DANCING QUEEN
MEET THE MOULIN ROUGE'S LONGEST-SERVING SHOWGIRL
Marissa Burgess is the perfect comeback to that old showbiz tune warning mothers about putting their daughters on the stage.
At 50, she is still making a living from entertaining – a producer, dancer, singer and teacher whose star continues to shine, having gathered more than a few wisdoms along the journey.
For the past five years, she has been touring her own cabaret show and putting together special performances for corporate and private clients.
For a daughter on the stage, she has done all right.
Hailing from Newcastle, Marissa trained under the revered Australian ballet matriarch Tessa Maunder, an old-school dance mistress who demanded discipline, hard work and loyalty.
Marissa was discovered in her first professional show and, at 17, was recruited to dance at the legendary Moulin Rouge in Paris.
She packed her bags and headed for France, with a permission note from her parents because she was still under 18.
“At that age, you don’t know anything,” she says. “But I knew I’d been well trained, I’d learned a little bit of French in school and I was reasonably confident.
“You go into a place like that and it’s like going into a family. They look out for you.”
After a week, she was promoted to soloist dancer and within three years had risen to a starring role. She stayed for about 15 years, officially the longest serving performer in the venue’s 123-year history.
“In the early days my plan was to be the best dancer I could be,” she says. “I was going to go travelling to all the big shows around the world.
“But then I got into the Parisian lifestyle, the culture. That was all part of it and I stayed.”
Marissa’s life in Paris sounds like the stuff of fairytales. She worked as a freelance model for French fashion houses on the side and rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous – but 12 shows a week meant there was much hard work and discipline too.
She was afforded the respect and admiration the French bestow on their showgirls, appearing on TV talk shows and documentaries.
But at the age of 32, she knew it was time to move on.
“I felt old,” she says simply. “I thought I couldn’t grow any more and it felt like it was time to come home.”
At the time there was not much of a platform for showgirls in Australia but
Marissa had long been working on her plan B. For the seven years before leaving Paris, she trained privately as a singer, a passion she’d always harboured but was not able to dedicate time to pursuing.
She came to the Gold Coast as a singer in the Jupiters Casino stage spectacular Rhythm
of the Night that launched in 2002.
After her contract was up, she stayed on at Jupiters managing other productions until she was invited to Germany to put dancers in spiegeltent shows.
“It had never really been done before but I adored it,” she says. “I was there for three years putting the shows together and it led to ongoing permanent positions for 20 dancers.
“It’s work that didn’t exist before and I’m all about creating jobs for people.”
Marissa laments the demise of opportunities in the modern market that provide performers with work and valuable experience.
“When I was starting out in the late ’80s, there was so much work with so many venues around the world,” she says.
“There was good pay and they were literally throwing work at us.
“Some of that gap has been filled by cruise ships and they’re great. There’s been a vast improvement in the standard of their shows over the years, they have their own style, and they employ hundreds of dancers but there are just not the same opportunities for young dancers to work.”
Returning to Australia, Marissa decided to take matters into her own hands – launching her own production company, putting together touring shows and special performances for corporate or private clients.
Her Cabaret de Paris, a classical French-style cabaret featuring acrobats, pole dancers, magicians and, of course, showgirls, started as a one-off event for Crown Casino in Melbourne five years ago but has toured on and off around Australia and New Zealand ever since.
In it Marissa sings a Piaf repertoire, and has been known to don the sparkles and feathers to join the showgirls, but says the show isn’t about her.
“I’m very happy to step out and produce these days,” she says. “I don’t have the ego to have to step up on stage every two minutes. That’s neither here nor there. My main goal is always for people to work.”
Marissa worries employment opportunities for professional dancers are shrinking while the ranks of young dancers are growing.
“There seems to be more and more talent these days,” she says. “There are certainly a lot more dance schools – commercial schools and hip-hop schools – and shows like So You
Think You Can Dance give people a platform and get the lingo out there.”
But, for Marissa, sorting the wheat from the chaff in the dance world will always come down to one thing: ballet.
“Anyone who’s done 11 or 12 years of ballet training has done their dues,” she says.
“YOU GO INTO A PLACE LIKE THAT AND IT’S LIKE GOING INTO A FAMILY. THEY LOOK OUT FOR YOU.”
“When you know what you’re looking for, it’s just so plain to see: the flexibility, the discipline, the work, it really whittles it down.
“Ballet is hard and boring, not always fun. There’s pain and injury and endurance but it creates that special kid with tenacity.”
Marissa passes on her knowledge to the next generation through teaching at her sister’s Corina School of Dance and provides guidance for young dancers preparing for highly competitive auditions for international contracts.
“I think social media has really changed the landscape,” she says.
“There’s too much about the next program, the next big thing, but anything that’s worth having takes time to achieve.”
Marissa’s 18-year-old niece Savanna Haenel is currently working at the Lido in Paris, following in the footsteps of her mother Corina. Marissa says Savanna understands it’s a long-term project to mature and grow as a dancer.
“It takes years and years,” she says. “If you’re doing the Parisian thing, living and working there is all part of it, just as it is with Broadway dancers.
“Sometimes I see girls who get there and they leave, thinking they’ve done it all. They don’t understand they’re there to grow and that comes with age and experience.
“You have to strive daily, have a reverence for your craft. That’s what Paris teaches you. Young people can be impatient with short attention spans..”
These days between juggling her work, Marissa finds peace at the hinterland home she shares with husband Ben “Hur” Nicolodi, an international acrobatic performer, now teacher.
They have a magnificent view of the coastline, a vegie patch and love their little piece of Australia.
“The country, the land, has always been my sanity,” she says.
“You’ve got to be brave enough to go there. You can’t be thinking ‘What will become of me?’ You just do the very best you can. It’s a great life out there.”