Two years ago on an awkward blind date, I heard my first explanation of “burlesque.” My date and I were looking at a poster for a burlesque show, and I had to ask her exactly what it was.
She said it involved girls and lace and stripping, and with only that to go on, my inner feminist raised her eyebrows. I think I might have cringed and said it sounded sleazy. The girl condescendingly said no, it was “actually awesome,” but little did I know how awesome it actually was.
Six months later I was working at USM’s Women’s Resource Center and hanging up posters for “Burlesque! Burlesque!” – quite the turnaround from earlier that year. I had learned through research and an educational conversation or two that a burlesque show is quite different from the kind of performances put on at PT’s showclub.
Last Tuesday evening, three members of the Dirty Dishes Burlesque Review led a discussion on the art of burlesque and performing sexuality in Talbot Hall, Luther Bonney’s Auditorium. Speakers included two USM Women and Gender Studies majors, Victoria Randall and Emily Paine, and MECA graduate Amanda Clark, otherwise known as Victoria Von Tisdale, Wiley I. Crisis and Mistress Scarlett, respectively.
Historically, burlesque has been categorized alongside stripping, but is actually its own kind of liberating dance. Burlesque has always been a slyly humorous twist on what you’d see at the average strip club. As Victoria Von Tisdale points out, “the definition of burlesque is to mock.”
Although burlesque and stripping could be seen as similar in nature, they are very different in purpose. Comparing the two, Von Tisdale says that overall, burlesque is a more positive experience: “it allowed me to find sexual agency.”
Members of the Dirty Dishes agree that it’s difficult to define neo-burlesque because everyone has a different opinion of what it is. The group admitted that they fight all the time even amongst themselves, (“in a healthy way!” one of the dishes yelled out) about what represents each individual.
Dirty Dishes incorporates all sorts of random entertainment into their performances, such as educational (and humorous) skits, ballet, and even some body contortion. Victoria Von Teasdale also regularly implements the use of roller-skates. To Wiley I. Crisis, burlesque is about “gender-bending,” which she hopes the audience understands. To Mistress Scarlett it is about “sexualizing ordinary movements… and an understanding that we all move differently, are shaped differently, and have different ways of dancing.”
The differently-shaped bodies the Dirty Dishes play with can be very appealing for audience members. Hildi Halley, a classmate in the crowd, noted that “it feels good to see normal bodies, and not a plastic vision of some strange alien form.”
I think most people in the audience agreed that we are not exposed to enough bodies like our own. “I found it to be affirming that bodies come in many shapes and sizes and I believe the more variety of bodies we see, especially performing the erotic, the further self-love and acceptance seem to live in us,” said Halley.
The “Burlesque! Burlesque!” show that the Dirty Dishes performed in last year was the first real encounter I personally had with burlesque, and as Halley pointed out, it did feel good to see all sorts of women dancing, proud and liberated with their bodies, no matter what color or size.
One of the dances involved two very differently shaped girls, dressed in leaves, crawling on all fours, and shoving bananas into each other’s mouths. Somehow it was sexy and hilarious at the same time, which seems to be what burlesque is all about.
But burlesque isn’t only about humor; there are serious sides to its colorful story. While performers may be consciously making a joke about sex, they are also demonstrating the importance of understanding one’s sexuality. As Wiley I. Crisis says, “sexuality can be really funny, but it can also be really loaded.”
Besides funny and loaded, the Dishes share an understanding that sexuality is also pretty fluid. “Burlesque is a realm where we’re constantly constructing sexuality and gender identity, which are fluid and changing.”
As fluid and changing as sexuality and gender identity may be, many people are uncomfortable with the idea of burlesque. As Mistress Scarlett puts it “everybody [later corrected to “okay, most people”] has sex, so it’s funny to see how standoffish people can be when we put that on display.” Even at USM, one angry woman went as far as taping a note over a burlesque poster in the elevator that read:
“Childcare was cut and we are funding a strip show? It does not matter what departments sponsor it. It does not matter if it’s artistic or not. It is a strip show. This is offensive to women. We are not body parts. We are people.”
I’m just going to go out on a limb here and state the obvious: this person was not speaking for all women. I know that at least for myself, the performers, and most if not all audience members on Tuesday are just a teeny tiny percentage of all the women in the world who see burlesque as something that can be extremely liberating and feminist! Not to mention the Dirty Dishes don’t usually make a whole lot of money doing what they do, and when there is cash at the end of the night, they often donate it. Organizations they have supported in the past include Doctors Without Borders (for relief efforts in Haiti), the Family Crisis Services of Cumberland County, and Mayo Street Arts.
Wiley I. Crisis says that people want to know, “if not for the money, then what is it for?” From what I’ve gathered, all performers have different reasons for why they do it-maybe because it’s pleasurable to experiment with gender, cross-dressing and drag; maybe it’s because it feels sexy to perform stripping acts for audiences who appreciate everything educational behind the tease; maybe it’s because one could somehow tie together theory and rollerblades, or breasts and bananas; then again, maybe it’s just because it’s fun to dance with feather boas, feeling feisty, feminist and fabulous.