Burlesque performer and model Dita Von Teese uses numerous vintage Las Vegas showgirl costumes in her first-ever Las Vegas residency, “Dita Las Vegas: A Jubilant Revue,” which has taken over the Jubilee Theater at Horseshoe Las Vegas and will run various nights through June 15. (Photo by Fiestaban Photography)
Burlesque superstar Dita Von Teese has revived the stage at the Jubilee Theater at Horseshoe Las Vegas in Nevada by paying homage to the long-running, classic Las Vegas showgirl revue, “Jubilee!,” while adding her own brand of sophisticated humor, glamour and the seductive art of the strip tease.
“Dita Las Vegas: A Jubilant Revue” includes lively music, two dozen dancers, costumes and accessories adorned with thousands of Swarovski crystals and thousands of pounds of vintage orange and pink feathers, custom Christian Louboutin shoes, a bejeweled mechanical bull, a glittering birdcage with a water feature and martini glasses large enough for a grown woman to sexily splash around in.
The Los Angeles resident’s first Las Vegas residency, which launched in late October 2023, has been a hit and recently expanded to four evenings a week (Wednesdays-Saturdays), with added dates currently stretching into mid-June.
“I’m excited because I’m up against these massive conglomerate shows here and I’m just a little show,” Von Teese said during a recent phone interview. “OK, it’s really a big show, but compared to everything else here. I’m proud of what we’ve created and word is getting out. It is difficult to compete sometimes with the Cirque du Soleils of the world. It’s also not easy to make a showgirl revue and burlesque revue in this day and age and have people understand what it is until they see it. Once they see it, it’s like ‘Oh, this is totally relevant.’ It’s not just a ‘girlie show.’”
Von Teese is quick to point out, too, that there’s an equal number of men and women included in the program. It features a variety of acts that tip the hat to classic Las Vegas-style stage shows with showgirl dancing and a circus performance, paired with the myriad of original StripScapes with props created by Von Teese and her longtime creative partner Catherine D’Lish over the past 23 years.
A longtime admirer and collector of all things vintage, Von Teese said she couldn’t pass up this opportunity, especially when she discovered she’d have access to all of the costumes and accessories created by famous Hollywood designers Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee. The duo created the outfits for “Jubilee!,” the last true showgirl production, which ran from 1981 to 2016 at the Horseshoe Las Vegas and they’ve been stored at the venue since.
“These vintage costumes nobody can ever make again,” Von Teese said. “They’ve been carefully archived since ‘Jubilee!’ closed in 2016 and we have people who worked on ‘Jubilee!’ working on our wardrobe team, so everything is still perfectly cared for and they’ve rarely seen the light of day so there’s very little fade.”
“Every time I step into the wardrobe area, which is so massive, it’s so exciting and it feels like I’m getting high,” she continued. “I get like glamour eyes. For a vintage-lover like me, this has been a dream because I also discovered not only the ‘Jubilee!’ archives, but things from the show before, which was in the ’60s or ’70s. There’s a whole top floor with four huge rooms filled with vintage costumes.”
Von Teese and her crew took their time looking carefully through the wardrobe to select which costumes would be a part of the acts within the show.
“I’ve always been the person, whether it’s clothing or even a old house or building with history, I want to touch the walls and I want to think about the past,” she said. “Ever since I was little, I’ve always been really interested in things and what their past lives were.”
While it is inspired by “Jubilee!” Von Teese admits her new show is nothing like it. There’s subtle nods throughout since one of Von Teese’s favorite things to do in Las Vegas, aside from visiting The Liberace Museum, was to go see “Jubilee!” when she was in town.
“I loved it because it was high-camp and really it was the last revue of its kind,” she said. “It was the one with the Ziegfeld-style and this real showgirl stuff from the past. It was quintessential Las Vegas and there’s been nothing like it. I’m really excited that we have this show now on The Strip because people try to do a little vintage Las Vegas, but, I’m sorry, I don’t think unless you live vintage culture, you don’t get into the minutiae and details and understand why it was good. But I do.”
While using vintage costuming and the old-school “Jubilee!” props and practical staging, Von Teese is also bringing in some newer technology as she has incorporated her video projection mapping striptease act, which was originally created by Ali Mahdavi for her at The Crazy Horse Paris.
“It’s the most tedious part of the night for me,” she admits. “It’s just very precise in the body positions because we’re not quite at the point with nudity, where you can have the mapping follow you precisely, so I really have to hit those marks.”
Fans of Taylor Swift’s 2022 “Bejeweled” music video will be delighted to know that Von Teese has included the very martini glasses that she and Swift swirled around in during the video into her Las Vegas show.
“I need to text her and have her come out because she’d love this,” Von Teese said, noting that working with Swift, who also directed the “Bejeweled” music video, was a wonderful experience.
“She’s so smart and savvy and lovely,” she said while adding that Swift took to the moves easily as the pair did a lesson together to get the performance down for the martini glass scene. “I was so impressed with her directing that video. Usually pop stars are like ‘Hey, can I borrow that glass’ or ‘Can I copy that?’ It was great to have someone say ‘Let’s do this side by side so people can know where it came from.’ You don’t get that everyday in Hollywood.”
‘Dita Las Vegas: A Jubilant Revue’
When: 9 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays through June 15
Where: Jubilee Theater at Horseshoe Las Vegas, 3645 Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas
Tickets: $59-$378 at Ticketmaster.com/DitaVegas
Originally published at Kelli Skye Fadroski