PRESS INFORMATION

The Sex Workers' Art Show Tour is coming to your town!
The show is an eye-popping evening of visual and performance art created by people who work in the sex industry to dispel the myth that they are anything short of artists, innovators, and geniuses!

The wildly successful cabaret-style show is hitting the road again, bringing audiences a blend of spoken word, music, drag, burlesque, and multimedia performance art. Intelligent and hot, disturbing and hilarious, the performances offer a wide range of perspectives on sex work, from celebration of prostitutes' rights and sex-positivity to views from the darker sides of the industry.

This year's incredible lineup of performers includes stripper-activist and headmistress of the New York Academy of Burlesque Jo Boobs; infamous feminist author of I Love Dick Chris Kraus; award-winning porn star and writer Lorelei Lee; performance artist and comic queen of cleavage The World Famous *BOB*; founder and director of the nation’s first all-black burlesque troupe, Simone de la Getto; performer and musical theatre mutineer Erin Markey; operatic singer and performer of queer black masculinity Reginald Lamar; and tour founder, director and author of Working Sex, Annie Oakley.

The show includes people from all areas of the sex industry: strippers, prostitutes, dommes, film stars, phone sex operators, internet models, etc. It smashes traditional stereotypes and moves beyond "positive" and "negative" into a fuller articulation of the complicated ways sex workers experience their jobs and their lives. The Sex Workers' Art Show entertains, arouses, and amazes while simultaneously offering scathing and insightful commentary on notions of class, race, gender, labor and sexuality!

"The Sex Workers' Art Show is not simply a display of those in the sex industry... but an active force in articulating, shaping, and contesting the meaning of the identity "sex worker" in the public sphere" --Theatre Journal

"Annie Oakley doesn't need a gun. She's armed with fierce creativity, political passion, big brains and exquisite sexiness. As the Sex Workers' Art Show's director, Oakley leads a brilliant crew which serves up whore culture at its most delicious and satisfying." --Annie Sprinkle, Phd

www.sexworkersartshow.com

LIMITED 2009 DIRTY SOUTH TOUR

Monday, March 23rd
6pm and 9pm
at the College of William and Mary Statler Auditorium
Williamsburg, VA

Wednesday, March 25th
6:30pm and 9:00pm
at the Firehouse Theatre
Richmond, VA

PERFORMER BIOGRAPHIES

REGINALD LAMAR

After dropping out of Yale School of Art and completing a degree at the San Francisco Art Institute, the prodigious, objectified and unsatisfied visual artist Reginald M Lamar turned his attention to music, receiving extensive operatic training from many teachers most notably famed voice teacher and director Ira Siff.

In 2008 Lamar's work was presented along side world renowned performance artist Ron Athey in
the Biennale d’art Performatif de Rouyn-Noranda. Quebec, Canada. Also 2008 found Lamar as featured performer in Tony nominated performance artist Justin Bonds award winning show Lustre at P.S. 122 and Abons arts center in New York City.

In July 2009 Lamar's Concert Installation THE BLACK DEATH (LET DARKNESS DESCEND) premieres at the Chocolate Factory in New York. Visit him at www.mlamar.com or www.myspace.com/mlamar

"M. Lamar,performs songs that are a cross stylistically between operatic excess,
old-fashioned Negro spirituals and demonic possession." -- Ottawa Citizen

"Lamar holds and trills his guttural utterances with the marvelous fortitude and surety of a Nina Simone or a Patty Waters. Wearing his blackademia on his form-fitted leather sleeves with equally tight-ass jeans, Lamar places the listener into often uncomfortable situations. I thought at times, bloody black fetuses might climb out of the piano’s guts, slither downstage, sit and stare accusingly at me. Like Kara Walker, or David Hammons, Lamar confronts with history, shuns with narrative, pricks our noses with shameless recall, all the while smiling, his eyes turned to the floor, waiting." -- World Famous in San Francisco

SIMONE DE LA GETTO

Simone de la Getto hails from Oakland, CA. Named one of the “Sexiest People in the Bay Area” by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Simone is the founder/artistic director of the award-winning first Black Burlesque troupe, Harlem Shake Burlesque. Simone has performed at fine venues around the country, including The Great American Music Hall, The Victoria Theatre, SomArts Theatre and Gallery, The Cable Car Theatre, ODC, The Oakland Box, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, Seattle’s Femme Conference, the New York Burlesque Festival, and more. Simone’s mission is to live L.I.F.E.~Lavishly Indulging Fabulous Experiences~and so far, so good. When she is not shaking her fringe-covered ass, Simone is busy speaking at local Northern California colleges about her regret-free life as a Black Sex Worker who sleeps with women and a single mom raising her awesome kid.

JO BOOBS

Jo Boobs is the Headmistress and Founder of the New York School of Burlesque. She has performed in burlesque shows including New York's seminal Blue Angel Cabaret and Coney Island's Burlesque at the Beach, choreographed numbers for as well as appeared on Gossip Girl, even coaching Leighton Meester, and appears in the Leonard Cohen documentary I'm Your Man. She worked in strip joints in the 1980s and 1990s and was a headlining feature dancer. Her book The Pocket Book of Burlesque, with a foreword by Margaret Cho, is due out from Harper Perennial this fall. Visit her at http://www.schoolofburlesque.com.

LORELEI LEE

Lorelei Lee is a writer, undergraduate student, and porn performer. She has studied creative writing at California College of the Arts and San Francisco State University. Her writing has been published in Transfer Magazine and Graphite. She has been awarded both a National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts youngARTS Scholarship and the Bishop Award for Best Tit-Tortured Model 2005. Her essay for a 2006 calendar by San Francisco artists Sara Thustra and Brande Blah received accolade in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. She volunteers with San Francisco Sex Information and is a graduate of their Sex Educator Training program. She has self-published two chapbooks, Shades of Sky (1996), and Doublefisted (2002), and has been nominated for three AVN awards.

CHRIS KRAUS

Chris Kraus is the acclaimed author of the trilogy: I love Dick, Aliens & Anorexia and Torpor. "When I Love Dick came into existence a new kind of female life did too," notes Eileen Myles in her preface to the 2007 edition. Index magazine has called her voice "one of the most subversive in American fiction" and Thurston Moore chose her novel Torpor as a Vanity Fair 'Best Summer Read' in 2006. In addition to fiction Chris is the author of Video Green, a collection of essays centered on the Los Angeles art world. She has contributed to such titles as LA Artland, Posted Love, Cream, French Theory in America and writes for Artforum, Bookforum, Art in America and Pataphysics Magazine. She is the founding editor of the Semiotext(e) Native Agents imprint, teaches in the Literature Department at University of California, San Diego and is writing a book about flawed reciprocity and the American justice system, excerpts of which are available at www.realitysandwich.com. Prior to writing, she worked as a journalist, bicycle messenger and topless dancer.

THE WORLD FAMOUS *BOB*

“I'm just a girl from the farm that believes in making the most out of what you've got!" For The World Famous *BOB*, that's a lot! At 5 11" and a staggering 42 1/2 F - 32 – 42 she's quickly become one of New York City's most well- rounded performers. Known for her over-the-top blonde bombshell image and incredible ability to mix martinis with her cleavage, *BOB* has captivated audiences all over the world with her unique burlesque stylings, humorous performance art, and MC skills.

She has been photographed by hundreds of photographers including Patrick McMullan, Mario Testino and David LaChapelle. * BOB* appears in several books such as Hotel LaChapelle, New Burlesque, Striptease: From Gaslight to Spotlight; Burlesque: The New Bump-N-Grind; The Brooklynites; and forthcoming in January 2008, The Velvet Hammer Burlesque. Believing that television is "theatre for the poor " *BOB* is always happy to make an appearance on the boob tube and is featured in A&E 's ‘History of Cleavage’, German television, and in a winning appearance on FUSE TV's ‘Pants Off Dance Off!’. An experienced break dancer, *BOB* has appeared in the remake music video of ‘HEY we want some P*ssy!’ by Jason Nevins & The Crew, as well as MTV commercials for the Music Video Awards. High fashion & World Famous *BOB* are no strangers- she has graced the pages of BUST magazine multiple times, worked the runway for Lane Bryant, had a luxurious six-page layout in Mode, and has worked with fashion god Thierry Mugler. Her ample bosom has also filled pages in The New York Times, New York Post, New York Magazine, HUSTLER, Esquire, Style Monte Carlo, The Village Voice, Interview Magazine, PAPER, Italian Marie Claire, Bizzare, and as Miss July in the 2008 Mistresses of George W. Bush Bid Farewell Calendar. The big screen suits *BOB * as well, her latest cameo being in John Cameron Mitchell's film Shortbus.

Recipient of four New York Burlesque Festival Golden Pastie Awards (peer nominated) including Most Influential/Inspiring Performer, Performer With The Best Boobs, Performer Most Likely to Still Be Doing Burlesque At Age 60, and Most Class Act Both On and Off Stage.

Believing in the future of burlesque, World Famous *BOB* has produced a monthly show for new performers entitled ‘The World Famous *BOB* Presents!’ for the past four years in NYC, putting over 80 performers on stage for their first time ever! As a professor at the School of Burlesque in NYC she teaches classes such as ‘Self Confidence- The Ultimate Accessory’ as well as ‘F to F – The Art of Wigs and Lashes’.

She lives in Brooklyn in a candy hued apartment known as The Pink Cupcake with her sister Kit Cat & her beautiful pink toy poodle Movie Star!

From Brooklyn to Paris, The World Famous *BOB* is "The Dream Come True Girl!"

ERIN MARKEY

Erin Markey is a Brooklyn-based performing artist and writer who creates original music and knows her way around a brass pole. She was bred in Michigan and buttered in the Deep South. After the butter melted, she went back to Michigan to study at the “University of” under the brilliant, campy, sexy, hilarious mentorship of Holly Hughes. Markey’s work is heavily influenced/inspired by Ms. Hughes, Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver, Santa Claus, Judy Garland, Annie Sprinkle, Sarah Vaughan, Tom Jones, Liberace, Kate Bornstein, Carol Burnett, and Miss Piggy. Her work was recently included in the 2007 Lincoln Center Director’s Laboratory. Her work has been produced and showcased in galleries, museums, theatres, salons, clubs, bars, cabaret spaces, parties, and academic conferences such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Joe's Pub, Performance Studies International at Brown University, Baltimore’s Walter’s Art Museum (upcoming), HERE Arts Space, Baltimore’s Creative Alliance Gallery, The Green Room (upcoming), Galapagos Art Space, Unisex Salon, 3LD, London's Club Wötever, Mo Pitkin's, and frequently at Dixon Place.

ANNIE OAKLEY

Annie Oakley is the founder, director, road manager, emcee, and den mother of the Sex Workers’ Art Show. She has shepherded the show from a fledgling project in Olympia, Washington to a nationally-acclaimed touring extravaganza. Oakley has lectured, performed, exhibited artwork, and given workshops at venues and universities across the country. She was co-producer in 2004 and 2006 of the Homo-A-Gogo festival.

She is the editor of the new anthology Working Sex: Sex Workers Write About a Changing Industry (Seal Press). lace.

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