Ella Mental is the stage name used by performance artist, visual artist, and costumier Alyssa Ghessi, one of the more influential artists from San Francisco’s burlesque community.

Ella Mental is a true example of a Cali Transplant. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, she has been expanding her creative path in San Francisco since 1999 with an oil painting BFA from the esteemed San Francisco Art Institute in 2000.

Ella Mental is known as “The Queen of The Kats”, a title labeling her as the head female creative counterpart of BKK. Along with Dj Cyril Noir, she created Black Kat Kabaret, a monthly event featuring The Black Kat Girls performing dark and provocative burlesque, a clown/magician, a live voodoo swing band, and electroswing music.

Black Kat Kabaret is deemed San Francisco’s original electroswing party. Electroswing is a genre of music made popular in London, Vienna, and Paris emphasizing the prohibition sounds of the 1920′s and 30′s mixed with electronic beats. Ella Mental and Cyril Noir created their own blend of San Francisco parties focusing on SF’s burlesque roots along with the progressive sounds of digital dance floor beats. BKK parties feature the original music of Dj Cyril Noir composed of vintage samples arranged with synthesizer soundscapes often featuring the lyrics and vocals of the BKK girls to which they perform burlesque to. “Black Kat Girls (are nothin’ but trouble)” released in 2012 is a track in which Ella Mental plays clarinet and sings original lyrics composed with original score by Cyril Noir.

Stay tuned for more fabulous and fancy figments for your imagination from the Queen of the Kats!