KCRW’s Summer Club & Lucha VaVOOM Presents: Stay-In VaVOOM
Livestreaming event co-hosted by KCRW’s Anthony Valadez and LVV’s own Miss Rita
featuring Mexican wrestling, burlesque, and comedy
Special musical guests:
Donita Sparks of L7 and StarCrawler
Plus, massive comedy lineup featuring:
Patton Oswalt, Andy Richter, Greg Proops, Drew Carey, Blaine Capatch, and more
Thursday, September 3rd from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm PDT
Los Angeles’ most celebrated variety show celebrates 18th anniversary
Click here to download event flyer (seen above) and performer photos
“Lucha VaVOOM is what performance art often aspires to be, a mash of the unmixable.”
- KCRW
Los Angeles, CA (August 25, 2020)─In partnership with KCRW’s “Summer Club,” Lucha VaVOOM—Los Angeles’ longest-running, most celebrated variety show, where Mexican masked wrestling, burlesque, and comedy collide—presents a one-night livestreaming event, Stay-In VaVOOM, on Thursday, September 3rd from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm PDT.
KCRW DJ (and huge wrestling fan) Anthony Valadez has found the secret entrance into Lucha VaVOOM's delirious inner-sanctum and he’ll be co-hosting the event with LVV's magnetic co-founder Miss Rita to offer a peek into the backstage world of wrestlers, aerialists and roller girls. Stay-In VaVOOM promises surprise performances, action, and fun all from the safety of your home.
This event is free for KCRW members and for non-member tickets are available with any donation amount ($1 minimum) at EventBrite.com. A donation of $30 or more will enroll you in KCRW's Fringe Benefits membership level (normally available at the $60 level and above). Zoom link will be sent directly to attendees the day of the event.
The lineup for Stay-In VaVOOM includes:
Special musical performances from Donita Sparks (singer/songwriter, guitarist, and founding member of Los Angeles grunge pioneers L7), Starcrawler (an L.A.-based band possessed by the spirit of its own hometown, every movement charged with a manic electricity), and L.A.-based art punk band OBJECT AS SUBJECT led by classical violinist turned punk singer Paris Hurley, who will be joined by her four bandmates, including drummer and Lucha VaVOOM’s Director Angie Scarpa. Sparks will be performing “Fast and Frightening,” off L7’s second album Smell The Magic, which is being celebrated this year with a special 30th anniversary reissue from Sub Pop on September 18th.
Fans can also expect to see world-class, professional lucha libre-style wrestling between two-time Reina de Reinas Champion Taya Valkrie, Dama Fina, Chupacabra, Dr Maldad, and the Crazy Chickens; along with appearances from stunning daredevil aerialist Veronica Yune, some of the top skaters in the world courtesy of the LA Roller Girls, and comedian and actor Brandon Johnson reprising his role as “The Reverend.”
Plus, the event includes a massive comedy lineup featuring Patton Oswalt, Andy Richter, Greg Proops, Drew Carey, and Blaine Capatch delivering insanely off-the-cuff commentary.
Regarding her inspiration for Stay-in VaVOOM, Rita shares: “Growing up in the greater Los Angeles area, summers have always had a mythical quality to me. Long summer vacations from school, days and nights spent at the beaches and parks with friends, hearing summer radio hits that stay with you forever, and watching beautiful real life sunsets (and then seeing them airbrushed on t-shirts and vans) are all enmeshed to form my L.A. experience in the seemingly carefree 70’s & 80’s.
Using the city landscape, combined with the beauty of lucha libre (featuring our local luchadors) and performances from our local burlesque dancers, aerialists, roller skaters, comedians, musical guests, and lowriders, we wanted to pay tribute to the city of Los Angeles and to the summer of 2020 that kind-of was, along with put together an event to encourage all KCRW and Lucha VaVOOM fans from around the world to pull together, stay in, stay safe, and stay optimistic.”
This Friday (8/28) marks the 18th anniversary for Lucha VaVOOM, who has been wowing audiences with their glam/slam extravaganzas ─ from L.A. to Tokyo, across the U.S. and all the way to Australia, people go crazy for this perfect combo of authentic masked Mexican wrestling matches interspersed with insane, high-octane burlesque performances, death defying aerial acts, live music, low riders, tequila, and comedy, adding up to an unforgettable night. Whether you’re looking to get romantic and have a great date night or wild out, LVV’s shows are the only place to be in Los Angeles.
Please note: In order to keep our family of performers and staff safe, and in compliance with the COVID-19 state-wide mandate, LVV’s in-person live shows are on hold. For more info on Lucha VaVOOM and to stay up to date on upcoming virtual events, visit LuchaVaVOOM.com and connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
About Lucha VaVOOM:
For 18 years, Lucha VaVOOM has been delivering arguably the most electrifying shows on earth with a mind-blowing mix of Mexican masked wrestling, burlesque and comedy. Founded in Los Angeles in 2002 by Rita D’Albert and Liz Fairbairn, Lucha VaVOOM—voted Los Angeles’ “Best Burlesque Show” by LA Weekly for 2012 and 2013—is good vs. evil played out in quick, exhibition-style, one-fall Lucha Libre matches for maximum enjoyment and action. Lucha VaVOOM has created a Los Angeles tradition: from the low-rider car parade escorting the performers as the crowd enters the iconic Mayan Theater, to the local luminaries they attract (Drew Carey and Jack Black have sat in), to burlesque (which was revived right here in Los Angeles), to Lucha Libre, where masked heroic wrestlers, in character-driven style, flip, fly and amaze. It all comes together to make one fun, surreal, glam-bam spectacle of raucous entertainment. You could say it’s a wrestling show for people that don’t like wrestling (and those that do). The Los Angeles Times said, “Far-out flamboyance always prevails at Lucha VaVOOM, a spectacle of Mexican freestyle wrestling with an L.A. twist (7/9/06).”
At Lucha VaVOOM, they like a little sexo with their violencia. In between matches, the finest handpicked burlesque acts from around the world wow the crowds with their unique striptease skills, including raucous aerial acts, daredevil roller-skate girls, and Guinness-World-Record-holding hula-hoop hotties. The Los Angeles-based performance troupe has regularly sold out 1,000-seat venues across the globe (Amsterdam, Calgary, Toronto, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Portland and Philadelphia, among many other cities), performed at Fuji Rock Festival in Japan and Big Day Out Festival in Australia since its birth in 2002 and call Los Angeles’ Mayan Theater— an elaborately appointed, 1927-built former motion-picture palace—home when not on the road. Click here to view a sizzle reel of Lucha VaVOOM highlights.
Click here to watch the trailer for the award-winning documentary, titled Lucha VaVOOM: Inside America’s Most Outrageous Show, released October 16, 2018 by TV4 Entertainment.
Lucha VaVOOM has been featured on Ellen, Jimmy Kimmel, BRAVO’s Top Chef Masters, CNN, Carson Daily, CBS National News, BBC, ESPN, and VICE, among others.
Sample of praise for Lucha VaVOOM:
“After 15 years, Lucha VaVOOM is practically as historic to Los Angeles as the Moulin Rouge is to Paris.
- LA Weekly
“Lucha VaVOOM…triumphs in Los Angeles”
- BBC Mundo
“…may be the best bang-for-your-buck entertainment in town.”
- Thrillist
“…no one that puts on a better lucha libre show than the folks at Lucha VaVOOM. Far wackier and wilder than most professional wrestling…Lucha VaVOOM lets its freak flag fly…”
- Nerdist
“Lucha VaVOOM is an underground celebration of all things perfect in this world…Lucha VaVOOM is what will pass for primetime entertainment when the polar ice caps finally melt and there’s not a single drop of oil left to be squeezed from the planet. In the post-apocalyptic future Lucha VaVOOM’s mix of ‘sexo y violencia’ will replace the Super Bowl, the Internet, and daytime television as humanity’s primary form of entertainment.”
- Complex
“If Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez teamed up to start a wrestling promotion –
Lucha VaVoom is what you would get.”
- The Sportster
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