That's a secret the 26-year-old UNC grad from Western North Carolina would like to keep for now.

"My parents don't know that I do this!" she says, laughing, as she talks about her three-year career as a burlesque performer in Brooklyn.

Cherry Bomb performs Saturday at Carrboro's Cat's Cradle, as part of a "drag.esque," a night of burlesque and drag "fusion" featuring four acts, most of them local.

Not that there's anything wrong with what Cherry Bomb does, mind you. But it does have connotations. Just say the word "burlesque," and the reliably dirty American mind flashes to old-time images of Cinnabunz's grandma, back in the day, doing a strip routine to the strains of "Big Spender" for a group of hooting, cigar-smoking gentlemen.

According to "A History of The Musical Burlesque" by John Kenrick, that image only applies to the declining years of burlesque, which was popular entertainment that mixed music and comedy from the 1840s through the 1960s.

"Burlesque is really an open art form," Cherry Bomb says. "You can kind of interpret it however you want to, which is not necessarily true with other [things] that resemble burlesque -- for example, stripping, or exotic dancing or things like that. Burlesque is more like performance art."

It's been resurgent in recent years, thanks in part to the popularity of the Suicide Girls Web site, tours and films, plus the celebrity of Marilyn Manson's ex-wife Dita Von Teese (an elegant burlesque stripper) and burlesque's affinity with a rockabilly revival that re-imagines the 1950s and early 1960s as sleazier, more eye-popping and more fun than they probably were.

"The whole concept of Suicide Girls was, like, alternative pinups," Cherry Bomb says. "So it kind of took that concept of the 1950s pinup and tried to make it into a more contemporary idea."

Cherry Bomb bills herself as "The Bad Girl of Brooklyn Burlesque," and she's described on her Web site (www.cherrybombnyc.com) as having been "conceived in the throes of a passionate one-night stand between bell hooks and RuPaul."

"The bad girl part comes from the music that I choose, and the costuming," she says. "I'm a little edgy and a little scandalous."

Cherry Bomb put the Cat's Cradle show together with Jimmy Jameson, whose "drag king" troupe from Durham has a name that's a little too risque for this publication.

Tasseli McKay, 30, one of the co-founders of the troupe, plays the character Fanny Parton in the show. Most of the other members of the all-female troupe take on more masculine personas, such as Johnny B. Badd and Pat Riarch.

McKay says that her group, which does skits and traditional drag lip-syncing to musical numbers, became mutual fans with Cherry Bomb during a previous performance at an "open drag" show.

"We use a sort of underlying play on the myth of gender to expose a lot of other nonsense that we take issue with in Southern culture, and American culture, and politics," McKay says. "We use drag as a sort of playful entree to get at a lot of other political issues that we care about -- everything from immigration policy, to labor issues, to workers' rights, to the war, to environmental and animal rights issues. We're basically trying to put issues that we're passionate about up there on a stage in a way that's funny, sexy and engaging rather than soap-boxy."

Triangle-area burlesque performers Miss Mary Wanna and Rachel Riot round out the bill.

"The three of us, together, have very different styles," Cherry Bomb says. "We're a blond, brunette and a redhead, which is very nice. Rachel Riot is more sort of rockabilly, pinup-y, sort of traditional burlesque."

That means the slow tease, with gloves and fans. Cherry Bomb describes Mary Wanna as being more "rock 'n' roll," with an interesting musical backdrop.

"She's a powerhouse," Cherry Bomb says.

McKay says that the two art forms are a natural fit.

"Burlesque and drag can be similar in that they are using a play on sexiness and the performance of traditional and non-traditional gender roles to make a point, and also to entertain and be funny."