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| Brian C. Janes/ Ms. Bea's flickr |
So, why burlesque?
My then-partner started directing queer burlesque shows in Chicago. I was not in the show because I was too nervous to take off my clothes. I didn’t want to do it, I wanted to read some sexy poetry or something like that. They were like, "Here’s burlesque. This is what we’re doing. Go."
I was really jealous because my partner was in it and she was getting a lot of attention. I was like "I think I need to do this. I need to get over being afraid of movement," because I wasn’t a dancer, "and being afraid of nudity and just being out there." It was a way to empower myself. That was really risky for me.
What was your first performance like?
My first performance was a deconstruction of vintage-style burlesque moves with some homage to Martha Graham thrown in. It was very cerebral. It was about the tease. I wore about seven slips and I kept taking off one after another. I never really got naked. The promise was never delivered upon.
What do you say to someone who thinks this is just the same as stripping?
I don’t draw a distinction in that I don’t think that burlesque is better than stripping. There are a lot of burlesque performers in Chicago that will tell you that they’re not strippers and they don’t dance on a pole and I think it’s really disrespectful to people who strip for a living. I think that burlesque is about the art of the tease and it’s a lot more of an intellectual exercise for me than I think stripping would be. I’ve never stripped so I don’t know for a fact. It’s definitely about integrating different forms of performance and different things like visual aspects of costuming and trying to put little tricks into the acts to make them funny or little twists to make them different.
Burlesque is the grandma of stripping. That’s why I don’t draw the distinction because burlesque performers in the 20s, 30s, and 40s were considered low women. They were considered like strippers are in our culture, non-withstanding the stripper glamorization thing that’s happening. They were considered low women, it was considered low form, it wasn’t glamorous. Our context now is shifted in that people see it as a performance art. I don’t want to make that distinction because it came from there.
What do you say to negative stereotypes of people who use their bodies in their profession?
I say for me, and I also teach burlesque, for the majority of students that come into my classes, it’s an incredibly empowering exercise. It’s about self-acceptance, it’s about putting yourself on display in a way that’s conscious, it’s about celebrating yourself and your sexuality. It’s about being as pretty and sparkly and as femme engaged as you want to be. That for me is the most compelling thing about it – it’s a celebration of femme. And because I consider myself a femme I think there’s nothing better than indulging myself in being as sparkly and glamorous as I feel like being.”
What do you think of female body image in American culture?
I think it’s a sick culture that we live in. I don’t know how I escaped it but my mom just wasn’t one of those women. She was just a solid, sensible Midwestern mom in a sweatshirt and jeans – not very much make-up and not very into being feminine so she never really put that shit on me. It’s not something I ever felt engaged with or enrolled in. I think it’s a sick culture and everything I can do to combat that is why I do burlesque, and why I produce it in particular.
There are shows out there that are all white, straight women who are skinny. There are shows out there who will only cast one woman who is heavy and not a bunch. There’s a lot of tokenism that goes on in the community. What I try to do is really intentionally is make my shows as diverse as possible. I’m almost 40 and I cast people in their 20s. I cast a range of ethnicities, a range of body types, a range of skills and talents. That’s my whole M.O.
As a form of entertainment that’s typically thought of as having a male audience, how does being a queer performer change things?
When you have queer performers you attract a queer audience. For queer women, and I’m generalizing, we are not allowed to look at whoever we want. We’re not allowed to be the operators of the gaze. We’re not allowed to initiate that unless we know, for a fact, that the other woman is gay and is available and is open to it. We’re very nervous about looking at each other. If you go into a lesbian bar no one will talk to each other. It’s really hard to meet people because of that.
I think for a queer audience it is refreshing to just engage in the pleasure of looking. I hate to use the word revolutionary. I was in the performance poetry world and everything was a “revolution” of this and a “revolution” of that. But it’s revolutionary for queer women to be the initiators of the gaze and to be able to enjoy that and relish in it and have that be OK.
Why do you perform in the northwestern neighborhoods?
Originally I wasn’t choosing venues, just finding places that would give us a good deal. It only makes sense for us to be in Andersonville – that’s where all the lesbians live.
Given all the competition, there wasn’t really anyone doing this in Andersonville. Plus I live there and so do most of the performers. It just seemed to make sense, go where your audience is.
Has getting almost naked in front of an audience changed the way you live? Has it made you braver?
I’m not sure if it’s because of burlesque or if it’s because I’m just getting older and I don’t care as much, but I definitely care less what people think of me. I definitely do what I want.
Where can people come see you and Girlie-Q perform?
We perform every week at Joie de Vine, which is a lesbian-owned wine bar at Balmoral and Ravenswood. We also produce a show once a month at Uncommon Ground. The show at Joie de Vine is more of a neo-burlesque show and is more experimental. The classic burlesque show is the second Saturday of every month at Uncommon Ground.
