Sequinned nipple tassles, oversized feather fans and frilly knickers can mean only one thing - the ultra-glamorous, highly camp and achingly chic world of burlesque. A number of dancing friends are obsessed by it but apart from seeing a few performances, it's not something I know much about. However, having spent a week attending a workshop, a performance and a documentary screening on the subject, I've learned quite a bit more.
Firstly I attended a workshop with Venus Noir, Bristol's doyenne of burlesque, at the Space in Stroud last Saturday. I had seen Venus perform at Hub in the Subs, a cabaret evening in Stroud and was impressed by her sophistication, elegance and forties-style glamour. The women-only workshop was great. Venus was down-to-earth, approachable and generous.
After learning a sequence with a parasol the sixteen of us had to perform it one by one on the stage. It was nerve-racking but certainly got us to polish up on our performance skills. During the course of the workshop we learned to remove gloves and stockings, tantalise with floorwork - and even twirl nipple tassles if you wanted to. (Not really an option for me.) Everybody came away enthusing about the class.
What the workshop really brought home to me was the fact that burlesque is playful, cheeky and sometimes humorous. Contrary to popular belief, it's not about stripping but rather about teasing your audience and celebrating the female form. Which explains why 70% or more of burlesque audiences are women.
On Tuesday I attended an evening of burlesque at the Koko Club, Camden with Gwen and Harriet - both burlesque aficionados. (The last time I went there it was the Camden Palais, which really shows my age.) I knew I was heading in the right direction when I saw gaggles of women in hobble skirts, hats and veils and vertiginous heels queuing outside - it was worth the entrance price just to watch the audience.
The evening was headlined by Immodesty Blaise and compered by Julian Clary. It was fabulous. Immodesty's sets were spectacular - the first had a giant bakelite phone centre stage and the second a huge gilded rocking horse - and her costumes to die for. She also is incredibly charismatic. But one of my favourite performers was Dirty Martini, from the US. A larger-than-life, size 20 cross between Mae West and Marilyn, she was irresistably camp. I particularly enjoyed her recreation of a piece that apparently scandalized US audiences in the 40s, where she pretened to be caught in a giant glittery spider's web while a black gloved 'spider' scurried across her body. Definitely a night to remember.
The following day I attended the premiere of a documentary on Princess Farhana of Hollywood, a burlesque and belly dancer who has run a number of workshops in the UK. Having kept the two aspects of her work quite separate for a number of years, she's now 'come out' to the belly dance community about her burlesque work and embraces them both.
Not everyone is convinced that burlesque is more than just stripping, and many dancers are anxious to keep it quite distinct from belly dance. As one highly-respected belly dancer, who has been involved in the dance scene for over 30 years, pointed out, she had spent most of her career trying to improve the public's perception of the dance and convince people that it was an art form and NOT stripping. She felt that this current flirtation with burlesque was undoing a lot of the good work that she and others had done.
Personally, I think it depends on the skill of the performer and the context of the dance. I would tend to keep belly dance and burlesque quite separate - I wouldn't do burlesque to Arabic music, for example - but I don't think there's anything wrong with either. There is no way that I would ever choose to strip down to nipple tassles and pasties, but I do think burlesque teaches you performance skills that can be invaluable in belly dance. And you don't have to remove much; one of the sexiest performances at the workshop was someone taking five minutes to remove a pair of gloves.
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