It’s been over a month since Midsummer Scream, but the happenings are still fresh in the minds of haunt fans across Southern California. This year, more than any year prior, the frightfully sensual reigned over the floor; from Gorlesque’s Peep Show commanding a staggering queue to the inspired creations of the Poltergeists and Paramours fashion show (to say nothing of the jaw-dropping burlesque of the Peepshow Menagerie), horror went hand-in-hand with sins of the flesh.
But none were more captivating, none more scintillating than the macabre stylings of Cabaret le Fey. Convention-goers were treated to a pair of showcases featuring some of the most titillating and terrifying numbers in the troupe’s repertoire, including everything from a literal bloodbath to the shocks and sparks of a tazer.
“The naked body carries so many interesting connotations with it,” says Vanessa Cate, an alumni of Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater who wears several other hats, not only as the founder and artistic director of Cabaret le Fey, but also as a performing member of what she likes to call her “coven.”
“People have so many hang-ups about the naked body, about it being revealed, about it being harmed, that I think that sex and horror…I don’t know, it’s an easy gateway.”
Photo by Scott Feinblatt
Just a year and a half ago, Cate, an avid Game of Thrones fan, was approached to help coordinate a GoT-themed event at Beverly Hills’ Vampire Lounge, and ever since then, Cabaret le Fey has called the Lounge home. After all, no locale would be much more fitting, given Cate’s longstanding infatuation with the undead.
“There are a few defining things about vampires, but their sexuality has always been the key thing and the attractive thing to me,” says Cate. “This is slightly embarrassing, but when I was a teenager in high school, I was super awkward, I had no friends, and I decided that I would pretend to be a vampire, and that was sort of how in public, I became comfortable with myself and my body and interacting with people and with sexuality. Because there’s such a power in being a vampire. And power and sex go hand in hand, too.”
(Photo by Scott Feinblatt)
That power manifests itself in the strength and the confidence of Cabaret le Fey’s various performers, whether it’s Sally Sin Cyr tying a hapless onlooker to a chair and shocking herself with a tazer, or Cate herself gracing the stage in a snow white gown, only to be drenched in blood by the end of the number (“There’s something about my performer self and my erotic self, as I’ll call it, that just loves getting covered in fake blood,” she says with a chuckle.)
Cate, along with performers like Fleur the Tease, Mae Lust and Sally Sin Cyr, brings this unique brand of darkness to the Vampire Lounge every other week, along with recent shows at venues like Bar Lubitsch and Santa Monica’s Magicopolis. The coven’s lineup is stacked with performers as diverse physically as they are in their varied skill sets.
“So many other groups, you have to look a certain way, or if you’re a certain size, you can only do certain types of routines,” says Cate. “But [with] Cabaret le Fey, all bodies are on an equal playing field, and should be. I think that all bodies have a sexuality, and all bodies appeal to someone.”
And while catcalling and applause are strongly encouraged, Cate proudly admits that the audience’s enjoyment is simply a means to an end.
“It’s great that it’s in front of people, but it’s not for them, it’s for us. The goal is that it’s empowering to us and that each of the girls is expressing something that’s authentic to their own erotic selves and artistic selves, and then it’s also something that hopefully an audience can enjoy at the same time.”
Tyler Davidson is a nationally published journalist, having contributed to publications like Alternative Press, Hustler Magazine and The Argonaut. His incessant love of haunted attractions began in 2008, and has taken him to haunts all over the country ever since. He also plays a cult leader on TV.
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