Pass Me A Slice

If you're familiar with burlesque and happen to live in the southwest you may have heard of a performer by the name of Pisa Cake. Let me tell you, she's the whole f#@$ing cake. Recently, I had a chance to sit down with her, on her birthday no less, and talk about her performance acts, including a Princess Peach act she's been asked to perform at the upcoming Phoenix Comic Con this May. We decided to meet up at the Chrystal Rhinestone Boutique near downtown Tucson where most of the local dancers come to buy their bling. Taking in the luxurious furniture and gourmet coffee nook, I can see why they stay to chat long after a purchase has been made.

When Pisa comes in she's already wearing the wig, which she laughingly agreed doesn't convert well in reality. Her lips are bubblegum pink and her energy is equally bubbly. I expected the wig. I wasn't expecting the full costume or her willingness to put it on. Never let it be said a burlesque dancer did anything half way.

Geek-o-Rama: So how did you get into burlesque?
Pisa Cake:  There are several points it could be argued that happened. I officially began performing on stage in October 2011... I've been performing 2.5 years. Where I debuted at ,BurlyCon, they have things called peer reviews. I'd never actually performed for an audience but I had an act put together from when I was working with Black Cherry down here. It was never staged and I used that  as an opportunity to show people and get feedback from other performers. You're performing for other performers.

I've actually been studying burlesque in some capacity for about six years, I saw my first show when I was 18 at Ain't No Body's Bizness and I actually saw one of the Black Cherry's there. I thought to myself 'this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen.' But, of course, I was 18 and it's really difficult to get gigs when you can't even get in the bar.

G-o-R: So how did you go from seeing your first performance to stepping on stage for the first time?
PC: Well, it was a rocky sort of road. The first time I actually did it, my first time was with a dance class. It was a class being taught by Fanny [the headmistress of Tucson's only burlesque school]. It was only a class at the time and their first time doing any of this. My boyfriend saw an ad on Myspace, and said 'hey this is right up your alley, you should do this.' I'm very thankful that he's been 100% supportive through everything and he's actually the reason I got into it because without him I wouldn't have known about the dance class and the opportunity that eventually led me where I am today. But there was a huge break from when I was taking classes and learning from Black Cherry and when I actually started performing.

GoR: What would you be doing if you were not doing burlesque? I assume you have a day job?
PC: I do and it's like working two full time jobs. I go to my nine to five office job, I'm a software engineer, come home and do promotions, rhinestone things, and rehearse and then go to bed at midnight if I'm lucky. It got to a point a while back where it was too much, I'm actually on a break right now and I'm literally not doing anything till the comic-con show. This is the only thing I'm doing that's Pisa Cake related.

GoR:  So what's going on with the Princess Peach Act? How did that birth its way into existence?
PC: I've really had a thing for Mario pretty much my whole life. I always played it as a kid and my mom was so...odd. She'd make people watch me play it. She thought it was cool that I was really good at it. It's the only game I've ever played. I'm not really a gamer, but I've played every single Mario except for Mario 64 which I despise.

GoR: Aww, you're breaking nerdy hearts everywhere.
PC: I know I know, I'm just a purist that way. I love Mario, I love the 2D run across the screen, the stuff in Mario 64... I threw the controller at the screen. But for the con, I originally wanted to do a Ghostbusters act which has been in the back of my mind for a very long time with the full on figuring out how to make a power pack and there were visions of having silly string come out of the guns so we could cross streams. All kinds of crazy stuff, turns out Provocatease up in Phoenix did their Ghostbuster act last year with the entire troop. You can't step on toes that way so then I thought now what the F@*k am I going to do? So I started to think what other nerdy characters are there and Princess Peach occurred to me. I thought oh my god I can do this to Mario music and that song from the Lost in Translation movie by Peaches! It transitions from the Mario music to that and you get to see a whole other side to Princess Peach. I have a Yoshi and I carry him up on stage with me, he sits in a chair watching me until the dirty music comes on and then I turn him around.
           

I really wanted to do a Geekesque act, a Nerdlesque act. It's getting more and more popular and I want to have one that I can pull out of my back pocket so I'm ready. Plus, we were going to the comic-con anyway so I said, of course I want to perform. Let's do it, I get to walk around as Peach and take pictures as Peach, it'll be awesome.

GoR: So did they contact you or did you take your act to them?
PC: I was on a list of performers from Talk Nerdy to Me from last year so when I saw the announcement I had to audition. I wasn't asked. A couple other Tucson performers are going up with me. Nikki Riot is doing a Link act from Legend of Zelda, Olivia Twisted has her Darth Vader act, and Wanda Pout is also doing an act but I don't know the name of it. We have a good Tucson representation.

GoR: So from little Super Girls to other busty burlesque babes what do you want them to take away from your performance?
PC: I want them to see a woman who has accepted her body, embraces it, and derives pleasure and happiness from sharing it with others. It's a whole other level of self acceptance when you accept your body and don't try to change it- to be willing to show it to other people. It's a very liberating and validating experience, so when you see people enjoying it makes it even better.

GoR: Last and most important question, how can we find you at PCC?
PC:  There will be a Nerdlesque panel, I'm not actually on it but a lot of my friends are. The Talk Nerdy to Me show itself is on the Friday night May 24th. I believe the show is at 9pm and we have a little competition in Wil Wheaton doing a panel at roughly the same time, which I am very sad I cannot go to. I'm not sure if we'll be doing tabling yet. I'll be around, I'm also cosplaying as Me-Mow from Adventure Time; an evil cat who likes to poison people.