SpeakEasy Noir is a mind-body wellness practice and immersive movement experience for intensely sensuous and deeply curious souls.
SpeakEasy Noir Burlesque Teacher Training is a 3-day immersion in the art, science, and business of modern burlesque. At its core, SpeakEasy Noir Burlesque is a healing arts modality that promotes wellness and personal transformation through erotic expression and sensual movement. The training and certification provide an expanded movement vocabulary that allows you to lead mixed-level groups in an empowered, celebrated, and pleasurable way through the lens of burlesque.
The SpeakEasy Noir Burlesque Teacher Training is no longer just a licensing program—it is a rite of passage into an embodied lineage, a certification for those who wish to guide others through the intersections of sensual movement, erotic literacy, and performative liberation. Built for healers, artists, witches, and wisdom keepers of the body, this 3-day in-person immersion (plus ongoing online mentoring and practicum) weaves together ancestral remembrance, performance technique, embodied pedagogy, and business sovereignty into a certified framework that is as rebellious as it is reverent.
Designed by Switchress Shay Au Lait— whose work spans immersive theater, kink education, social justice, and ritual performance—this training invites future facilitators into the heart of the SpeakEasy Noir ethos: that erotic expression is a portal to power, and burlesque, when practiced with spiritual integrity and precision, is a sacred art of awakening.
“There is way less judgment and a lot more love when I look in the mirror and see me, both during and after and now even before a SpeakEasy Noir Burlesque class. As Shay Au Lait described in her class last night SpeakEasy Noir is more than a class, it is a lifestyle. How we do everything can be done in the way of SpeakEasy Noir Burlesque…to live in sensation, the moment, focus on your breath, the here and now. She gives and plays in the foundation of movement and how to connect one move to another. She plays in a strong technique that she has developed over many years. I’ve seen transformation within both myself and others from what a SpeakEasy Noir Burlesque class with Shay Au Lait can do. If you want to understand and discover what I am talking about and experience this embodiment, join us. Start to peel back those layers, whether they be physical or just emotional, you can always decide. It’s all within YOUR OWN POWER, FOR YOUR BODY.””
—— KATIRIS MOON, Burlesque, Fire & Pole Performer
This updated version is grounded in the Burlesque Alchemy philosophy—meaning this isn’t just about teaching movement. It’s about shaping cultural discourse, modeling erotic leadership, and being initiated into a future where pleasure and pedagogy are no longer at odds.
This isn’t certification. This is ordination. 
What This Certification Allows
Note: This certification does not permit the facilitation of full SpeakEasy Noir Retreats or Burlesque Alchemy Workshops without further licensing and mentorship.
*Please note, there is no industry-recognized certification within Burlesque. However, if you are interested in becoming an integrated burlesque entrepreneur with SpeakEasy Noir, the training we offer can be used to grow your brand.
“For the first time in 37 years, I looked at myself in the mirror and only found my perfections instead of my imperfections. Thank you Shay Au Lait for this amazing embodied experience. Deeply humbled, grateful and blissed out by it.”
— LOLA MANEKIN, Alchemista & Founder of Tribe Baltimore and Movement Lab
“Shay took me through a mind-blowing experience.”
EMPRESS V, Journalist & Cofounder of Urban Wax Creative Studio
We’ve led movement workshops in the most sacred and pleasure-filled spaces, such as a queer tantric monastery in the mountains of South Carolina at the Touch & Play Festival; at a yoga resort in the Nosara jungle of Costa Rica at the Soul Fire Retreat, as well as wellness, dance and fitness studios along the East Coast including Lululemon. Our offerings are also booked as add-ons and features for both national and international wellness, tantric and movement retreats, and immersions, such as Sex Witch, Radiant Ecstasy, and Dakini Tantric by Lauren Harkness.
The Fit Factory • Movement Lab • Lululemon Baltimore • The Mythic Masculine • Touch&Play Emerging Seeds • Touch&Play Earthdance • MadameNoire • Soul Fire: Embodied Movement Retreat • CREATE Retreats • Touch&Play Transmutations • The Radiance Retreat • Sex Witch Retreat • Dakini Tantra Practitioner Training • The Rowe Center • Earth Dance • The Nest of The Owl Nest Group • Nine Mountains Retreat Center • Elizabeth Kross Photography
Immerse yourself into our experiential and transformational offerings.
Switchress Shay Au Lait
Shay Au Lait is an Interdisciplinary Erotic Noir Artist, BDSM Educator and Practitioner, Burlesque Producer, Immersive Theatre Artist, Keynote Speaker, Creator of SpeakEasy Noir, Co-Founder of the Black Kink Network, and Co-Creator of the Sensing Race embodied intensives.
Shay Au Lait is a trailblazing burlesque performer, producer, published photographer and creative artist with over 15 years of experience in the performance and erotic arts. As the Founder and Executive Producer of Siren Pack, Shay has mentored and elevated emerging burlesque stars such as Alaska Lostboy, Queerly Femmetastic, Glow Job, Muva Magick, Katie Res, Madda, and many more across NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Denver, New Jersey, and virtually.
Her career includes a one-year, 30+ city national tour as a resident burlesque dancer, Director of Marketing, and lead creative for an entertainment production company. She has performed as the opening act for punk rock band Vixen77 (Philly), and the Whoreible Decisions tour (NY & Philly), as well as served as a headliner, troupe member, and ad hoc co-producer for the high-energy, rock and metal dance collective SlutChurch (2018–2023).
Shay has been featured on FuseTV’s “Sex Sells,” CNN’s “Office With A View,” Essence Magazine’s “Sexperts,” and in Luxury Travel Advisor Magazine. A pioneer in integrating sensual movement into wellness spaces, she introduced pole and burlesque programming to Movement Lab Baltimore (which evolved into Tribe Baltimore and Equilibrium Wellness) and brought burlesque curriculum to The Fit Factory on Long Island in 2018.
As the visionary behind SpeakEasy Noir, Shay leads with a hybrid of sensual movement, theatrical storytelling, BDSM ritual, and holistic erotic wellness. Her work blends cabaret, kink, immersive theater, and embodiment practices to support performers in accessing deep transformation through performance.
Currently, Switchress Shay Au Lait is a resident performer, workshop leader, and professional kink Top with Sucia NYC, and a recurring headliner with Sway Philly. She is a featured speaker with the Institute for Sex Education & Enlightenment, and has lectured and performed at the National Liberty Museum (Philadelphia) and the Rowe Center (Massachusetts). Shay also works as a Boudoir Movement Coach and creative collaborator with photographers, filmmakers, and somatic practitioners across the country.
As Co-Founder of Sensing Race, Shay has led embodied intensives at Touch and Play Festival, The Mythic Masculine Network, Earthdance, and Nine Mountain Retreat Center, helping participants explore identity, power, and liberation through the body.