#114. Highs and Lows w/ Sweet n’ Lo

1 hour, 4 minutes

Released: November 16, 2020
Recorded: November 2, 2020

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On this edition of WEBurlesque The Podcast Viktor talks to NYC burlesque performer Sweet N’ Lo.

Though Lo had been attempting to get on the podcast for several weeks, her health unfortunately had other ideas:

SNL (11:05) : “In March my mom got Covid and was in the hospital for six weeks and almost died. But she is not dead! So I feel it’s better than it could have been? I also got Covid but it was mild. But it turns out it might have exacerbated some health issues I didn’t know I had…due to some combination of my mild covid, the fact that I’ve been working at home and not walking as much as I usually do, and the fact that I’m a woman who has been on oral contraceptives I have hilarious amounts of blood clots in my legs and lungs.”

Thankfully, she is doing much better and has been able to recuperate in no small part thanks to having a steady job with income and health insurance she can depend on: 

SNL (19:40) “I’m not a full time burlesque performer…I’m happy with my day job and I like that a steady income allows me to buy lots of rhinestones and occasionally get up in front of an audience and sing a show tune. That’s a good balance for me.”

While burlesque is a passion Lo has had for many years, her style and focus has definitely changed as she has matured as a performer. No matter what though, she still likes to keep it weird:

SNL (25:20- 29:10) “When I started burlesque I used to go a lot to the nerdlesque shows and I was very geeky. I still am, but I was being geek as a lifestyle choice for a long time in the early 2010s and was like yeah I’m going to be a nerdlesquer. I found out I like watching other people do nerdlesque but it is very involved and in order to cosplay correctly and be faithful to the properties you are doing an homage of I think it took a little bit more time and money than I thought it was going to…..(Now,) I would say comedic ridiculousness on one end of the spectrum and just really theater geeky show tune rhinestone sparkle on the other end.”

Lo may have not yet joined the digital bandwagon that many performers are jumping on, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have any plans to. For her, she recognizes that making a new video based act is something that will need time and effort to reach its best potential:

SNL (48:50- 51:00) “I’ve really been riding the ‘I have barely enough energy to keep my shit together on a day to day basis train’…I have ideas specifically for two acts I wanted to do this year…the rhinestones are there and the trim is there so it’s gonna happen, I just have to get off my ass and do it…I’m coming to terms with the fact I’m not as media and tech savvy as I want to be….I gotta get better at it, but it’s also going to be very hard to get me over the hump….I do very much want to return to burlesque and if that has to be digital for a while that’s fine too. And ya know what? Then it won’t be ‘oh I don’t have videos of my acts.’ All of my acts just are videos.”

credits

• Intro and Outro Music: “On A 45” by This Way to the Egress – used with permission.
• Interlude Music Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
• transcript and synopsis by Raina Sinclair
• everything else (c) White Elephant Burlesque Corp