Not-ivitiy: The Christmas Cheek Of It Burlesque graduation

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a sprinkling of glitter and those Cheek Of It girls certainly delivered glitter by the bucket load at the recent burlesque graduation show! With two troupes, eight soloists and two returning TCOI graduates on the line up, I headed down to The Globe at The Bedford to photograph the girls taking ownership of their stage.

From tiger tamers to voodoo vixens and even a spinach-eating fitness fanatic, I’m always impressed by the level of creativity that is brought to the stage by the girls at The Cheek Of It. Tied together seamlessly by the talents of compere Bebe Van Der Belt, it was also brilliant to see Miss Oopsie Ooohh and Athena Beauvoir return to the stage and show us what they’ve been working on since they graduated. Athena performed the same routine that she created for her burlesque graduation show back in 2014 – it was amazing to see how the act and costume had progressed!

With Lady Cheek currently celebrating the birth of her beautiful little boy, the role of producer had been handed over temporarily to none other than TCOI head girl and Glamazon, Lay May Den-Voyage, who rocked the stage in her thigh high silver boots (which I tried on backstage before the show and are so long I kid you not, I ran out of leg to wear them on!) during the finale. She was presented with the biggest bouquet of flowers in the world from Lady Cheek and an avalanche of glitter from the girls, which after giving her a hug post-show, even I was finding traces of glitter upon my person for days after the show!

As always, there are hundreds of photos from the Not-ivity burlesque graduation show, so I have selected a handful of my favourites from the night and featured them below. I would have loved to include an image of the other troupe but the only one I have of the entire troupe is tassels out and I never give away the final reveal, darling! Though I also think 14 pairs of tassels in one photo might break the internet…

If you’ve been thinking of taking burlesque lessons, make it one of your New Year goals and check out The Cheek Of It’s website for more information on both beginners and advanced courses, as well as one day workshops and special events. Courses start very soon and they fill quickly, so snap your place up now!

Looking for a live burlesque photographer? You’ve come to the right place! Drop me an email with details about your upcoming event and I’ll get back to you with a quote as soon as humanly possible. I can’t wait to hear from you!