HAPPY BIRTHDAY
The Boom Boom Room celebrates
Three women and a man sit at a cafe, squeezing a moment in the day among other life stuff. They are as thick as thieves, busy and bouncing off each other’s company. They are a slice-of-life, cutout of an everyday scene.
But lean subtly closer and you might just get a different perspective on this setting.
Stitched in between the usual chat, four alter egos emerge. Hollie Berry, you may hear, is a ‘‘very nice girl’’, with an increasing tendency to be very naughty, Costa De Million is, well, ‘‘she’s a glam b .... ’’, Yula La, is ‘‘ditsy and a bit naive’’ and Mr Lola Illusion is the man-child conductor of quirk.
Mr Lola Illusion, or Ian Harman, has been up to the wee hours sewing sequins on a bra. They all want to know who it’s for and the banter rises in pitch. Burlesque is a part of their lives and the Boom Boom Room, created by Harman, by the sounds of it is an alternate world of fabulousness, feather boas and farfetched fantasy.
They have been knocking on that door for 10 years now and their new show, Tease-o-rama, is about to come full circle on to the Centrepoint Theatre stage.
It’s the same stage these four first stepped on to together all those years ago and back then, they say, burlesque wasn’t a ‘‘thing’’ like it is now. Harman says they made it up as they went along and, guided by their own personalities, the alter-egos emerged.
‘‘Costa, for example, she is just amazing now, but she didn’t exist to begin with. She was nothing to start with and then she was everything. But it took us ages to mould it and play around with it until all of a sudden, we found that thing, and then there was no stopping it. It’s been like that with everyone – things have morphed or moved on.’’
There was another overriding emotion in those early days. They all admit that while they were full-throttle focused on putting on a show that was unique and fun, fear was quietly sitting in the corner.
They were stepping on to a stage, in a new way and that way involved ‘‘getting our kit off’’. Costa De Million says that was terrifying.
‘‘People think that we just do it and we are really comfortable, but we get incredibly nervous. We are more confident now, but we still get nervous, every time.’’
‘‘People think that we just do it and we are really comfortable, but we get incredibly nervous. We are more confident now, but we still get nervous, every time.’’ Ian Harman
They went into their first show really not knowing what the audience would think. Harman remembers being backstage after an act and just saying to the girls, ‘‘what is going on?’’.
‘‘It was incredible. The audience was so amazing. What we do is such a vulnerable thing and because we are so vulnerable for the audience they were responding in a completely different way, in a beautiful way. They were so supportive and we were like, ‘they cheered for our step-ball change’.’’
Many of the people who sat in on that first show have come to every show since. The Boom Boom Room has its fans and it has become a place the dancers get drawn back into, year after year and show after show. Harman says after a show, when he goes back to working on other jobs, he ‘‘itches and aches to get back to the Boom Boom Room’’.
‘‘And it’s because of the girls that I work with and that beautiful trust that they give me. I don’t have anybody else in my life that there is that much trust that they will deliver my work. These are my best mates.’’
Hollie Berry and Harman have been firm friends for a mumbled amount of ‘‘let’s just say, many years’’. She says she keeps coming back to the show because of the bond that has been created.
‘‘And what Ian gets from us is just incredible. He pushes you because he wants you to do your best and he wants it to look amazing.’’
Burlesque for them is an art form, it’s a delving into the sumptuous world that Harman has in his head and it is a place he uncannily can recreate on stage. But it’s a meticulous process Yula La says is not easy.
‘‘There are a lot of layers. So you learn a layer and then you add the next one and then you think ‘oh no, something’s dropped away’ and then you go back to the start.’’
Hollie Berry says there is so much thought put into their acts and ‘‘you have to make it look like it’s just natural and I might just...’’, Harman’s uproarious laughter cuts in ‘‘and then I’ll yell, ‘suck your stomach in’.’’
It’s insanely fun, says Costa De Million. She says she adores the rehearsal process and that is the real addiction and the reason she has been in every show, except one, that the Boom Boom Room have put on over the last decade.
‘‘It’s a culture and we have built that on the basis of friendship. We have so much fun.’’
And that is where the magic lies, says Harman.
‘‘Other burlesque shows hire a whole bunch of independent burlesque dancers to put the show together and sometimes you can end up with similar acts or personas. We work very hard at trying to find what the difference between each girl is. So much goes into the acts.’’
It’s not about ‘‘being sexy’’, says Costa
De Million. They don’t try to do that, ‘‘we just try to tell a story’’. Harman says trying to be sexy ‘‘just isn’t’’.
‘‘I always tell the girls they are incredible – all their bodies are really different from one another and their faces and their personalities. But they are all incredibly sexy as themselves, as human beings anyway. They don’t have to try to be sexy, but they do have to bring people into their story.’’
New stories are being added to this show, with acts created for new dancers with their own alter-egos to share – Sugar Sparkles, Havana Ciggaro, Lucky Bang Bang and Cherries Jubilee. Harman says it was time to bring in some new girls to learn alongside the ‘‘Boom Boom Room superstars’’.
‘‘They all fit, they have to have that certain something and they need to be people that we all get along with and fit into this world.’’
And once again, the doors will be opened, into their stories and into their world. It’s a place of rich colour, sparkle and off-kilter humour. It’s a place that those who dwell there on occasion never want to see disappear.
Harman laughs again and if you were leaning too far to listen in on this wonderful conversation, you might just fall off your chair. ‘‘We will be geriatrics together and then we will die and heaven will be the Boom Boom Room. Now wouldn’t that be something?’’