LAS VEGAS — Stripper and burlesque queen Dita Von Teese’s new show will kick off in Los Angeles at the House of Blues on May 11, marking the start of a two-year national tour.
The Las Vegas Sun’s Robin Leach reported that the 20-year burlesque veteran has partnered with Live Nation for the event that will first include a West Coast city leg stopping in L.A., Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Orange County, and San Diego.
“Strip, Strip, Hooray” will then hit cities in the Midwest, east coast and the south.
Von Teese told Leach that she is intent on keeping the spirit of the great burlesque queens alive, but hopes to make her new show more extravagant.
“There are about half a million Swarovski crystals in every 7-minute moment of my performance onstage, and that is extravagance. I spend about up to $100,000 on each 7-minute moment of my acts. It’s a different kind of extravagance that is important to me. The evolution is really important to me is what I’m really trying to say. I’m not trying to make any replicas of any burlesque shows; I want to show people something they truly have never seen before,” Von Teese told Leach.
The 90-minute spectacle will feature a troupe of Von Teese’s handpicked performers that includes Lada from Las Vegas’ Crazy Horse Paris along with performers Selene Luna, Murray Hill and Dirty Martini. There’s also a “boy-lesque act.”
Von Teese said the show will include nudity to keep true to the art’s “racy history.”
"I like the challenge of changing people’s minds about nudity, about changing people’s minds about what it means to be a stripper. That is my entire goal. I like the word ‘stripper.’ I don’t get offended by people calling me that. I just want them to go, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that that is what a striptease could be,’” she said.
Von Teese has appeared in numerous adult projects including two Andrew Blake films and a host of skin magazines including Playboy.
Her mainstream celebrity has included her former marriage to rocker Marilyn Manson and a global business in fashion, lingerie, makeup and other products.
