For those curious and seeking sensual, erotic, creative, and avant-garde experiences, this is your starting point. Whether you’re planning a solo adventure, a date night, a polycule outing, a friends’ night out, or marking a milestone event—or maybe it’s just a Wednesday and you’re craving something spectacular—this directory is designed to guide you.
Burlesque is more than sequins and striptease—it’s historically a parody of culture, a sister to theater, a literary form, and one of nightlife’s most enduring and subversive art forms. It has grown to embrace pole, drag, circus, sideshow, kink, and other performance genres that push boundaries and seduce audiences around the world.
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This Burlesque and Nightlife Directory is personally curated by Switchress Shay Au Lait. Every listing reflects a show, troupe, venue, or production she has scouted, attended, or would recommend. Think of it less as a phone book and more as a sensual map of experiences worth seeking out.
You’ll find burlesque shows, supper clubs, immersive theater, drag spectacles, circus-cabaret mashups, pole and kink-infused nightlife, and everything in between. From the gilded stages of Paris to underground speakeasies in New York, from festival circuits to intimate one-night-only events, this is a living guide to where artistry and eroticism meet.
Browse hand-picked entries including:
Iconic Houses & Venues: Crazy Horse Paris, Moulin Rouge, House of Yes, Company XIV, Proud Cabaret London, Duane Park NYC, Bordel Chicago.
Touring & Festival Productions: Haute Velour, AirOtic, Paranormal Cirque, Burlesque Fests, What The Funk?!, The Burlesque Showboat Cruise.
Regional Scenes & Local Gems: Awkward Sex and the City (NYC), Spellbound Burlesque (AZ), Sugar Blue Burlesque (Perth), Raks Geek (IL), The Brass Menagerie (TN).
Black & Queer Spotlights: Jeezy’s Juke Joint, The Cocoa Butter Club, Black Burlesque Directory, ErotiQueer BurlesQue
Experiences Beyond Burlesque: Sad Brunch (Drag), Sensatia Cirque Cabaret, Soul Penny Circus, SpeakEasy Noir, Siren Pack Productions.
This directory will continue to grow and evolve—reflecting the diverse, decadent, and daring world of nightlife.
Looking for burlesque shows near you? Planning a night out at a burlesque club, drag revue, pole show, or erotic cabaret? Use this curated Burlesque Directory as your guide to find the most sensual, theatrical, and unforgettable nightlife experiences worldwide.
Soul Retrieval Performance Art | Conscious Burlesque – Safe + joyful emergence for highly sensitive women who overedit, overmanage, overgive, people please + appease … and who desire to be seen, on their own terms.
Siren Pack is a production powerhouse and lifestyle brand known for producing and curating high-end, avant-garde performance art and theatrical experiences.
Originally opened in 1948, Skull’s Rainbow Room is one of the most celebrated and acclaimed dining experiences in Music City.
Shadow Play For Your Shadow Work – SpeakEasy Noir is a mind-body wellness practice and immersive movement experience for intensely sensuous and deeply curious souls. Explore power, pleasure and play through sensual movement, erotic expression, burlesque, pole dance, freestyle flow, and creative healing arts.
Since 2014, Spellbound Burlesque has been the trendsetters, curating mesmerizing burlesque, aerial, and variety spectacles right in the heart of Phoenix, Arizona.
Experience LA’s best female specialty talent bring to life Quentin Tarantino’s menagerie of heroines – like you’ll see nowhere else!
The Argonaut is a submarine inspired bar and lounge serving wine, craft beer, tiki drinks, specialty cocktails, and tapas style food offerings. Opened in Summer of 2022, The Argonaut offers an immersive atmosphere to indulge our patrons in a speakeasy vibe.
Black Girls Pole has comprised a list of black-owned Pole and Aerial studios in the United States and abroad so you can support small business owners in the black community! Use the map on their website OR the list to find a studio near you!
The Burlesque Hall of Fame is a nonprofit museum committed to preserving, sharing, celebrating, and inspiring the art of burlesque.
All aboard for a fun-filled evening of entertainment and fine food with live artists in a delightfully decadent, intimate and slightly naughty atmosphere. Cruising Melbourne’s harbour since 2011, the Burlesque Showboat is Melbourne’s longest-running regular Burlesque event!
The Candybox Revue is an award-winning Atlanta burlesque ensemble and dance troupe full of sparkling burlesque glamour, musical theatre, and Las Vegas-style Bump & Grind.
The Cocoa Butter Club is an award-winning performance company, showcasing and celebrating performers of colour!
Winner of Denver’s Best Immersive Experience. Run away with the circus and Colorado’s longest-running Sideshow, the Conspiracy Circus!
Authentic Expression – The Fit Factory is more than just a pole and aerial dance studio—it’s a creative sanctuary where movement becomes art, healing, and empowerment.
lion was established in 2023 by Shien Lee in response to the escalating wave of violence targeting the AAPI community. Merging elegant Art Deco elements with playful Chinese motifs and patterns, this once-empty warehouse was transformed into an intimate Asian neo-noir speakeasy with a hint of classic cyberpunk.
A theatre of convergence, confluence, and collaboration. Theatre C was founded in 2009 to move audiences and open minds by creating unique theatrical experiences that mix the seemingly un-mixable.
Velvet Nox Productions is a pole dance and burlesque production company in Austin, TX. Come for the glitter, stay for the stories.
What the Funk?! An All BIPOC Burlesque Festival is a Puckduction created by Mx, Pucks A’Plenty and co produced with Rebecca Mm RebeccaMm Davis and Stormy Chance.