A One-Woman Revolution with the Audience as Co-Conspirators
Starring Imogen Kelly (They/She - Intersex)
 

Australia's undisputed Queen of Burlesque - and the world-crowned Miss Exotic World 2012 - Imogen Kelly returns with a groundbreaking new show that turns striptease into a game, autobiography into an interactive adventure, and the audience into gleeful co-conspirators, joining the respective programs of Melbourne's Midsumma Festival and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Strip The Life Fantastic is a true-story spectacular where every performance is different, shaped live by the crowd. Through outrageous games, choices, and dares, the audience decides which tales are unlocked: childhood revelations, underground queer rebellion, circus escapades, political activism, nude weddings in Tokyo, club-kid carnage in '90s London, discovering she was intersex, becoming a mother while ruling the global burlesque stage, facing breast cancer, changing sex-industry laws… or maybe a cheeky striptease (or two) depending on how they play their cards.
 

Part game show, part saucy time machine, part cultural history, Strip The Life Fantastic is storytelling the way only a striptease revolutionary could deliver it.
 

"There are too many stories for one night - so the audience has to fight for the ones they want. They literally build the show. It's a striptease democracy." - Imogen Kelly

ABOUT IMOGEN KELLY

Australia's Queen of Burlesque, international headliner, director, producer and intersex trailblazer, Imogen Kelly has spent more than three decades transforming the country's performance landscape. Emerging from Sydney's late-'80s queer underground as a Kings Cross showgirl, Imogen went on to entertain royalty, politicians, and audiences worldwide, tour with gypsy circuses, and shake up the artform at venues from Berlin to Las Vegas — where she was crowned World Queen of Burlesque in 2012.
 

A graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) with a Masters in Directing, a BFA in Performance, and a Circus Diploma, she has also fought for sex-industry reform as an AIDS officer and advocate for sex workers' rights. Today she performs everywhere from intimate cabaret rooms to the Sydney Opera House, where she performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
 

As a mother, breast-cancer survivor and intersex creator, Imogen continues to blaze new paths with provocative intellect, spectacular costumes and heart-stopping theatrical whoopee.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Erin Jameson | erin(at)jamesonandco(dot)com | +61 419 323 663

MELBOURNE SEASON

The Motley Bauhaus
118 Elgin St, Carlton VIC
31 January & 1 February | 4:00-5:00pm
🎟 Tickets: www.midsumma.org.au/whats-on/events/strip-the-life-fantastic/

SYDNEY SEASON

QTOPIA - The Substation
Taylor Square, Darlinghurst NSW
16 February to 21 February | 8:30-9:30pm
🎟 Tickets: www.mardigras.org.au/event/strip-the-life-fantastic/