Sometime around 2003, an Albuquerque woman attended a performance of local burlesque troupe, Bella Donna Burlesque Revue.  Her 16 year background in ballet, jazz and tap said, “I bet I could do that.” The dancer created a burlesque stage name, Holly Rebelle, a mashup of her love of rock n roller Buddy Holly and her prominent Star Wars Rebel Alliance tattoo.Holly had been performing as part of Crushed Velvet Rope, a local fetish company. CVR performed skits at goth and leather events, emphasizing a twisted and more adventurous side of sex. Holly realized this was a good point from which to launch a burlesque troupe. It would be different from what she’d seen of burlesque so far. She planned to focus on group choreography, modern music and a darker ambience. Burlesque Noir was born. A few internet postings yielded six burlesque volunteers and one professional seamstress. Within weeks, Holly choreographed Burlesque Noir’s first group pieces; a trio of flag twirling drag racers accompanied by Rob Zombie’s hit Dragula, and a fierce quartet of geishas dancing along to David Bowie’s China Girl.Burlesque Noir provided acts for the next two CVR productions before setting out to produce their own show. Their first production, Winter Wonderlust began with a sold out crowd and a line around the block. It was exhilarating to realize that after eighteen months of hard work; Burlesque Noir was officially off the ground.

In 2006, Burlesque Noir had recruited choreographer Tony Travis and grown to fourteen performers. Burlesque Noir evolved, self-producing approximately five hours of original material each year and performing for whichever venues invited us including The Rumblers Car Show, Self Serve, Free Radicals, PRIDE and Alibi bar crawl events. Between 2006 and 2008, BN created over one hundred unique group burlesque acts, solos and duets.

In 2007, Kitty Irreverent invited us to perform at the first ever New Mexico Burlesque Showcase. Now known as the Southwest Burlesque Showcase, BN continues to perform at this annual event for the sold out house. Burlesque Noir uses this opportunity to show off their finest solos and group numbers each year at Albuquerque’s historic KiMo Theater. They have had the privilege of sharing their hometown theater with national acts Vivienne Vavoom, Coco Lectric, Scarlett Letter, Red Snapper, Miss Orchid Mei, Flame Cynders, Indigo Blue and many more.

Sometime before our five year anniversary, it became clear to us that many people were coming to see us for the first time. With so much previous material, we reviewed videos of our older shows and an event appropriately titled called Greatest Tits was born. Holly had more on her mind than simply re-staging older numbers for a new audience. She wanted to take Burlesque Noir to a new level of performance and this would involve performing far away from Albuquerque.

Holly Rebelle applied Burlesque Noir’s Terminator inspired T-36 DD number to The 2009 Great Boston Burlesque Exposition on a whim and never expected to be accepted. In spring of 2009, BN met to plan how to get five performers and a fragile setup of blacklights to Boston, Massachusetts; a city none of them had ever visited. Easter Weekend came and Burlesque Noir brought Boston five minutes, eighteen seconds of the Albuquerque burlesque scene. Our quirky hip-hop number blew away the judges and audience and five girls from New Mexico took home a Howard Award; the trophy for Best Troupe or Duo at the 2009 Great Boston Burlesque Exposition.

2010 and 2011 brought trips to perform at the New York Burlesque Festival, Windy City Burlesque Festival, Colorado Burlesque Festival as well as return trips to the Great Burlesque Exposition in both 2010 and 2011.  In 2012, Holly and Burlesque Noir traveled to Jigglewatts territory for the Texas Burlesque Fest.  There, a double victory was achieved as Burlesque Noir took home the trophy for Best Ensemble and Holly won the title of Best Solo.  Burlesque Noir will be bringing their award winning Stripping Broadway act to Show Me Burlesque Festival’s Beggars Carnival show in May, 2012.

Burlesque Noir continues to perform locally in Albuquerque but also travels to as many national burlesque showcases as we can afford in order to expand our audience. We feel it is important that Albuquerque keep the art of burlesque alive by creating fresh ideas, networking with national performers and stripteasing for new audiences. We’ve helped put our hometown on the burlesque map and we’re committed to keeping it there.