Every venue, from canvas shanties to the larger timber hotels and the just-emerging stone and brick palaces, had a space put aside for live acts which usually included a singer, a magician and an ‘exotic dancer’, says veteran cabaret performer and student of the genre Sophie Livitsanis, aka the fabulous Nellie Minnelli.

Ms Minnelli, who has spent her working life as a performer, is unashamedly in love with the complex, politically charged, sexually ambiguous, darkly humorous sphere of cabaret, burlesque and variety that is her theatre of choice.

“Lola Montez is someone you grow up with here,” she says.

“She’s well known, but there were so many others. I like to imagine Ballarat’s theatrical history: those rowdy bars with people singing Stephen Foster songs like She’ll Be Comin’ Round The Mountain; saloon girls doing their little shows, which is the most adorable image for me.”

Describing herself as ‘producer, artistic director, mother-hen, driving force and notorious bohemian’, Nellie Minnelli has an astonishing knowledge of the history of variety and satire, from the theatre of the ancient Greeks to the Victorian music hall, the flapper and prohibition clubs of the 1920s to the current resurgence and reclaiming of striptease and satire by female performers such as Dita Von Teese and Julie Atlas Muz.. 

Her Empire of Sin will present three shows at this year’s Rockabilly Beat Festival, in February. Called Varietease, Nellie promises the performances will challenge the audience.

“None of these shows are family-rated,” Ms Minnelli laughs.

“This is really important. We are doing three burlesque shows, one on the Friday night and two on the Saturday, and they are strictly over 18 – they are adults only. And the late show on the Saturday goes a bit further again; it’s very risque.”

What does risque mean though? Well it’s a lot more than just a stripper and a tease, although those are important elements of a show.

The English music hall shows of the late Nineteenth Century were bawdy places, with songs relying heavily on innuendo and entendre. Across the Channel, the French took the idea and transformed into such extravagances as the Folies Bergere and the Moulin Rouge, with ‘musical comedies and revues, operettas, vaudeville sketches, playlets, ballets, eccentric dancers, acrobats, jugglers, tightrope walkers, and magicians’, according to sources.

It also had nudity. A lot of it.

In the Twentieth Century,  the political cabaret of Germany during the Weimar Republic of the 1920s drew on the French Moulin Rouge preceding it. While it was no doubt debauched and focussed on sex, it was a dangerous arena of ideas, satire and comedy as well. Performers lampooned the current political climate and leaders, including a young nationalist who was making inroads named Adolf Hitler.

The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig lamented:

Berlin transformed itself into the Babel of the world. Germans brought to perversion all their vehemence and love of system. Made-up boys with artificial waistlines promenaded along the Kurfiirstendamm … Even [ancient] Rome had not known orgies like the Berlin transvestite balls, where hundreds of men in women’s clothes and women in men’s clothes danced under the benevolent eyes of the police.

For Minnelli, her study led her to the realisation that burlesque is a chameleon performance style, with different meanings in different parts of the world.

“For my show, it’s more elements of variety hall shows with strip tease interspersed,” she says.

“It’s not just a strip show. There’s tons of funny stuff; lots of singing. There’s no particular era, I’m just insatiable for all of it. It’s a 10-year research project. I looked at the rise of French theatre; I looked back to the ancient Greeks, their fabulous satire. I looked at the English music hall and the Belle Epoque; the 1920s around the world.”

The burlesque women performing in Varietease are all graduates of classes taught by Minnelli, something she readily admits she's proud of. Her performers have been working together for six years, which she says gives them a corps d’esprit. She also proud that her two male performers are from Ballarat and are, in her words, ‘completely magnificent in every discipline’.

“There’s a new act every three minutes in this show,” she promises.

A special guest is Erika Hanson, who according to her biography has more than 10 years’ experience in performance arts: a tightwire walker, acrobat, aerialist, a hula-hooper and handstander, specialising in para acrobatics and hoop! 

“She’s blonde, she’s bendy, shes a badass, and she’ll blow your socks off!” You have been warned.

For Sophie Livitsanis, the alter ego and creator of Nellie Minnelli, the journey to the Empire of Sin encompasses everything she’s worked towards in her career, and is an expression of her real belief that theatre can engage all of the community, and that it can be fun and thrilling..

“I’ve spent my whole life in the theatre; the first time I performed on stage I was six. I really started out as a ballerina; that was all I ever wanted to do. Other things came along and caught my attention: singing, musical theatre, and from doing those I got involved in make-up artistry. If I wasn’t in the show I was working backstage on the show.

“It would take a lifetime to learn all the disciplines I’ve been exposed to, up to a professional standard. I thought, ‘What am I going to do with all these little bits of knowledge I’ve gained? How can I put them all together?’

“I started doing variety shows at Sovereign Hill with a group I was in, and we looked to the old music halls for inspiration for those shows. I became completely obsessed with variety format, delved deeply into it, which brought me to burlesque.

“I wasn’t really looking for it; it just took me there.”

Varietease Burlesque and Variety Show, presented by Nellie Minnelli and the Empire of Sin, will perform three shows at the Ballarat Rockabilly Beat Festival on Friday February 8 at 8pm, Saturday February 9 at 7pm and an exclusive 10.30pm show at The Lydiard Wine Bar, 13 Lydiard St North. Tickets from The George Hotel reception or www.ballaratbeat.com.au/tickets/