Is Port Townsend ready for more burlesque shows?

One resident thinks so. With her production company, Velvet Revolution, anami wants to bring more burlesque shows to Port Townsend – and teach more folks the bump and grind, as well as some history of the art.

“I’ve noticed that burlesque shows are really popular here, but we don’t have a lot of them,” said anami, a burlesque performer and producer who also operates a fortune-telling booth that’s often stationed near the corner of Taylor and Water streets.

She’s quick to explain what she means by the term.

“To ‘burlesque’ something is to make fun of it, to make comedy, to make satire,” she said. “It came about during the Victorian era, when sexuality was frowned upon,” and while burlesque performances can include some risque acts, they’re more about social commentary than striptease.

“Some people think [burlesque] is all about taking off your clothes. It’s more about the idea you’re expressing, the satire you’re making,” anami said. “I’d like to bring really thoughtful, creative, unique burlesque shows to Port Townsend.”

She grew up in Port Angeles, but often “escaped” to Port Townsend as a youth. She has been putting on shows since she was a kid, and has been a professional performer for 15 years. While living in San Francisco, she produced music, fashion and variety shows, performed at the Start Soma Gallery, that were fundraisers for Gavin Newsom’s campaign for mayor.

Around that time, she got into burlesque by incorporating it into her own hoop-dancing and fire-dancing routines; fire arts and the fire hoop are two of her specialties. She does “fire eating, glass walking, body burns, staff, swords and flaming umbrella,” and is also an aerialist, though she doesn’t have anywhere to hang her equipment at the moment.

In 2009, she started instructing and performing in Port Angeles as Cirque de Boheme, which put on dozens of shows before it disbanded.

With her current production company, Velvet Revolution, anami coordinates shows such as the Victorian Peep Show at PT’s Steampunk Festival in late May, “a larger-than-life peep show with live acts.”

She also collaborates and performs individually, as she has for numerous shows in PT and beyond, including at CenturyLink Field in Seattle. She attends the annual BurlyCon, a burlesque education and social convention in Seattle, and has been in the “fire conclave” at six Burning Man festivals.

She says Port Townsend is ripe for more burlesque shows.

“People come to Port Townsend to immerse themselves in our culture … which is very historical in its nature.” They were doing burlesque shows in Victorian Britain, and "follies" shows in Port Angeles in the late 1800s, she said, and probably Port Townsend, too, “given what our waterfront once was.”

She’d prefer to just be a performer, but as she said, “Here, you almost have to put the show on for the show to exist.”

Once they get started, “I feel like the shows can propagate themselves,” she said. She wants to be able to pay the performers, so she hesitates to rely on ticket sales alone to do so at first.

“Artists put their blood, sweat and time into shows, and are often not paid or inadequately paid.”

She has lined up dozens of willing performers from around the Northwest, and in order to bring them here, she seeks “sponsorships and community support and people that want to be patrons of this art.”

Her ideas for burlesque shows include the Faux News Network, a media satire clown burlesque show; the Post-Apocalyptic Cabaret; the Nose to the Grindstone work-based burlesque; a speakeasy-style dinner theater from the Roaring ’20s; the Hunt for the Last Unicorn fantasy-based burlesque; and more.

She envisions “a fun, intelligent and racy show of live entertainment.… It’s a gap in what we offer. I feel capable of filling that gap.”

For more information, or to help bring more burlesque to PT, email anami at

anamiisnowhere@gmail.com. Find Velvet Revolution on Facebook at

facebook.com/revolutioncanbefun.

BURLESQUE 101

Beginning on March 2, anami is offering a six-week class in the foundations of burlesque, from 7 to 9 p.m. on Mondays at Madrona MindBody Institute at Fort Worden (ending April 6). Classes cover the background and history of burlesque as well as “learning the moves – the bump, the grind – learning to work with fans and chairs and boas.” Students who do their homework will leave with a character and the rough draft of an act, she said. It’s open to everyone – men, women, any gender or no gender. And it’s a great way to build confidence.

“Burlesque builds confidence because it’s an art where you don’t have to have a certain size or look or gender. Burlesque dancers have every kind of theme or personality.”

She recalled talking with a girl who complained that she was “too fat” to do burlesque, until anami took her to a show where women of all sizes were really working it on stage.

“Your size doesn’t dictate your sexiness; your self-image dictates your sexiness,” she said.

“Burlesque teaches you to put yourself out there and say, ‘I exist, this is what I have to say,’” and “A lot of the time, the audiences, unless they’re jerks, are going to cheer you on for that.”

The fee is $90, and space is limited. She also has two scholarship spots open for $60 for all six weeks. For information, email anamiisnowhere@gmail.com.

She can also be found at the Boiler Room in downtown Port Townsend, where she works as assistant manager.

“I credit the performing artist that I am with discovering the Boiler Room as a teenager.”

Like programs at the Boiler Room that inspire people to express themselves, the self-confidence to be learned in a burlesque class could have a “positive ripple” effect on the whole community,” anami said. “Find what you love about yourself.… Don’t be afraid of your greatness, because when you embrace what’s great about yourself, you inspire others to embrace what’s great about themselves.… Positive self-image breeds positive self-image.”