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Last update: July 15, 2005 at 11:14 PM

By Kay Miller,  Star Tribune Staff

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Most patrons have a drink or two in them by 10 p.m., when emcee "Nadine Dubois" steps onstage to wild applause at Lili's Burlesque Revue. Scott "Frenchy" Fremont at the drums pounds out a sultry beat.

Dubois -- aka Michelle Langner, 30 -- is draped in a low-cut scarlet gown, the spotlight catching her glitter-dusted cleavage. Her voice is a husky come-hither.

"Clap if you're virgins to burlesque," she says, with a playfully lascivious look. Dubois came late to the role of bawdy temptress, having sung in a Christian rock band after studying theater and opera at Gustavus Adolphus College.

There are maybe 40 people in the audience, most in their 20s or 30s. But Dubois picks Nate, the blond onetime farmer from Fargo sitting in the front row, as the evening's foil after he admits he's a burlesque neophyte.

"I promise we'll deflower you gently," she coos.

Lili's is one of Minneapolis' subcultural gems. On this Friday night, it houses patrons from as far away as New York, North Carolina and Seattle. Audiences are treated to a mix of exotic dancers, bullwhip artists, singers, comics, jugglers, fire twirlers and Frenchy's Big Bang Burlesque Band.

With a pool of 40 artists and a bent toward improvisation, the lineup is different every Friday and Saturday night.

Tonight's show is laced with surprises. A dancer's pasties -- those strategically placed nipple cones -- accidentally pop off. Fire spinner Kristin Doll caps one routine in a back-bend, spewing fire into the air. A ballerina in a black tutu dances on pointe, tossing blossoms until she's topless but for two little flowers.

"Burlesque is not about being naked or hot or sexy," says singer Karen "Chanteuse" Paurus, 39. "It's about allowing somebody to watch you in this very playful, sensual and often really silly circumstance where you're taking off your clothes. Even then, you still don't get to see a naked body. There is always something left to the imagination."

Dubois and Paurus are among the core group of six performers who furnished the room from their own pockets and run the club, auditioning singers, hiring servers, even meeting with the fire marshal. Yet their $15 to $60 a night earnings make day jobs an imperative.

Dubois is a server at the Local Irish Pub and Paurus is an online editor for startribune.com. But Lili's larger cadre of performers includes an English teacher, an art gallery manager, a massage therapist, an actor, a toy company president and a doctoral student in religion ("This is my dirty little secret," says Doll).

For performers, Lili's is a labor of love. For patrons, it's a step back 60 years to Vaudeville's coy sexual tease. Lacy panties, stockings and corsets draped over a clothesline at the window and passion-red walls set the evening's tone: naughty but never nasty. Here, women are in charge.

"Tonight I invite you to strip yourselves of your Minnesota skins," Dubois says. "We want you to hoot, holler, clap, bang on the tables. Around here we call that encouragement. Because if you don't do that, they may not take it off. And that will be a little embarrassing for all of us."

And bless all you dears who buy Dubois a cocktail or drop a little monetary "love" in her tip purse.

Beautiful in their skin

An hour before the show, Liana "GiGi Larue" Jacquet, 23, stands before the crowded backstage mirrors in black panties, pressing hot pink pasties to her bare breasts. Finding the best adhesive is a story in itself. Larue opts for spirit gum, letting it dry to a tacky ring before applying pasties.

"They're like little Shriner's hats with tassels on them," says "CoCo Dupree," a k a Sarah Levorson, 36. The longer the tassel, the better the twirl, says Dupree, who makes pasties while watching daytime TV. She sells them to show patrons for $20 a pair. More...

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