Dita Von Teese’s Las Vegas residency taps into showgirl glamour and history

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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.

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 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 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 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 performer and model Dita Von Teese performs her famous bull riding routine atop a mechanical bull adorned with jewels during 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 performer and model Dita Von Teese’s first-ever Las Vegas residency, “Dita Las Vegas: A Jubilant Revue,” includes vintage feathers from Las Vegas showgirls and has taken over the Jubilee Theater at Horseshoe Las Vegas and will run various nights through June 15. (Photo by Fiestaban Photography)

Burlesque performer and model Dita Von Teese’s first-ever Las Vegas residency, “Dita Las Vegas: A Jubilant Revue,” has taken over the Jubilee Theater at Horseshoe Las Vegas and will run various nights through June 15. (Photo by Fiestaban Photography)

Burlesque performer and model Dita Von Teese brought her famous martini glass routine to 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 performer and model Dita Von Teese’s first-ever Las Vegas residency, “Dita Las Vegas: A Jubilant Revue,” has taken over the Jubilee Theater at Horseshoe Las Vegas and will run various nights through June 15. (Photo by Fiestaban Photography)

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“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

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Chicago Cubs prospect updates: Matt Shaw focusing on 3rd base, while Brennen Davis is ‘super ready for a fresh start’

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Matt Shaw understands the value in defensive versatility.

It’s the same messaging second baseman Nico Hoerner delivered to Shaw and other 12 Chicago Cubs prospects while meeting with them during the organization’s annual development camp at Wrigley Field last week. Hoerner explained how much it helped that he was able to play multiple infield positions and in the outfield.

Hoerner’s perspective resonated with Shaw, the Cubs’ first-round pick last year.

“You look at guys like that, they’re in the organization that have been really successful, you’re like, OK, that makes sense, that’s the type of guy they want,” Shaw said last weekend at the Cubs Convention. “And so you want to be that guy.”

Shaw estimated that 99% of his defensive reps this offseason have been at third base. Only three of his 38 starts last year came at third, all with Double-A Tennessee near the end of the season.

“It’s just something I wanted to do,” Shaw said. “I did shortstop, obviously, the last couple of years and I haven’t been able to get a lot of reps at third. So now I was, like, might as well spend some time get used to the position and get comfortable there.”

With how the Cubs’ big-league roster is constructed, third base represents the clearest pathway to the majors for the 22-year-old Shaw, who crushed pitching after being drafted in June en route to reaching Double A on Aug. 30. One defensive question mark coming into the organization centered on his arm strength. Shaw agreed that he “absolutely” needs to continue working on it.

Defense and arm strength have been the focus of Shaw’s offseason work. Part of his routine has included throwing a football to build strength.

“You read stuff and what people don’t realize is that you got six, seven months in the offseason to work on these things so it’s just something you look forward to coming to spring training and the season is that you’ve had a lot of time to work on it,” Shaw said. “You just kind of slowly piece it together and get a little bit better. And over the long term, it makes a big difference so that’s something I’m really excited for this spring.”

Cade Horton ready to build off debut season

Horton isn’t a big goal setter.

The Cubs’ top pitching prospect prefers staying within the process and taking everything one day at a time.

“If I go and get better each and every day, then it’ll ultimately lead to where I want to be in the end,” Horton said.

The Cubs have not been afraid to aggressively promote prospects. Horton experienced that firsthand last year during his first season in professional baseball. He opened with Low-A Myrtle Beach, with whom he made four starts before earning a promotion to High-A South Bend. He posted a 3.83 ERA with 12.4 strikeouts per nine innings, prompting an early-August promotion to Tennessee. In four starts spanning 14 1/3 innings, Horton owned a 1.26 ERA and struck out 38.2% of the batters he faced.

The Cubs showed they were willing to give big starts to young talent when they called up lefty Jordan Wicks in September.

“You go out there and you just try to compete, and at the end of the day, promotions are out of your control,” Horton said. “So I like to focus on what I can control and that’s going out there, staying in my routine and going out there and competing.”

The 2023 season represented the first time Horton focused solely on pitching. He learned to develop a routine and how he wants his week to look between starts while continuing to develop his changeup and curveball.

Horton hasn’t talked to the front office yet about the opportunities that could be in front of him.

“There is a possibility out there, but also I have to go out there and perform and do what I do,” Horton said. “So there’ll be a time and place for that but nothing yet.”

Brennen Davis ‘super ready’ for a fresh start

Describing the last two years for Davis as challenging might be underselling what the organization’s former top prospect has endured.

Injuries have limited Davis, 24, to only 105 games at Triple-A Iowa the last two years, sidelined by back surgery in 2022 and a hernia/core-muscle procedure in 2023 that kept the outfielder out three months until mid August.

“I feel like we talked about this last year, but I’m super ready for a fresh start,” Davis said with a smile. “2024 is going to be a big year for me.”

Davis said his right side had been bothering him since 2021 when he had first complained about it. Then, when he went into surgery, his left side showed an old injury, likely from compensation. Ultimately both sides were repaired.

“It’s not ideal, but I was able to play through it for a good bit but never really felt quite 100%,” Davis said.

Davis spent the beginning of the offseason building back strength. Although it took time to get to a place where he physically felt comfortable, Davis said he’s well past that point with spring training one month away.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Davis said. “I need to handle my stuff. I know I’m a great player and everybody’s seen me perform. I just need to show everybody why they think so highly of me.”

As Davis works to regain his form, external projections have seen the 2021 Futures Game MVP fall down prospect rankings. Baseball America doesn’t have him in the Cubs’ top 10 preseason rankings after putting him at No. 2 this point last year, while MLB.com had Davis at No. 19 at the end of the season.

Davis isn’t worrying about outside perspectives.

“It’s all noise,” Davis said. “The goal has been the same goal since Day 1 — be a big-leaguer and be able to help the big-league club win. The rankings, I said it when I was at the top and I’ll say it now: It’s somebody’s opinion. It’s not who you are as a baseball player. It’s the value that you are bringing to the team based on how well you perform on the field.”

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Column: Rat Hole Park? Second City Stadium? It’s never too early to name the new White Sox Park.

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Everyone is giddy for the new White Sox ballpark in the South Loop, even without the team or the city announcing any details about their plans.

Kudos to the Sox for getting fans excited for opening day, even if it’s Opening Day 2030, and to Mayor Brandon Johnson, who figures to be long gone before the first shovel hits the ground on the ballpark construction.

If we’re rushing toward an agreement to make Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf’s new pet project come to fruition, we might as well start thinking about the naming rights.

Guaranteed Rate Field, the name of the current ballpark, never has caught on since replacing U.S. Cellular Field, which was widely known as “the Cell.” U.S. Cellular Field replaced “new Comiskey Park,” the original name in 1991 which honored the demolished ballpark across the street. Former owner Charles Comiskey named the ballpark after himself, an idea that Reinsdorf assuredly won’t copy.

No matter what name it went by, many fans still referred to the Sox’s home as “Sox Park,” an easily remembered name that spans generations.

While we anxiously await Reinsdorf and Johnson’s plan, here are 10 suggestions for the name of the new South Loop ballpark:

1. Manny’s Cafeteria & Delicatessen Stadium

The South Loop’s most beloved restaurant deserves dibs for the new stadium name.

The classic Jewish deli is only a three-minute drive down Roosevelt Road from the proposed stadium site, and figures to be as popular for pregame dining as McCuddy’s once was for pregame drinking.

2. Rat Hole Park

The Rat Hole Preservation Society, our nickname for those anonymous do-gooders in Roscoe Village who helped save the city’s latest tourist attraction from vandalism, needs to set up a GoFundMe page for the naming rights.

The Rat Hole is a rodent-shaped crater in a sidewalk that somehow became as famous as the Bean. The Sox could even get creative and design a park with the same imprint. Rat Hole Park would be a perfect destination for a ballgame in Chicago and would honor both our favorite rodents and our history of corrupt politicians.

The only problem might be that some Sox fans already refer to Wrigley Field as “the rat hole.”

3. The 78

The area around Clark Street and Roosevelt Road is already called “the 78″ based on someone’s idea that it eventually would become the 78th neighborhood in Chicago.

“The 78″ could also be seen as an homage to the 1978 White Sox, a team that had the misfortune of following the popular ‘77 group known as the “South Side Hit Men.” Without “rent-a-players” Richie Zisk and Oscar Gamble, the stars of the Hit Men, the Sox plunged to a 90-loss season. They did however manage to acquire Claudell Washington in a trade for Bobby Bonds, and the outfielder’s inability to play hard inspired the famous banner in right field: “Washington Slept Here.”

4. Obama Yards

The world’s most famous Sox fan is former President Barack Obama, though he once called Comiskey Park “Comiskey Field” in an interview with Bob Costas.

Obama’s presidential library currently is under construction in Jackson Park and could use a bookend a few miles north. One Sox fan publicly pleaded with Reinsdorf in a Chicago Tribune op-ed to sell the team to Obama, but first things first. Naming the stadium after Obama might even convince him to attend some games.

5. Loop Park

Getting people to go back to the Loop again might be easier if it meant going to a ballpark by the same name, and the former classic rock radio station called “the Loop” would be an appropriate tie-in for nostalgic Sox fans.

A statue of Steve Dahl blowing up disco albums would look nice in center, commemorating one of the most celebrated moments in Sox history.

6. Second City Stadium

The Second City improv theater includes some of the most recognized names in comedy over the years, from John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd to Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert.

In the mid ‘90s I asked Second City alum George Wendt, a South Side Sox fan who played Norm on “Cheers,” to give his theory on the team’s attendance issues in the new Comiskey Park.

“Maybe you could’ve put it on the free TV versus cable TV thing a few years back,” Wendt replied. “But now they’re on WGN sometimes, so I don’t know. It seems like emigres to Chicago, the postgraduates who settle here in the suburbs, north or south, become Cubs fans. It seems like to be a Sox fan, you have to be born and raised on the South Side.”

That might still be true today.

7. This Space for Rent Field

A temporary solution while the Sox try to find a sponsor from the cryptocurrency world.

8. Ozzie Guillen Field

The manager of the only Sox team to win a championship since 1917 doesn’t have a statue in Guaranteed Rate Field. To make amends, the Sox could name the new ballpark after Guillen, who currently works as an analyst for NBC Sports Chicago and provides unfiltered commentary on the team’s issues.

“Meet you at ‘the Oz’” sounds like a good way to start a day.

9. Taylor Swift Stadium

Being associated with the world’s biggest pop star seemed to work well for the NFL. The Sox could use the boost in attendance, even if Reinsdorf has to pay Swift for the use of her name.

10. Sox Park

Well, this is what it will eventually be called no matter what it’s named, so why not just cut to the chase?

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Study shows daylight saving time has minimal effect on heart health

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Vincent Jacobbi | Mayo Clinic News Network (TNS)

ROCHESTER, Minn. — A recent Mayo Clinic study examining the effects of daylight saving time (DST) on heart health suggests that the impact is likely minimal.

In the nationwide study, researchers applied an advanced statistical model to look for any connections between DST and serious cardiovascular problems, including heart attacks and strokes. The study looked at 36,116,951 adults aged 18 and up across most U.S. states. (Arizona and Hawaii were excluded since these states do not observe DST.)

Researchers focused on the week directly after the spring and fall DST transition, when clocks are set either an hour forward or backward.

“We looked at five years across the U.S., and what we found is that it’s unlikely that there is a clinically meaningful difference in cardiovascular health due to daylight saving time,” says Benjamin Satterfield, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiovascular diseases fellow and lead author of the study.

Researchers found 74,722 adverse cardiovascular events occurred throughout the study during the spring and fall DST transition. An adverse cardiovascular event was documented when a person was hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of a heart attackstrokecardiogenic shock or cardiac arrest.

“These cardiovascular events are common health conditions, so this led to the question of whether this is more than would be expected if this had not followed the daylight saving time transition,” says Dr. Satterfield.

The observance of daylight saving time varies around the world. Countries that move clocks forward or back one hour may do so on different dates, and some do not observe daylight saving time at all.

In the Mayo Clinic study, the Monday and Friday following the spring DST transition showed a statistically slight increase in the rates of cardiovascular events — but when looking at all the data, researchers did not see the rise as clinically significant, he said.

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Researchers note that the time change practice was intended to align social and work activities with daylight hours and to conserve energy using less artificial lighting. They underscore that making changes to the DST system out of concern for heart health is unnecessary.

“When decisions are made about whether to abolish daylight saving time, there is no need to take concerns regarding heart health into account,” says Bernard J. Gersh, M.B., Ch.B., D.Phil., cardiologist and senior author of the study.

Dr. Gersh and Dr. Satterfield note that the debate over DST includes other aspects of health. For example, Dr. Satterfield said researchers are exploring DST’s effect on mental health and its effect on the rates of motor vehicle accidents.

The Mayo Clinic Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery supported this research. Review the study for a complete list of authors, disclosures and funding.

©2024 Mayo Clinic News Network. Visit newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.