MALISSA CALAWAY

WHEN MALISSA CALAWAY moved to Dallas from Little Rock at 19, she found her community in the burlesque scene here.

Back in Arkansas, Calaway had done some pin-up modeling, hiring portrait photographers to shoot her inside the untouched 1930s house she rented. But there was no burlesque scene in Little Rock.

“At the time, it was kind of scandalous,” she says of modeling. “I got a lot of heat for it, actually. But here in Dallas, it’s a huge scene.”

Here she met photographers who specialize in pin-up styling, and she attended shows put on by Ruby Revue and the Dallas Burlesque Festival, among others.

Burlesque performer Kris Waters asked Calaway to appear on stage with her because they are about the same size and have similar looks — blue eyes, dark hair, Bettie Page bangs.

Bartender/burlesque performer

Her role in that act kept growing until Calaway and Waters, who is known as the Black Sparrow, formed a new act, the Lauras.

“I got really lucky,” she says. “I don’t consider myself a great performer.”

Calaway, who is a bartender at the Belmont Hotel, says she doesn’t sing. She doesn’t have a dance background. She’s not crafty and doesn’t make costumes. What she has is personality, cuteness and a self-deprecating sense of humor.

“I give a lot of face,” she says. “Big movements. My niche is that I’m this sweet and innocent little girl, but clumsy and awkward … and who also takes her clothes o .”

Calaway’s partner recently moved out of state, so she is working up a new act. She also has reconnected with friends in Little Rock, where a burlesque scene now is beginning to blossom.

A friend in Little Rock started a club called Blood and Rhinestones, and Calaway is working to help them expand and perhaps form a troop of performers from Arkansas, Oklahoma and anyplace where there are burlesquers looking for an outlet.

“It’s refreshing to be somewhere where there really isn’t a scene,” she says. “I get to bring a little of this world into my old world.”

Calaway co-produces an occasional burlesque show, the Grind and the Punk Rock Prom. She also is part of the Black Sheep Revue.

“I’m really grateful just to be sharing a dressing room with some of these women,” she says. “There are some performers that I would’ve considered myself lucky just to meet, and now I consider them some of my closest friends. It’s been so much fun, and everyone’s been so sweet and open-minded.”