Meet Sadie Hawkins

Drawing inspiration from pop culture and a childhood full of music, theater, and musical theater, Sadie Hawkins is a burlesque performer and aerialist based in Atlanta, Ga.

She joined Atlanta’s DollSquad Burlesque Revue as a card girl (as Scarlett Fever), and eventually began to perform solo. In 2006, Sadie and fellow DollSquad alumna Barbilicious founded Blast-Off Burlesque. They tapped good friends Ferris Hilton and Dickie Van Dyke prior to the first Blast-Off performance in that September. Known for quirky, performance art-style and scifi/horror themed acts, the group has now grown to include nearly a dozen regular collaborators.

Blast-Off Burlesque appears regularly at the Silver Scream Spook Show and as guests in other groups’ events throughout the Southeast. Blast-Off produces highly-acclaimed themed SciFi-A-GoGo shows about three times each year. In 2009, Blast-Off Burlesque was voted Best Burlesque Troupe in Creative Loafing’s annual Best of Atlanta survey.

Sadie took up circus arts in 2008; she began performing with Guerrilla Aerial and teaching lyra in 2009. While specializing in lyra (aerial hoop), Ms. Hawkins is also exploring silks (sling and cloud sling), Spanish Web, rings, trapeze, and acrobalance. Her aerial performance is charged with a burlesque sensibility, fusing the two arts.

Sadie is a freelance writer and marketing communicator for her day job. With her husband, she is a partner in Knottie Pictures. She practices yoga, rides vintage scooters, and recently joined the Eyedrum board of directors.

I’m often asked what sort of acts I do, and that’s harder to articulate than one would think. There are the solos, and then there are a variety of collaborations with other performers. While this isn’t a comprehensive listing, by any means, it’s a sampling of my acts.

Burlesque

• Freestyle Go-Go Dancing – best when it’s classic pop, rock and soul, but also to more contemporary music
• Traditional Striptease – it’s what most Americans associate with the term “burlesque”
• Sleepwalker’s Serenade – a traditional strip to the Count Basie song
• Too Much Pork – solo strip go-go to one of my favorite Southern Culture on the Skids songs
• Dreidel – a little surf guitar and a little punk rock makes for a Happy Hanukkah!
• Kinda Kinky – solo choreographed go-go to an Ursula 1000 song (retired)
  
• Boom Boom – a hunting-themed act, with another performer in a bear costume (retired)
  
• Underwear – a play on gender (retired)
• Get The Party Started – set to Shirley Bassey’s cover of the Pink song, a society dame becomes party girl (retired)
  
• I’m also part of several duo, trio, and small group burlesque acts including: Masochism Tango, Stuck With You (twins), Skeleton Dating Game, Breadwinner (a daydream), Boys Like (shoplifting clothes off a mannequin), Palace Guards, Lonesome Road (nun and Devil), Searcher (space girl go-go), Beyond the Sea, and several Silver Scream Spook Show-derived dances.

Aerial

• Ambient Aerial – on lyra; great for a little eye candy during an event
• Burlesque on the Hoop – freestyle go-go and/or striptease on the lyra
• Earth Stood Still – set to Bernard Herrmann’s soundtrack to “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, this act can be 3-8 minutes long
• Carnivale – with a Guerrilla Aerial partner, this lyra act is in two movements, set to “Brother Can You Spare A Dime” and “Sugar”
• Teardrop – lyra and acrobalance with a partner, this act is a hallucination of sorts
• Audrey’s Dance – a striptease on the lyra