

But mixed in with the stripping is a level of zaniness, edge and political commentary. Dancers strip down to pasties and G-strings, or to their birthday suit, with some strategic covering. The tips are eventually pooled and split evenly among all the performers. Like an in-person strip club, viewers (about 100 for each show) are encouraged throughout the night to tip the dancers using payment platforms like Venmo or Cash App.
#Virtual stripper webn portable
Some dancers use portable poles, and others make creative use of bathtubs, windowsills, cars or apartment corners transformed by a makeshift set. Each follows a theme - “Star Wars,” disco and funk, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” - and features a different lineup of dancers who perform two short pieces in their homes. The co-founders take turns hosting and performing in the virtual show. Although they emphasized that Jumbo’s is a supportive environment run by women, other strip clubs can be exploitative. (Tickets to the Zoom show are sold through Eventbrite.)Ĭo-founded by Gabrielle, Reagan, Coco Ono (real name Kayla Tange) and Kitty, the Stripperina (real name Kelly Vittetoe), the show has given the strippers a new sense of agency and empowerment in an industry that is notorious for taking advantage of women. And within 24 hours they launched Cyber Clown Girls, which has now become a twice-weekly three-hour show featuring current dancers and alumni from Jumbo’s, and other performers from exotic dance communities.

In early May, one Jumbo’s dancer named Gabrielle reached out to a few of her coworkers to create a virtual strip show. “Then we realized that we were those people.” It was in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when a group of dancers from the East Hollywood hipster strip club Jumbo’s Clown Room realized no one was coming to save them.Īfter the club closed in March, they were waiting on a call, “for someone to swoop in and take the reins and tell us what to do,” said the performer who goes by Reagan (real name Megan Rippey).
