Trapeze striptease

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fapVB35E0FQ[/youtube]This short film combines two things I love, the trapeze and frilly, fussy, Edwardian-era lingerie.

It stars Sacramento native Charmion, aka Laverie Vallee (why bother with a stage name?), a pioneering strong woman who thrilled audiences in New York and in London with her audacious moves on the trapeze. Critic George Jean Nathan caught Charmion’s act in 1896, when he was a boy. “The lights went out with the person of our heroine still concealed in enough black net underwear to dress a whole present-day musical show chorus,” he said.

“Charmion’s girlish habit of tossing her bejeweled silken garter with a gesture of abandon into the audience enlivened the refined act at its conclusion,” another critic noted. Refined? Maybe not. Still, over 100 years later Charmion has lost none of her charm.

The talented Charmion, trapeze artist extraordinaire.