A sister of sin, Balla Fire is a force to be reckoned with. Dark, lurid, a medusa-like temptress, she entrap you in seduction before you can look twice. Petite and charming as she may seem, one night with Balla Fire will leave you forever corrupted.
Kristi Angelene, more commonly known as Balla Fire, has become a local sensation since breaking into the Burlesque community eight years ago. Co-founder of the Santa Cruz burlesque troupe the Sin Sisters, Angelene switches between bay area venues including San Francisco’s Hubba Hubba Revue, Little Minsky’s, Red Hot’s Burlesque, Barbary Coates Burlesque and, her home base, the Catalyst.
Two years ago Angelene began teaching burlesque classes at Motion Pacific dance studio in Santa Cruz. With the community’s growing curiosity for burlesque, Angelene’s classes were an instant success.
Considered a connoisseur with a fan base stretching across the bay area and YouTube comments such as “Balla Fire is the Queen of Burlesque”, the stereotypically aloof “Balla Fire” can seem more than a little intimidating. But as I sat with Angelene at Pergolassi’s café in downtown Santa Cruz, she removed her dark sunglasses, revealing the woman behind the glorified persona that audiences go wild for.
“That aloof persona I’ve developed isn’t because I am a diva,” Angelene admits, “it’s because I am an awkward weirdo.”
Last month Sin Sisters celebrated two years of producing shows in Santa Cruz. Performing at the Catalyst the second weekend of every month, the Sin Sisters combine a variety of theatrics and glitzy costumes with naughty dance moves, often drawing an audience of 150 or more.
Often stigmatized as strippers, burlesque performers require talents beyond simply taking off their clothes.
“The biggest difference is that it’s theater and entertainment,” Angelene says. “A burlesque dancer is an artist; a performer that is creating a theatrical piece. Yes we’re taking our clothes off, that’s part of the deal, but strippers take their clothes off just for dollars.”
Although she makes it clear that burlesque dancers are not strippers, she sees no disgrace in stripping. “Sometimes I refer to myself as a stripper just to make peoples’ skin crawl,” she adds, “I think it’s funny.”
Angelene’s big break as a burlesque performer came about six years ago when Jon Sweeny, producer and MC of the Hubba Hubba Revue, took notice of her guest performance.
“First time I saw [Balla Fire] perform I thought to myself ‘she's a natural’” said Sweeny, “And she is. She's one of those performers who are simply born to it, and have the skills & abilities already in them. She taps into that, and uses the grace of her body-and her sexy, impish, elfin, troublemaker good-looks-to create a smoky, sultry, brimstone-flavored kind of burlesque.”
Although the new wave of burlesque began gaining popularity about ten years ago, for a time Santa Cruz was untouched by the trend.
“There was a time when I was the only burlesque performer I knew” said Angelene. Her craving for local burlesque stirred Angelene to create a Yahoo group in search for other similar performers. Ultimately her pursuit led her to discovering former burlesque partner Madame Chartruse, a 6’4 southern bell that Angelene refers to as “a force to be reckoned with.”
Together the performers founded the first burlesque troupe in Santa Cruz County. Although Madame Chartruse took leave from the Sin Sisters, Angelene continues manage the Sin Sisters, along with her biological sister and fellow burlesque performer Cyanide Cyn.
A Las Vegas native, Angelene has been drawn to theatrics her entire life. But even though she exhibited talent from a young age, she said her family never had enough money for her to get any training.
“I grew up really poor. Most of my stuff was just me and my sister creating performances in the living room; regaling our parents and siblings with our ridiculousness.”
When asked about her family’s outlook on burlesque performing, Angelene responded “Yeah you could say my family supports my performing, [my sister] is up there performing with me every month.”
Like her inclination to become a performer, Angelene’s decision to share her expertise with the community came instinctively.
“I’ve always sort of worked with others and taught in other capacities, so it seemed like a natural transition for me to want to share what I have.”
Every night after performances, she would be approached by passionate artists asking how they, too, could become burlesque performers. Eventually the enthusiasm could no longer be controlled and Angelene began a class coaching performers until they were ready to take the stage.
“It’s a vulnerable place to put yourself onstage. Not just because you are taking your clothes off, but because you’re bearing a piece of your soul."
About a year ago Angelene began Burly Q Burlesque, a weekly beginners class that focused on the basic movements of burlesque. An opportunity for those who were less experienced, Burly Q Burlesque brought a variety of students; some who wanted to pursue burlesque professionally and some who simply wanted to shimmy and shake.
“There should be a place for people to explore, to play around with ideas of sexuality and do something that is brave.”
Angelene’s aim to introduce pursuing artists to the Santa Cruz burlesque community came out of her own struggles as a performer.
“When I started I didn’t even know what to do. I was just pushed into the deep end and had to swim. Making my way into a community that was already pretty well-established, it felt closed. For awhile, I felt like an outsider."
But Angelene has put Burly Q Burlesque on the back burner for the moment to reassess the structure of her classes. Her current plan is to transform her beginners class in to a 6-8 week chorus course that would end with a finale performance at the Catalyst. She is waiting for the go-ahead from Motion Pacific before she can begin enrolling students.
Angelene feels her choice to transform her class will make students more committed to the class and to themselves.
“A lot of times people just want to take a dance class to learn something new and move around, but once you recognize that you are capable and this is something that you can do you want to share that. I think that a performance is necessary. I want to bring my students to my stage and do something as a group.”
For more info on burlesque classes visit: http://www.sinsistersburlesque.com/burlesque-workshops.html
For more info on Sin Sisters visit: http://www.sinsistersburlesque.com/burlesque-workshops.html
To see when Sisters will perform next visit: http://www.catalystclub.com/calendar/
