THE BYRON SHIRE ECHO Advertising & news enquiries: Mullumbimby 02 6684 1777 Byron Bay 02 6685 5222 Fax 02 6684 1719 editor@echo.net.au adcopy@echo.net.au Available early Tuesday at: http://www.echo.net.au VOLUME 22 #35 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2008 22,500 copies every week Printed on 100% recycled paper
Valentines Day
PA P E R
C U T S
Burlesque bumps into the Big Joke
Lola the Vamp uses man prop and workshop student DJ Greco (centre) while other Burlesque students (clockwise from back left) Tjintana Matahari, Tracey Courtney, Suzie Wyld and Sandra Davey, get in the mood for the big show.
Story & photo Lou Beaumont Her name is Lola, and yes, she is a showgirl. Lola the Vamp has been conducting a Burlesque dance workshop in the lead up to the Big Joke Comedy Festival which will culminate in a late night group choreography to be performed on Friday February 15. The show will be full of retro burlesque-inspired dance: the notorious Bump, the grandiose Grind, and every shimmy known to humankind. The ladies (and gent) will be twirling those tassles and fluffing those feathers like there’s no tomorrow. Sensual and lighthearted, Burlesque is a mix of feathers and fun. It is a style hugely popular overseas and growing in popularity here. Originating in vaudeville culture, Burlesque has close ties to standup comedy. Lola the Vamp is a leading exponent of Burlesque, (she’s even earning herself a PhD in it), who headlines shows nationally and internationally. Most recently she supported Nick Cave on his
Australian tour. Her influences are a few decades older than most Nouveau Burlesque goddesses, with her showgirl’s heart set firmly in Belle Epoque Paris and Art Nouveau. Lola lives on the fringes of most burlesque today, at the crossroads of Parisian Cabaret and American Striptease. Lola told The Echo, ‘I incorporate the basic strip of the 50s into much of the workshops but no-one is ever actually required to strip. We often base it around a mime. Anyone can do it, you just have to want to. We never want perfect bodies, we prefer naughty bodies!’ Sandra Davey, 38 years and new mum, said, ‘I wanted to do the workshop as a way of breaking out of my comfort zone. It is fun and a little bit naughty and a world away from being a mother who works and looks after a one year old baby. It’s been such fun hanging out with all these
B O T H
WAY S
Page 20
Time to banish the bufo with the Byron Toad Busters Margo Sutton Last Saturday afternoon 30 potential cane toad cullers met at South Golden Beach community hall to learn how to identify, catch and dispose of cane toads, which as we probably all know by now, were brought from South America to Queensland in 1935, in an unsuccessful attempt to control cane beetles. As they had no natural enemies here, the toads spread west into the Northern Territory and south into New South Wales. Now they have spread to Yamba along our coastline and have been seen as far as Sydney, and are advancing in similar latitudes all over Australia. Localised cane toad buster groups are forming to cull the intruders, which are decimating our native animals and insects – frogs, snakes and every other live thing that comes into contact with the toads’ enlarged poison glands. Cane toads will eat
anything, including pet food, birds and mammals, other dead toads, and enormous quantities of bees, which makes them unpopular with beekeepers. Adrenalin and other substances affecting the heart are major components of their powerful poison. Their tadpoles and eggs are also poisonous, and the female can lay 35,000 eggs at a time, at least twice in one season, compared to a mere 2,500 for the Green Tree Frog. On Saturday Parks and Wildlife officer Brendan Taylor and Biodiveristy officer Wendy Neilan explained how to identify and catch the toads (with a plastic bag), how to dispose of them at home (first fridge, then freezer for ten hours), and how to identify cane toad spawn during the breeding season (roughly October to March). Cane toad eggs are in long spa-
ghetti-like strands of black sago, unlike frogs eggs which are in frothy groups.You can pull the long strings of cane toad eggs out of the water and lay them in the sun. We listened to the mating call of the male toad – like the putt putt of a distant outboard motor – and the calls of our local native frogs. We learned to identify cane toad tadpoles (all black with straight short tails) and native frog tadpoles, which have wavier tails and transparent bits. Fern Beach will be the site of the first local cane toad muster, so please come along with mosquito repellant, torch, plastic bag and rubber gloves and meet toad expert Michael Maloney from 6.30pm to 9pm on Friday February 15 near the tennis courts. For further information ring Michael Maloney on 0401 034 942, or Byron Council’s Scott Hetherington on 6626 7324.
fantastic women.’ The Burlesque show will start at 10pm on Friday 15. Lola will also feature in My Funny Valentine at 8pm on opening night, Thursday February 14. You can find out more about her at www.lolathevamp.net and much more about the Big Joke Comedy Festival and the brilliant line-up at www.thebigjoke. com.au. The festival runs this week from Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 at the Bangalow A&I Hall. Among other offerings are Shooting From My Hip Replacement, a dynamic standup comedy performance by some very edgy elderlies. Twelve senior citizens come together to prove growing old doesn’t mean getting boring. There’s also Funny Kids: stand up comedy performances by children. Kids have their say about life, love, school and family. This year Funny Kids is presented in association with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Cane toad metamorphs gather in their thousands at Fern Beach. Photo Judy Boreham
",).$ -/4)6%
INTERIOR
&OR FREE MEASURE QUOTE CALL
OR VISIT OUR SHOWROOM AT #ENTENNIAL #IRCUIT "YRON "AY
/FFICIAL !GENTS FOR $ESIGNED "LINDS 6EROSOL 3ILENT 'LISS *UST "LINDS 3HUTTERS 0ETER -EYER "LINDS
2EMOTE MOTORISED SYSTEMS AVAILABLE