BONDAGE QUEEN SINGS THE HITS
Fringe Bar, 26-32 Allen St, Te Aro, Wellington
09/03/2021 - 13/03/2021
Production Details
International cabaret performer JoJo Bellini debuts at NZ Fringe!
Bondage Queen Sings the Hits is a comedy cabaret and a celebration of the body, sex positivity and 80s music.
For cabaret performer JoJo Bellini there was no better decision made in 2020 than to start a new life in New Zealand. After arriving in January she was scheduled to go back to the UK in March, her flight back to London was cancelled and now she has the privilege of living and working in one of the safest countries in the world.
“Due to the pandemic the decision was made for me,” says Bellini, “Now I have the opportunity to not only explore all of what Aotearoa has on offer but also perform to live audiences. An option sadly not available to many of my colleagues back in the UK.”
The brutally honest and pant-wettingly funny show blasts outdated, old-fashioned taboo and explores the myths and truths surrounding the BDSM and fetish world, through the lens of JoJo Bellini’s own journey of sexual experiences, gaining self- confidence and self-awareness through her immersion into the BDSM pool of deliciousness.
The 80’s music? …Well that’s just her jam!
“I have been fortunate to work with some amazing queer and femme arts practitioners to bring this show to its very saucy life. The results will need to be seen to believed!” says Bellini.
This show is about inclusion, discovering ones self and really feeling good in your own skin. Whether you are vanilla or a deviant, there is something for everyone to discover and delight in with this show.
“The weird and wonderful world of sexuality should always be celebrated”, says Bellini, “and this show certainly does that.”
Bondage Queen Sings the Hits
The Fringe Bar in Wellington
9-13 March 2021
8.30pm.
Tickets range from $12.60 – $18
Tickets available through NZ Fringe: https://fringe.co.nz/show/bondage-queen-sings-the-hits
Creative Director: Sameena Zehra
Vocal Director: Lauren Armstrong
Choreographer: Niko Walford
Photographer: Carissa Corlett
Theatre , Musical , Cabaret ,
1 hr
Lashings of heartfelt honesty
Review by Margaret Austin 10th Mar 2021
I hate to think that the smallish audience at the opening night of Bondage Queen Sings the Hits at the Fringe Bar is due to a preference for viewing Oprah Winfrey’s much vaunted interview with the Sussex pair. Comes down to your theatrical preference and how much honest entertainment you want.
We at the Fringe Bar undoubtedly made the more judicious choice.
To the strains of ‘Que sera sera’, our performer enters and the song’s innocence is quickly belied. She’s outfitted in black leather corset plus spiked helmet and makes no bones about her role. Her mother described sex as an unenjoyable necessity. Our bondage queen has spent much of her professional life proving her mother wrong about the unenjoyable bit.
Addressed as fellow perverts, whether we’re actively interested in S/M or not, we’re happy to go along with JoJo Bellini insistence that we want pain. She subjects us to stories of sex and torture interspersed with hits from the eighties. We get hilarious renderings of ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘Like a Virgin’ among others.
Honesty’s the greatest ally in a show of this kind and Bellini has lashings of it (if you’ll excuse the pun). There’s self-deprecation as well. Being invited to laugh at a performer’s acceptance of their physicality is sure fire.
There’s a reference – for nostalgia – to Selwyn Toogood of It’s in the Bag fame, and a well-received dig at Mike Hosking. We get the delight of some audience participation from a couple of hapless males.
There are loads of laughs and Bellini rides them to a climax. If there’s a message, it concerns consensuality. Bravo.
Bellini’s performance has the added, and somewhat rare, quality of being well and wittily worded. That’s one up from coarseness and vulgarity. After offering us such a burst of honest heartfelt energy she surely deserves to indulge in what she confides is her biggest fantasy – sleep.
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