BURLESQUE
Balloons, feathers, sequins and nipple caps, they all come off under the spotlight for the love of burlesque, writes Ufrieda Ho
All about the tease
Double-sided tape is not sexy, neither is Velcro. But somewhere between what stays on and what comes off is a boundless zone of erotic maybes. This is the space that burlesque plays in: some performance, some parody, some tease and a teeny weeny bit of titillation.
Seduction is the stuff that makes Meme Le Meouw purr. Meme has a day job in marketing but by the time her fake eyelashes are in place, her “pasties” — sequinned adhesive nipple coverings — are where they should be and she has on more body glitter than clothes, she’s a kitty in her passion zone.
Meme has been a burlesque dancer for nearly four years with a troupe called Vintage Nouveau. They perform in Joburg twice a month and take part in burlesque tournaments — because even though almost everything comes off in “the art of the tease”, the one thing you do want to put on is a crown.
“I used to be a size 6 and I had a four-pack but I was embarrassed to be naked in front of my boyfriend.
I didn’t like my body much. I never looked at myself in the mirror. Burlesque helped build my confidence, and hearing the audience cheer means I can say ‘I’m a queen’
Burlesque has made me love my body as sexy, as beautiful, as pleasure,” she says with a pout and a naughty, raised eyebrow.
For her, burlesque is body positivity — it’s for every kind of body shape, every kind of gender and whatever performance style feels right. You’re also not put out to pasture at the age of 35 or if your cellulite ripples more than your muscles do.
It’s also not stripping; burlesque’s power dynamic is different somehow. It’s the dancer who owns the stage, she invites the peering in, she commands the reaction of whoops and whistles, and for a skilled dancer, comedic timing can be more sensually suggestive than unhooking a bra.
On a Saturday morning this summer Meme is preparing for a dress rehearsal at a school theatre in Joburg. Most of the burlesque dancers choreograph their own routines; many make their own costumes and do their own hair and makeup. It’s not big-production terrain yet, says Meme of the nascent and a little misunderstood burlesque tradition in South Africa.
Internationally though, the likes of Dita von Teese made burlesque big again about 10 years ago. She was famous for her signature act featuring a giant martini glass (also for being married to Marilyn Manson for a time). Her success helped spark a neo-burlesque movement that embraces more expressive styles, personalities and pushes boundaries for burlesque to be satire and social commentary
It’s the likes of burlesque royalty Julie Atlas Muz in an act with a fake bloody hand handcuffed to her own. The hand feels her up as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins belts out I Put a Spell on You.
Burlesque can be twisted, also whimsical, as it challenges the conventional ideals of beauty, body size and also what appropriate behaviour is. It subverts gender norms and blurs lines with drag king and drag queen acts. There’s a celebration of the irresistible androgyny of someone like Stormy Leather and the boylesque stars of Australia’s Briefs Factory troupe.
South Africa is getting there, one gold and one silver balloon at a time for Meme. She strings together the balloons she’s blown up and drapes them across her body. Each will be popped as sexy oopsies for her act.
She’s practising her routine but she’s also on hand to guide a clutch of amateur dancers who will go head to head for the first prize in a “tournament of tease” event.
Among the contestants is burlesque virgin Wednesday Le Fey. It’s one week from the day she’ll be performing her routine to an audience of strangers for the first time.
“I’ve always been comfortable with nudity and my body and I’ve done some stripping, so that part doesn’t really worry me. But I’ve never really felt sexy about stripping, and that’s what I wanted to feel, that’s why I decided to sign up. I also just wanted to know that I could actually do the routine that I wanted to choreograph,” Wednesday says.
All the contestants have been given a bit of coaching — how to do a bum bump, how to take off a glove with their teeth and Wednesday’s favourite instruction of “run your fingers up your arm like you’re moisturising”.
“Who’s puts on moisturiser like that anyway?” she laughs. Sexiness in burlesque takes practise, and imaginary moisturising must become erotic exhibition. Parting lips and wanton thighs for the briefest moment is a declaration; and being able to read a room and to respond is key. Above all, loving being in your skin is everything. That’s been the experience for Lady Nightshade, another amateur contestant. She’s played volunteer or stage kitten for a few burlesque shows but never stripped down to bare almost-all in a solo act.
“I didn’t like my body much. I never wore short skirts or looked at myself in the mirror. Burlesque helped build my confidence, and hearing the audience cheer for me means I now have fewer bad days about my body. I can actually look in the mirror and say ‘I am a queen’.”
Brock Hard, the male dancer of Vintage Nouveau, is trained in Latin and ballroom dancing, burlesque, though, has given him the platform to “be creative, also to be weird and to break the rigid rules of ballroom dancing. Everyone in the audience can identify with some element or some dancer in a show,” he says about being less frightened to get your freak on.
Fast forward to the Saturday night of the amateur tease competition. Backstage there’s glitter and rhinestones, heels to reach heaven, wigs, feather boas and fishnet stockings all as props of arousal. The seven contestants huddle for a collective hooray. Meme, who will be MC for the night, is a little teary as she calls the women round. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of how far you’ve all come,” she says. They hug, they cheer then they toast with some bubbly.
“Burlesque is a community, see how everyone helps everyone else even though this is a competition,” she says.
Wednesday le Fey, the first-timer, is nervous. She says she still doesn’t feel like her act will be sexy enough. But she has loved that she has reached the end point of the competition and her act has come together — she’s even invited her father.
Meme steps in with some reassuring words: “It’s a journey, little inches in the right directions and they’re going to love you, girl.”
They smile then laugh about inches, about size, about how size always matters. The tension dissolves. Wednesday steps onto the stage in pitch darkness. The lights come on to catch her fairy wings and gossamer cloak. She works with gymnastic strength to slide and slip her body in and out of a hoop suspended from the ceiling. If she’s nervous it doesn’t show and in a few more twirls her wings come off and her cloak falls.
With her legs hooked on the hoop she throws her body back in a sensual arc. Her hair tumbles down, the diamond strands on her pasties glimmer and the hoop spins. The audience claps and cheers; for tonight this will be Wednesday’s sexy enough.