The healing power of nipple pasties and burlesque
The performance art may have been around for centuries, but it remains in flux, taking on new meaning, one nipple pasty at a time. What makes the contemporary niche of burlesque so special is that it is not so much for the audience that the performers perform, but for themselves. This begs the question: is burlesque its own form of therapy?
When we think of burlesque, we often think of a striptease. But the art form is so much more than that.
What sets the humorous performance art apart is that, at least in the case of Cape Town’s Rouge Revue, it is not performed for the male gaze, but is a way for the performers to celebrate their femininity.
The show begins with an introduction from the headmistress, dressed to the nines and endowed with a flute of champagne.
From the get-go, the audience is told that photographs are not allowed. This is so that the performers can have autonomy over their bodies, able to withdraw consent if they please.
The headmistress, Lady Magnolia aka Tenille Lindeque, prefaces the show with a quote about loving one’s body, followed by the announcement that this space is one of the few where catcalling and wolf whistling are allowed – encouraged, in fact.
The show consists of different performances by groups, solos, singers and trios. Each performance is unique and one hungrily awaits the next swish of a skirt, wiggle of a belly and, of course, the climactic moment when the handmade nipple pasties make an appearance.
The feeling burlesque creates is perhaps more cathartic than it is erotic. The props and outfits tell the story as much as the music and performance, and the result is almost always inherently personal to the individual on the stage – such as a performer emerging from a box to play a puppet, or a dancer discovering the magic of her own reflection in a mirror. Yet, there is a very real sense of the universal pain that womanhood brings being almost tangibly converted into power in front of one’s eyes.
When one puts a large group of people – in this case women – together in one space, many of those people will have suffered in their lives, perhaps because of sexual trauma or merely just from navigating an unkind world. This conjures up a feeling of vulnerability, and what is vulnerability if not bravery?
The ability of the performers to own their bodies and imperfections, and to celebrate their femininity, is so powerful because it is so brave. In a world that surveils and attempts to control the female body, through subtle or obvious aggressions that are internalised from girlhood in so many of us, the ability to stand up in front of strangers and reveal the very body that society has probably told you isn’t the “right body” is an act of protest.
Burlesque has shifted in reflection of the times. During Prohibition, the nudity laws brought forth an aspect that has become intrinsic to the form: if the police arrived during a show, a red light on the stage would alert the performers to run for their nipple pasties so they could avoid arrest.
Ironically, burlesque became popular with the introduction of television, which drew people away from the theatre and toward their screens (we are not so unlike moths). Perhaps it was the storytelling, the talent or merely the flash of skin that propelled people to seek out burlesque shows.
It has not lost its enchantment. Burlesque is becoming popular again, but in a manner that still adopts the notes of the past. One immediately realises what is meant by the word “class” when witnessing it.
Yet, why here and why now? There is something to be said for the normalisation and popularisation of something that was once on the fringe of society: is it an act of appropriation or an act of rebellion? I think it is an act of rebellion, the redefining and owning of one’s autonomous body. It is therapy with blue lights and smoke machines on a stage; therapy dressed in lingerie and kitten heels.
The Rouge Revue performers, who call themselves ‘Rougettes’, range in age from 23 to 65; they are women from all walks of life. The outcome is a safe space in which dancers can be their most authentic selves. Audiences are usually 70% women, which tells one a lot about the art form. It is not a place for heterosexual men to get their rocks off (to put it crassly).
Sapphire Flex, a performer in Gauteng, said that in her four years of experience, they live by the phrase, “All bodies are burlesque bodies”.
There are three burlesque groups in Johannesburg and a number of independent performers, all doing it not only for self-emancipation but also to inspire people.
Bachelorette bookings are a main source of support, providing a more intimate space to celebrate oneself.
The idea of “celebrating oneself” is so important in this world, especially in South Africa, where gender-based violence is rife. To live in a country where one feels unsafe, where it almost feels as though there is a war against women, what could be more empowering than changing the narrative of one’s own body – that it is yours and yours alone to do with as you please and not someone else’s war zone?
Society’s expectations of women, as discussed in Susan Sontag’s The Double Standard of Ageing,
assumes that women are no longer desirable after a certain age. Where the beauty of boyhood and manhood is celebrated, for women, it is only the beauty of the girl that the world wants to see – think Lolita or spend a day in Harajuku. But why should there be an expiry date on a human body? We are not cartons of milk to be consumed before it is too late.
If burlesque is therapy, then, like all therapy, it is work.
The assumption is often that it is easy to be a burlesque performer; a jazz hand, a shimmy, the glimpse of a thigh. It is so much more. It is hitting a note, storytelling in 3D, finding the perfect balance between comedy and sassiness. But it is also months of preparation and rehearsal.
Like any form of therapy, it is about delving into one’s deepest self. Finding your inner saboteur and wrestling with it in a world that tells you it is right, that not all bodies are beautiful, that womanhood has to look and dress and dance a certain way.
There is a magic to be found in the celebration of unique individuality that reflects something universal – all bodies are beautiful, or perhaps that vulnerability is bravery.
So next time you think of therapy, in addition to the thought of lying on a couch, staring at the ceiling while one relays one’s darkest fears, think of people embracing their power, one nipple pasty at a time.