Punk Cabaret will rock your soul.

If you are looking for ordinary pop dance moves, than Katie Kay and Erin “Dusty” Maxick, are not the two to look for. However, if you are looking for an undeniably energetic combination of talent, charisma, and impressive dance moves, than Ladybird is a must see.

Katie began dancing at 3 years old, when her mom put her in dance classes. “I continued with many different forms; tap, jazz, and lyrical,” said Katie, “until I was 14 and discovered hockey and soccer, and after that the punk scene took up all my energy.”

Katie reentered the dance scene in 2001, when she met a tribal belly dancer of the duet, Raqs Al Ard. Katie became the first serious student and they formed the troupe Sundara Varna.

Since 2001, Katie has joined two new dance groups, ladybird, who tours with the Brechtian punk cabaret band, the Dresden Dolls, and Lucent Dossier, who tours with the popular alternative band, Panic! at the Disco.

How did you start working for both the Dolls and Panic!?

I met a girl through a friend in San Francisco in 1999. She took all kinds of incriminating pictures of me, drunken on the streets of SF. We never talked again, and then thanks to the magic of the Internet she found me online in late 2004.

She saw that I was belly dancing and asked if I wanted to dance at the Troubadour in Los Angeles before her friends’ band from Boston [the Dolls]. I performed as a brigadier three times year, and casually hung out with Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione.

Meanwhile I was performing with Lucent Vaudeville Cirque, an amazing performance troupe here in Los Angeles. In May of this year, Dream, the director for Lucent, asked me if I’d like to do tour with Panic! for two months.

So, it turns out the Dolls were the support act on the second half of the Panic! Tour. Amanda asked if I’d like to create a show for the Dolls fall tour. I love Erin so much as both a person and a performer, I couldn’t imagine working with anyone else, and so we created the ladybird cabaret!

The world is small and works in mysterious ways—should you be open to it--being nice helps, too.

How do you adjust to a different stage each night?

Sound check! Most of them are pretty similar, but running songs though in rehearsal is important, for sure. Toronto was really slippery, that was bad, or maybe it was Montreal. That was probably the hardest thing to acclimate to thus far….

If I remember correctly, at the October 26^th concert at the 9:30 club, Amanda mentioned that both yours and Dusty's luggage got lost (I think Amanda said something about the luggage just “disappearing”), how do you adjust to unpredictable occurrences like that?

That happened to us twice this month! When Lucent performed with Panic! a couple weeks ago in London all of our costumes got lost in transit. We did the first of four nights in what we [Lucent Dossier] consider street clothes. People said they couldn’t tell, since Panic! was in new, more simple clothing, but we [Lucent Dossier] knew. And we were stressed. But the costumes showed up before the second night.

Then Erin’s personal luggage was lost on the way back to North Carolina to rejoin the Dolls. Thankfully, when we finally got back to Los Angeles the other night, her luggage was at her house. Still, it sucked for her to have nothing for over a week, and be overseas.

For your sets with the Dresden Dolls, how much planning goes into them? And who is the main choreographer?

I credit the Dolls show to Erin. She’s such a strong dancer--really disciplined and creative. She makes me want to work harder.

It took us probably two weeks to create and costume the three numbers that had choreography.

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and have no idea where you are (even if you are staying in a hotel)? And what is it like for that to happen?

That has only begun to happen lately and it’s scary. A week or two ago it took me a good 20 seconds to figure out where I was—Erin and I were walking down some cute, in descriptive street and I had moment where I really had no idea. It’s unnatural feeling, turns out we were in DC, uh, I think!

What tips would you give to a beginner dancer?

Take classes! Be nice! Work your butt off! and I can’t stress how important it is to not burn bridges.