Sundance 2013: CAA ‘Regrets’ Risque Burlesque Party Performance

PARK CITY — On a night packed with talent agency parties, CAA found a racy way to distinguish itself Sunday at Sundance — though the agency says its invited performers went a little farther than expected.

CAA’s packed event at the Claim Jumper space on Main Street included a team of barely dressed, pole-shimmying burlesque dancers from Simon Hammerstein‘s The Act LV, a risque revue based at the Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas. At least one of them upped the ante by dancing with a strap-on penis, which sources say she used during an extended routine to tease the photo-snapping crowd of CAA clients, film executives and other festival-goers (party guests included Nicole Kidman and Evan Rachel Wood, among others). Two dancers also performed what was described by a source as a simulated sex act on a bed in the party space.

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Explicit burlesque shows are popular in New York and Los Angeles clubs, but the act was too suggestive for at least one female party-goer, who tells The Hollywood Reporter she was offended and left the event. A source with knowledge of the party planning says the dancers were told in advance to tone down the raunch but didn’t. The crowd on the whole apparently didn’t seem to mind, though, and the CAA party became a buzzy topic of conversation on a night crowded with rival festivities.  

“The performance by Simon Hammerstein’s The Act LV was more explicit than intended,” a CAA rep tells THR. “We regret if this created an uncomfortable setting for any of our guests.”

Elsewhere on Main Street on Sunday night, WME hosted clients at Wahso, where the crowd didn’t die down until about 2:40 a.m. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints stars Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara stopped by, as did Mia Wasikowska and Breathe In supporting player Kyle MacLachlan. 

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A few doors up the street, UTA held court at the Riverhorse, with clients Lake Bell, Ed Burns and Sundance breakout Mackenzie Davis (Breathe In) joining Toy’s House director Jordan Vogt-Roberts — in a pimp-ish long fur coat — as well as the festival’s John Cooper and Trevor Groth.

And at the 449 Main party space, Fox Searchlight feted its two Sundance movies, The East and Stoker, with a gathering that lured Alexander Skarsgard, former Fox chief (and Sundance jury member) Tom Rothman and producer Michael London, among others.  

Pamela McClintock contributed to this report.