Thread: Changing my burlesque persona

I am looking for a bit of friendly advice from all you experienced performers out there.
I have been burlesquing as a self indulgent hobby for a few years now. I have now decided to step my game up a bit - I've been learning some new skills and want to change my burlesque persona. This would involve changing my name from Pixie Dust. Some performers on the local scene have heard of me now and I'm wondering if changing now will set me back too much? Or will it be the perfect way to push my new persona?

Any advice is greatly appreciated. As well as any advice on marketing myself as a performer.

Thank you X

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Im certainly not an exerienced performer, but I thought Id chip in, and hope Im helpful

Since your already known on the local scene, this seems a good place to 'rebuild' your reputation, so how about using it as a selling point? You could ask the compere to announce you as 'formerly Pixie Dust' and you could really showcase it as a sort of fresh new act - so new everything has changed, like a phoenix rising from the ash of your old persona (oooh... metaphor! ) If you do a couple of shows like this then eventually people will get used to your new name and you can drop the old one completely. You could really sell the idea of your new persona being bigger, better, new and improved etc. Then your can branch outside your local area.

A good way (in my opinion) to do this I think is maybe making yourself a website? You can buy packages for not very much. Then you can put up your act info, persona bio, photos, CV etc. That way potential bookers can check out your wares and its a proffessional approach. And you can put your web address on your business cards and hand them out!

When Amber Sweet changed her name from Miss Moonlight Desire, she ran a sort of marketing campaign to back it up with the phrase "Desire is Dead!". As she was already pretty well established in the South West that seemed to help get her message across and she didn't appear to have a lapse in her bookings during the transition period.

I would say that if you are changing the content of your acts/ retiring old acts or changing what you do (for example going from doing acts with striptease to only performing ones without, or changing to market yourself more as a singer/aerial perfomer/lasso performer or what have you) then changing your name can be a real help in solidifying that change.

I know Autumn Glory did that (must have been over a year ago I think) and because she had a strong presence on the scene (especially in her local area) and online people were aware of the change and there was (as far as I know, anyway) no confusion of loss of profile.

I do feel that changing one's stage name without changing what one does is a slightly different matter though, and one that should be considered more carefully. About a year and a half into performing I felt bored of my name and was a little unsure how well it fit what I did, but when I weighed it up I felt that the name had become synonymous with me, the person people see onstage and to make a change soley for that reason would be unneccessary.

When you say you want to change your burlesque persona, I would say, if you mean totally reworking the style and substance of your acts (or maybe keeping some that fit and retiring others that don't) then a name change could be helpful. If by changing your burlesque persona you mean how you are percieved more holistically - eg going from a Bad Girl image to a Performance Art-ish style girl or a Girl Next Door to a Vamp, I think that a name change in and of itself will do very little.
Most performers I know have a burlesque persona that is essentially them, but turned up to eleven (like Tempest mentioned in the thread about Promo Blurbs) and this is reflected in how they behave online and when you meet them in person. You can't really keep up a character all that time - it would be exhausting! BUT they do play different types of characters onstage. Usually these characters will reflect facets of the performers personality, their fantasies, their idols, their obsessions, the things that make them laugh (some performers have talked about playing their burlesque alterego, playing another character but that is probably another discussion for another thread!). Anyway, my long and rambling point is - in my opinion, how one is seen as a burlesquer is usually more down to what one is doing onstage than it is to any pre-designed persona. This means it makes sense to change your name if you are changing the content of your acts but it might be less useful if you are trying to change your persona without changing the direction of your content.

Goodness me, that was long and rambling - hope it all made sense!