Conversations with Fantasy Suite

Today we’d like to introduce you to Fantasy Suite.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Cherry Jayne: One day, a friend sent me a message that she saw someone casting for a plus-size dance show. Even though that was something I had never done before, it seemed super fun, especially since I had been a s*x worker already for a few years. After being selected for the show, we began practices for the event. At these practices is where I met Lil Sumthin. We practiced for this event for weeks, faithfully, and were extremely excited for the show. I was also helping to curate this event, doing research, finding potential venues, and sourcing art for promotion, but given no credit. Along the way, tension grew between the creators of the event and the dancers, making dancers feel unappreciated or unimportant. After this first show with them, I decided I didn’t want to work with them again, even though this was the only chance to dance again. After dancing for other shows for around three years, we decided to take the leap and create our own pole show centering BIPOC, queer and larger-bodied dancers. Fantasy Suite was started after a long road of dancing at these other shows and helping them curate and build their events and wanting to have our own place to dance at. Our biggest goal is having sold-out shows and lots of tipping for our dancers.

Lil Sumthin: A milestone birthday was approaching for me and I blurted out to a friend that my biggest fantasy was to be a stripper. They asked why I wasn’t doing it already, and I said it was because I was fat. This friend blew my mind telling me that in Portland they have strip clubs that hire many different types of dancers. Even though I still don’t see many working fat dancers hired, I took the encouragement and realized being held back by my body type was ridiculous. I did an internet search and found an event that casting for dancers and I took it as a sign to start. I met Cherry Jayne and we instantly connected with our background in production and our dedication to the project. When we realized this event benefited only the founding members, we vowed to have a show that values the efforts and talents of the dancers. I have booked entertainment in a former career and venues will roll out the hospitality and budgets for bands and DJs, yet have nothing to offer artists and dancers. My goal as a producer is to get those benefits to dancers, especially thick, queer, BIPOC, and trans dancers, those that may have not been highlighted in traditional nightlife events. Our goals have been rooted in highlighting and uplifting dancers and recognizing them for the talent, energy, and sex appeal they bring to nightlife, we want to promote s*x workers, the art of erotic dance and create a really cool space where tipping is abundant!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Cherry Jayne: Definitely not, although we wish we could say differently. Our events are all self-funded out of our own pocket, and we always pay our workers but really want to be able to guarantee money for dancers as well. We’d love to secure some type of sponsor to make this happen. Another struggle is that venues do not usually accept pole shows, especially being queer and larger-bodied, which leads to hours of sending out emails with zero replies. Or a “that’s not our vibe good luck” message. Even once a venue claims to be on board, they are sometimes hesitant to post and promote our events which can lead to low turnouts or making our event look illegitimate.

Lil Sumthin: There will be a lot of rejection and judgment even in queer spaces, and navigating the cliques of Los Angeles where many of the same dancers are regulars and it doesn’t leave space for new talent or travel dancers. Many bars and clubs stick to the same programming and do not want to take chances on a show like ours. We have been lucky to find the right audience when we pop up.

Cherry brought up that we have had deals with venues who choose to not promote our event after seeing our cast. That has been extremely challenging when we have created custom promo materials and promoted a show for over a month for the bartenders and staff to not even know we were arriving.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Cherry Jayne: Our biggest goal is to highlight dancers that are BIPOC, larger-bodied and/or queer. Making the performers feel important and valued is a huge priority as our dancers make Fantasy Suite what it is. We love to be able to put on a badass performance to show people just how talented we are. If you can put on a badass performance and look hot doing it, that’s all that matters. Lots of times, we can be seen as the “underdogs”, but each and every show gets better with more and more talent, which we definitely sets us apart big time. When people walk away with a big bag of cash, we know we did right.

Lil Sumthin: Every show we have starts with a theme or idea that can come from a song lyric or vibe that we love. We put a lot of work into curating the dancers, playlist, visuals, and promo materials. We want the dancers to feel empowered by knowing everything from the set list to providing QR codes so everyone can be digitally tipped. From a producer’s perspective, we want a show with no performance injuries that runs on time and makes money for all! I am proud of the workshops we have hosted, where we teach pole tricks and floor moves for large bodies. It’s really amazing to see something click for a dancer because they just haven’t danced with someone that has similar challenges to them. I also am happy with the two shows we produced in San Francisco as “Hella Juicy.” Getting out of LA and having success makes me think more diverse cities would like to come to our show, which means the possibility of putting more dancers on stage that we haven’t met yet!

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Cherry Jayne: Our huge risk was even starting this event in the first place. LA is not an easy town to start having events in. And with our history of working on other pole shows, we didn’t know if we’d get any support or if people would want to f*ck with us. We’ve truly built this from the ground up after leaving the other pole shows around LA we helped build and curate. When we finally took the leap to do our first LA event, it was such a low turnout for a lot of reasons – mainly being the venue not truly wanting to support our event. Although it’s been challenging, when we get huge collabs with Pussy Riot (thanks Von Music), the risks finally seem to be paying off. Fantasy Suite is only a little over a year old, and we’ve had amazing collabs so far. It’s very exciting to see what the future holds.

Lil Sumthin: We are self-funded and the time we put into this project, we do not see a payout until we are actually dancing on stage, which is very risky! Also as a fat stripper, we can’t get hired at a traditional club where we can have some anonymity or just clock in and clock out. We have to promote ourselves as artists and put our content out there, dancing. It has caused personal divides in my life where unfortunately some cannot accept my lifestyle. The gains and losses I could have never predicted prior to starting, but I’m so happy we continued to push on with training, producing, and teaching.

Pricing:

• Shows range from $5-$20 usually

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stripspace.org/?fbclid=PAAaYNxHaoxc4vDssBYWglvgP0py5mr8KH5SQoN7hwzcUHErel5NvLDw4lBoQ_aem_AeT3M5iR3rFpTVRDNdpIQu4FeuyCiUqsIzMeO10lb_JV8MyaCfJH0Hd2EcKzEWZ4XfQ
• Instagram: Instagram.com/fantasysuite.la, Instagram.com/lil.sumthin_ (creator), Instagram.com/cherryjaynexx (creator)

Image Credits
Cover photo- Cherry Jayne and Lil Sumthin, photographer Danielle Holmberg @fivepercentbatterylife Dancer Photos 1. Cherry Jayne, photographer Maia Saavedra @maia_saavedra_ 2. Cherry Jayne, photographer Maia Saavedra @maia_saavedra_ 3. Lil Sumthin, photographer Maia Saavedra @maia_saavedra_ 4. Lil Sumthin, photographer Maia Saavedra @maia_saavedra_ 5. Dior, photographer Cherry Jayne @cherryjaynexx 6. Esmeralda, photographer Cherry Jayne @cherryjaynexx 7. Thiccshake, photographer Cherry Jayne @cherryjaynexx 8. Coi, photographer Cherry Jayne @cherryjaynexx 9. Jason Waterfalls, photographer Cherry Jayne @cherryjaynexx 10. Group photo, photographer Danielle Holmberg @fivepercentbatterylife