that fantasy.” UK comedian and cabaret performer Mat Fraser, who was born with “flippers” for hands, explains, “If you can make them laugh and make a political point that fuels your outrage, all the better.” And Rose Wood adds, “I’ve tried to present my audience with an indelible picture of the body seen in another way, seen in a way that’s different than they see themselves. They have ideas of what’s normal — what a man does, what a woman does, what a heterosexual does, what a gay person does — and I try to present them with another way of seeing the body.” Among the other performers who share their stories are Tigger!, who uses burlesque as a kind of sexual political theater; Dirty Martini, who pays tribute to such early stars of the wordless art form as Dixie Evans and Vickie Lynn; Bambi the Mermaid, who produces Coney Island’s popular Burlesque at the Beach series; Julie Atlas Muz, who honors Pina Bausch in her performance art; and World Famous *BOB*, who points out, “I never lie to people. People would say, ‘Are you a man or a woman?’ And I would say yes. That quick wit was something that I learned from my drag family, that quick wit, that ability to turn anything that hurts you inside into something that’s funny.”
