ALL ABOUT ESSENTIAL TEASE
Essential Tease classes expand the definition of what a burlesque class can be.
As seasoned burlesque performers, producers, and instructors, we know that burlesque can empower you to improve your relationship with your body, stretch your artistic boundaries, and tell your personal story. Our teachers are each uniquely experienced in achieving the fusion of mind and body for diverse body types (size, ability, range, skill) and have professional backgrounds in highly varied performance styles.
Our signature style of instruction combines essential burlesque knowledge with mind-body awareness techniques and wellness habits. Each week, step-by-step exercises will guide you in turning your personal stories into beautiful public art. You'll also be welcomed into an ever-growing community of like-minded alumni who will be your performance partners and friends for life.
Essential Tease welcomes ALL gender identities, abilities, ages, sexual preferences, races, religions, AND experience levels. All humans welcome, and all bodies are burlesque bodies!
INSTRUCTORS
JACQUELINE BOXX
Jacqueline has headlined and been featured in burlesque festivals across the world, including Vienna, Adelaide, Montreal, Minneapolis, and New York City. She has performed twice at The Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender in Las Vegas, becoming the first performer to ever compete in a wheelchair for a title at the Tournament of Tease. Jacqueline has also taught burlesque workshops and lectured on panels about mindful movement and adaptive performance across the country. Her decades of experience include training in ballet, swing dance, bellydance, aerial arts, clowning, musical theater, and more.
TEMPETE LA COEUR
Known as the "Temptress in a Teacup", Tempete La Coeur began brewing as a tiny dancer while growing up in the wetlands of Maryland's eastern shore. Years later, she quietly stormed her way onto the DC and Baltimore burlesque scene at the beginning of 2015 and has joyfully twirled her way around to stages all over DC, Baltimore, Virginia and beyond!
A master of the unexpected, Tempete has been known to surprise audiences with her clever twists on classic and her moving and sometimes hilarious take on neo-burlesque. Batten down the hatches, because this petite powerhouse will make you giggle and think with a wiggle and a wink and you might get a little wet in the process!
RUBY ROCKAFELLA
Ruby Rockafella is an award-winning burlesque performer who has been performing and producing burlesque for nearly a decade. Known as a “master of character and costume” (TheatreBloom), Ruby began teaching in 2015. She is especially focused on helping performers explore their emotional range through facial expression and eye contact. She has always loved the storytelling aspect of burlesque and is fascinated by the transformations that can occur in just a few short moments on stage. While she appreciates the classic nature of burlesque, she also adores weirdness, the grotesque, silliness, and pushing the boundaries of what is considered sexy and stageworthy. The lessons Ruby has learned from burlesque have touched every aspect of her life and fundamentally changed her perceptions about both body and soul. She hopes to share this magic with students for years to come!
NONA NARCISSE
Nona has been trained in several different dance modalities, including ballet, modern, belly dance and African dance in Santa Fe, NM. She has theatre and mime training from the lauded Celebration Barn Theater. The Barn was founded by Tony Montanaro, a student of Marcel Marceau. She began doing burlesque in New Orleans in 2007, earning her chops performing with some of the best musicians and entertainers in the world. She has worked with such greats as The Cab Calloway Jazz Orchestra and has traveled as far as The Ascona, Switzerland Jazz Festival to perform. She attended Pratt School of Design in NYC, and designs and creates her own costuming. As the owner of Looking Glass Gems, she spends her days providing beautiful, affordable rhinestones for creative design.
CHERIE NUIT
As a classically trained actress with a degree specializing in performance art from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Cherie is an innovator and boundary pusher in the DC/Baltimore area as well as the producer of F-Your-Standards, a feminist burlesque and performance art revue. Cherie began her training in acting at some of Chicago's most prestigious theaters including The Looking Glass Theater, home to Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphosis. She also studied under members of the Redmoon Theater in spectacle and community-based performance before finding her niche in burlesque as an interactive form of performance art. Nothing can stop this vivacious and curvaceous bad-ass as she makes her way across the country! Known for her award winning acts and performances at The Burlesque Hall of Fame Tournament of Tease, The Show-Me Burlesque Festival, The New York Burlesque Festival, and the Alterna-Tease Neo-Burlesque Festival (to name a few), Cherie Nuit can also be found performing locally, as well as nationally. In addition to burlesque, Cherie has extensive training in meditation, movement-based comedy, and peer mediation.