Meet Spider Ange | Burlesque Kitten, Performer and Filmmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Spider Ange and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Spider, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
January 1st, 2023, was the day I knew I had to get my life together. I was graduating from Chapman University with my MFA in Film Production in May and was about to start my life soon, but I felt so unprepared for what came next. I had no idea how I was going to pursue my film career and support myself. However, I was also at a cross roads in my life. I have always wanted to perform burlesque ever since I was a child watching “Gypsy” with Natalie Wood. So, in addition to trying to figure out how I was going to get into the film industry, I was also wanting to get back into dance and more specifically burlesque.

This was the beginning of my shift in work life balance. It wasn’t over night, it was gradual over the course of a year, and it’s still ever evolving. I started taking burlesque classes once a week, taking intimacy coordination classes, I joined Central Casting, I started performing whenever I could with Soul on Fire (the dance studio I attend) and trying to learn the history and socio-political impacts of each discipline in addition to my final semester. It sounds like a lot at once, but it wasn’t. It was a very slow start. It wasn’t until September that a second shift in my life began. With the WGA and SAG Strikes still going strong, I shifted my focus from film primarily to burlesque. I got my first kittening job for a burlesque show with Soul on Fire. This show solidified my endeavor to become a burlesque performer. I found an open stage to perform at, I started going to more shows and getting involved in the community, producing student show cases, taking classes with other studios and learning different styles, submitting for more kittening gigs and submitting to be a dancer for burlesque shows. I was doing all of this while working a day job. I was waking up, going to work, coming home and getting ready for class, a rehearsal or to go to a show and network. I would get home at 10pm or 1 am depending on the day and I still got up and went to work a morning shift the next day. I was exhausted all the time, but I was happy. I did eventually get sick and had to rest. During this forced rest period, I realized that I had to make a change where I was still working on my burlesque career, but I also needed to make sure I took care of myself as well. Now, I schedule rest days and sometimes allow myself to not go to a class if I know that I need a break because rest is just as valuable as doing the work itself. I still do something every single day to further my art, but pace myself better. My hard work is finally starting to pay off too. I have now been cast in two burlesque shows as a performer in February and in March. Also, now that the strikes are over, I am going to be figuring out my film career on top of all this, which will bring further change into my life. However, I am happy with how my life is going. I have every belief that I will be successful as a performer and a filmmaker because I am never going to stop. This is my life and I am going to live it to the fullest.

I want to encourage others to pursue their dreams, but to not have to feel like they need to change over night. Start off with something small. Take a class, listen to a podcast/read a book, get involved in the community somehow and go at your pace, but keep moving forward. You have your whole life to work towards this and your time will come when the time is right. I say this because some days I feel so impatient and want to be further along in my career as an artist and I have to tell myself to slow down and enjoy every single step along the journey. A little something each day will ultimately go a long way in the grand scheme of your life.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My grandfather, Ace Childs, was an artist: he could draw and make jewelry, but he was also a storyteller. If you wanted to hear a story, he could tell you a story. He could make you believe that anything in his tales actually happened. It was the way he told them. Sometimes it was in a dead serious manner and sometimes it was with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. Regardless you either believed him or you wanted to. He was known as the family story teller and I have inherited that from him. I am a Tohono O’odham person and I am very proud of my heritage. I first started my art in the same oral tradition: I would also tell people stories and like my grandfather, got some family members to believe some of my tall tales. As time progressed I dabbled in different mediums. I attempted to draw and visually show my stories as I told them to anyone who would listen, I got my mother to record my sister and I acting out a story I wrote (they’re still on VHS somewhere in my father’s house) and would write down my stories as close to novel like as possible for an elementary school student. I have stories I want to tell and I intend on finding the best way to tell them. Later, our parent’s put my sister and I into dance and theatre classes, and that changed my life. I wanted to be a ballerina and an actress and to produce my own shows. And not long after, I wanted to be a filmmaker.

I feel like I have talked a lot about dance and theatre, but I want to express of my love of filmmaking. Yes, when I was a child I “made movies” with my mother as a cam op and my sister as my co star, but it wasn’t until the DVD special edition of Finding Nemo, that I actively thought to myself that I wanted to make films. I am not currently pursuing animation (though I would love to some day) but, animation has contributed to my love of film. Pixar released a multiple DVD set of Finding Nemo that had a couple of extra DVD’s of solely behind the scenes footage, interviews, documentaries and more. I can’t tell you how many times I watched every single one of those DVD extras. I was attracted to the collaborative effort, the research they had to do and the software they had to develop in order to animate Finding Nemo, the storyboarding, watching Andrew Stanton’s pitch, the different drafts the story went through. I loved all of it. I knew that film was how I wanted to tell my stories.

I am most proud of my current film, Marriage Isn’t A Word, It’s A Sentence. It’s about a sapphic Victorian woman who is accused of murdering her husband. This is the film that I feel shows the most growth in my filmmaking endeavor. It is the best script I have written, it is the best directing I have done up to this point, and this is the best piece of collaborative work I’ve ever done with a team of incredible filmmakers. This was my thesis at Chapman University and this is my masterpiece using the original meaning of the term. My team and I spent over a year in preproduction, and at the eleventh hour everything we planned went to ruin. Everything that could go wrong, did…and then it all came together. We had to hire a new PD and the set wasn’t completely built. We had to find a location, cast, do costumes and adapt the shot list. Basically, we had to redo the whole movie in less than two weeks. And it was the best thing that ever happened to the film. The entire thing came together so perfectly. Instead of everyone being discouraged, everyone stepped up and did their part to make this happen. New people who weren’t even originally part of the team came in a helped. Even in post, this film has continued to be an extraordinary collaborative process. This movie is sincerely the best filmmaking experience I’ve ever had in my life and it was because of everyone who worked on this film. Your team is the best part of any project. They’re the reason why a film comes together or falls a part.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
My best friend lives in LA county, so, if we had a week to do whatever we wanted together, I would definitely drag them to burlesque shows, to the Getty museum, local theatres, local coffee shops and book shops we’ve never been to. Finding new places is what would be fun to check out. Walking around and seeing what is out there is what would be fun and having no specific plan and being open to seeing what is on the local scene. We’d eat at whatever local restaurants we came across. Whatever we felt like that day.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Betsy Acree-McClenahan will always be the first person who comes to mind when thinking about people who made life altering impacts on my life. She was my first ballet, tap and jazz teacher and my first theatre teacher. Without her training, guidance, love, support and compassion I wouldn’t be where I am in life. Everything I am now, I owe to her. I started taking classes and performing with her in 2002 when I was ten years old and my last show that I did with her was in 2020 right before the pandemic hit. She was a professional ballerina, cruise ships, TV , regional theatre and Broadway in addition to being a dance/theatre teacher and a mentor. This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her talents and accomplishments and she is still going. She is still very much active in the dance and theatre community. Sincerely one of the most impressive women you’ll ever meet in your life.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spider_ange/?next=%2F

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Victoriannagray

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/felicity.smith.7393264

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6fOZXTwf_s

Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8146426/

Image Credits
Matthew Crowe (Soul on Fire)- @tuffy_mcfuklbee ((Group photo)) Zachary Maltbia- @dancing_sappire_ ((One of me in front of the Heart Logo with Frankenstein makeup))