We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Harlow Holiday. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Harlow below.
Hi Harlow, thanks for joining us today. One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
An unexpected road bump in my creative journey has been the Covid-19 pandemic. We are still struggling to recover as an arts community to this day. Prior to the events of March 2020, Salt City Burlesque LLC was a bustling business, a burlesque and vaudeville revival performance art troupe based in Syracuse, NY and featuring an array of core members from the Central New York region. We are currently a group eleven strong, with members involved at various capacities from stage managing to solo performing. Prior to the pandemic we hosted shows on a bimonthly or monthly basis since inception in 2015. We were used to sold out shows full of enthusiastic patrons, and coming up with wild themes to display our artistic antics. When the world shut down in March 2020, the burlesque and performance art community changed forever. During Covid many artists took to the digital stage, learning how to perform for a new type of audience on the world wide web. Tools like TikTok and other editing apps helped artists learn to become their own videographers, performing for a camera instead of a live audience. Shows would be streamed and artists would receive digital tips. For many, this new style became a way to keep the art alive, for others they questioned whether or not the art had died, and if their time sparkling on stages had come and gone. A really wonderful feature of this time period was that these virtual shows created new opportunities for all types of accessibility. As the world began to reopen, productions were sparse, audiences hesitant and reduced. As in Salt City Burlesque’s foundation, the post-covid revival focused on education and rebirth. We chose to continue in a hybrid format initially, sharing our digital acts with our audience staggering live performers at rate of about 1:1. Many of us were so proud of the way we were able to build new skills in videography, adapt our visions, and create new styles of performance during covid, that we continued to find ways to share them- through shows, through subscriber content, through self-promotion and marketing. Many of our Covid-era projects are now treasured works of art holding high personal symbolisms. During our hybrid shows we talked in depth about our experiences from both the pros/cons perspectives, engaging in healthy dialogue processing what would be the darkest time of our collective lives. We participated in mini-documentaries, podcasts, interviews, sharing our challenges and personal victories. We slowly made our way back to fully packed houses and live shows, stronger, wiser, more excited than ever. Today, new challenges arise, considering the difficult economy and rising costs, many venues are closing, forcing us to find new avenues to present our art. That is our newest challenge in Syracuse, as our main venue Wunderbar closed in November 2023.
Harlow, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Per our website- Founded in early 2015 by Harlow Holiday and Mary Effen Sunshine, Salt City Burlesque is a performance art troupe and production based out of Syracuse, New York; historically know as “Salt City”. It is our mission to provide inclusive quality vaudeville style entertainment in safe spaces that feature music, dance, comedy, striptease, flow arts and more, while educating the public on the historical significance of the art form as it evolves with us today.
Growing and ever evolving, Salt City Burlesque fully supports the expansion of an integrated statewide performance art community. Each of our shows feature talent from the CNY region and beyond! You can regularly catch regional artists and performers from Syracuse, Rochester, Binghamton, Albany, as well as the North Country. On occasion we additionally feature special guest headlining industry professionals. You can see the best of the best of burlesque right here in Syracuse!
Salt City Burlesque periodically offers opportunities to study lecture based history workshops, movement and skills classes, costuming workshops, and more! Education is provided by experienced facilitators and is perfect for established performers looking to increase their skill, prospective performers, and those just interested in the art form and looking to have a great time in a positive learning environment.
Additional info-
What sets Salt City Burlesque apart is the quality standard and level of professionalism. We pride ourselves on putting on productions that honor the highest quality of artists while still offering opportunities to learn and grow to new artists, giving newbies an opportunity performing alongside the veterans and professionals. Our curation is a beautiful integration of exquisite polish, luxury, and outlandish comedy. We seek fully realized thought provoking forms of expression to curate the best shows possible. We incorporate traditional and foundational themes and elements from the heyday of burlesque and vaudevillian entertainment. We aim to go above and beyond when it comes to communication and creating safe spaces for our artists from the beginning process of negotiation and administrative requirements to the moment they set foot on our stage. We strive to offer artists the highest levels of hospitality during their time working with us. These efforts have set a tone that has had a ripple effect in our upstate NY community. Our strong networking skills and family orientation has garnered strong collaborative and ongoing partnerships with troupes in neighboring cities of Rochester, Buffalo, Ithaca, and Albany/Troy.
What we are most proud of is being awarded a covid arts grant in early 2023 and producing the Salt City Burlesque Festival in spring 2023. Over the course of Memorial Day weekend, CNY hosted over 50 artists at The Palace Theatre and Wunderbar in Syracuse, NY, many visiting from across North America and including Canada. Through this funding we were able to produce two days of showcases, classes, and the biggest and most important point- awarding each performer a stipend/guaranteed payment, which is NOT a standard in the burlesque festival circuit. Having received wonderful feedback from participating artists, next steps included conversations in the regional community to form an ethics committee to discuss such topics as fair wages in the burlesque arts community. This is still in the works and includes leaders from troupes in the cities mentioned above.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
Invest in your communities. Support artists- attend shows, buy tickets when you can afford to even if you can’t attend the event. tip artists, donate to fundraisers or non-profits, and if your budget does not allow you to support the arts monetarily, share flyers and listings, tell your friends about the amazing things you find. Spread the word, everything counts!
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being a burlesque artist is being part of a community of creatives who transcend limitations. Burlesque, like other communities can have it’s fair share of challenges though largely is a platform that affords many artists an opportunity to dream big and live out their fantasies. Myself for example, am a plus size person short in height that had dreams of being a classic showgirl… which would never happen since the very first requirement in that industry is a height of 5’8″ or more. In the burlesque world, anyone can bring their dreams to life for a few minutes on the stage. Theme shows exist for the widest range of tastes, from classic to neo burlesque, metal, nerdlesque, boylesque, and more. There are even festivals dedicated to plus size bodies or persons with disabilities. Literal showgirls in wheelchairs still performing an expertly crafted tease such as the beautiful Jacqueline Boxx of Tuscon, AZ. The world of burlesque is open to all and is especially a playground for dreamers!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.saltcityburlesque.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saltcityburlesque/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saltcityburlesque/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zVpHb5e7wGycmBji-yYqQ
Image Credits
Each photo is labeled with the photographer name in the file.