ABSfest 2009 was our most amazing year yet! Attendance was epic and the performers were magnificent. A thousand thanks to all of our staff, artists, and sponsors for making this three-day festival possible, keeping Asheville freaky, and making ABSfest a national destination for stupendous burlesque and sideshow artists.

Now that the glare of sequins isn't quite so blinding, plans are already cookin' in the ABSfest kitchen for next year. Our headliner this year is Michelle L'amour.

Miss Exotic World 2005 , Michelle L’amour , is one of the premiere names in modern burlesque. Since 2002, she’s been seen by more than 100 million people on five continents as a result of her awe inspiring performances on stage, television (Semi Finalist for “America’s Got Talent ” – Season One, Featured on “Sexual Healing” – Showtime) and international documentaries (like “What a Booty” and “The Art and Heart of the Tease”). Acclaimed by legends like Dixie Evans and Bunny Yeager (who featured Michelle in her most recent book ) and highly sought after as a burlesque instructor, she’s teased from Sao Paulo to Switzerland, Toronto to London, Los Angeles to Paris.

Miss L’amour is the CEO of The Lavender Cabaret, which is responsible for producing critically acclaimed shows like “Big Sexy Show” , “Lipshtick”, and “Belles and Whistles”. She has her own successful book of photographs called “The Most Naked Woman ” and she directs and stars in a fantastic series of instructional videos called “Tools of the Tease“. As an instructor, she’s taught more than 3500 women, been featured in magazines like Woman’s Health and is often called upon by Dr. Laura Berman (America’s leading relationship counselor) to lend her talents to women struggling with their self esteem.

In 2008, she opened a burlesque dance school in Chicago called Studio L’amour. Several graduates of her school have become The Chicago Starlets, a company of the city’s most successful and critically acclaimed striptease performers. Chicago Starlets have been featured in the Burlesque Hall of Fame weekend for the last three years and they’ve also taken the stage at every major festival held in North America.

Also, in 2009, Michelle L’amour founded Naked Girls Reading. This concept originally began in Chicago at Studio L’amour, and has since been opened in other cities like Denver, Dallas, Key West, and New York. Many more cities are waiting to open their very own Naked Girls Reading.

Chicago Magazine calls her “The Reigning Queen of Bump and Grind” and the New York Post says she “Brings Down the House”. But most importantly, David Hasselhoff told her she really “Spiced Up the Show!” (on “America’s Got Talent”).

The satirical performance arts brought comedic entertainment and empowerment to the lower classes of American society throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. A mockery of the higher and more socially conservative classes, the vitality of Vaudeville and Burlesque were slowly eclipsed by mid-century morality laws and the advent of modern media. Sideshow harkens back to less commercial carnival days, glorifying human oddity and strange feats of willpower.

The Vaudeville Revival is a huge international movement with festivals around the world, exploring women's empowerment, questioning mainstream paradigms of 'normal', and offering unforgettable, good old fashioned American entertainment to those bold enough to pass thru those striped curtains to the midway beyond...

ABSfest is a Future of Tradition Production. FoT has been a force in shaping and sustaining the arts in Western North Carolina since 1999. Founded as a Center for Folkarts, FoT for many years housed traditional and evolving visual, movement and music artists under one roof. Many long-standing groups in Asheville's nationally known artscene had roots there, particularly in the fire and circus arts, bellydance, African and Latin dance communities.

In 2006, FoT shifted primary focus to event production. The most comprehensive programs are Triboriginal: Tribal Dance, Music and Culture Camp and the Americana Burlesque and Sideshow Festival, with new projects in the works.
Call 828.232.2980 for information.

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We've collaborated for years with art renegades Arts2People. Now, they made this inspiring, attractive and downright zany calendar. See Onca as Ms. December, along with Asheville's flaming nun, and sundry other villains familiar to our events. It's downright elegant, and chock full of artists living their dreams.

From the city that Rolling Stone dubbed “America’s New Freak Capital” come as a calendar to match our untamed spirit. The first annual “Freaks of Asheville” captures the power and personality of Asheville’s eclectic and self-professed freaks. It’s more than a calendar. It’s a chronicle and celebration – in dates, words and striking images of the hallmark of Asheville’s freak culture. It’s a compendium of adventurous souls, titillating tales and shocking perspectives on life, love and the frontiers of experience.

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Written, autographed and illustrated by Onca. Beautiful art with a global village feel is accompanied by a book introducing the cards to new and seasoned tarot collectors alike.

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