Stripping Away From Tradition

A woman in black lingerie is pushed into a chair, blindfolded, and whipped by a dominatrix wearing only a thong and tape over her nipples. A young woman in latex pushes hooks into her flesh and is suspended off the ground by chains. No, this isn’t a pay-per-view German porn channel, or an underground sex party. This is neo-burlesque, and it’s hit Ireland not so much with a bang as a whipper.

To most, the word burlesque inspires images of corsets, feather fan dances, Dita Von Teese sitting in a giant martini glass. “In Ireland, The Tassel Club in Dublin was the best example of old-school burlesque and cabaret,” says Irish burlesque photographer Rosco. “The acts were sexy, yes, but they were playful and cheeky. The performers were seriously talented, and the skits they did weren’t just flirtatious, they were often downright hilarious. The whole event was designed to be vintage, to keep it camp and cabaret.”
The mischievous blend of sexuality and theatrics attracted many fans, and the Irish burlesque scene now boasts an impressive range of professional performers. Among them is Emily Aoibheann, a 26-year-old with an M.A. in Women’s Studies. She says she got into the burlesque scene because she adored the mix of the subversive and the mainstream.
“You have business people mingling with performers in nipple tassels. It’s wonderful. It’s like an adult playground - very tongue in cheek but still sexual.”
But now that the neo-burlesque movement has arrived, the image of burlesque is changing. While the corsets and the nipple tassels are still there, being sexy has suddenly become a serious business.
To the uninitiated, neo-burlesque is the Bratz doll to traditional burlesque’s Barbie. It’s younger, trendier, with less clothes and more make-up. And, like Bratz dolls, it’s got sex written all over it. Pushing the boundaries of the traditional teasing cabaret, neo-burlesque acts add provocative and fetish-derived facets to an already tantalising genre. But what, if anything, distinguishes the genre from stripping and lap-dancing?
Rosco is all too aware of people’s suspicions regarding burlesque. “Burlesque is about glamour, and affluence, and in the right arena is anything but objectifying for the women involved. The problem is that since the film Moulin Rouge, there’s been an explosion of interest in the whole pin-up, vintage burlesque scene. But most of the representations are inaccurate. It’s those misinterpretations that can be sexist. People are now using the term ‘burlesque’ to try and legitimize anything seedy.”
Or in some cases, trying to legitimize something that’s just plain bad. In 2008, viewers of The Late Late Show cringed as Georgina Ballie – granddaughter of Andrew Sachs, of the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross phone call fame – performed with her “burlesque” group The Satanic Sluts. The badly choreographed routine showed Ballie and two dancers strip to tacky underwear and suspenders and gyrate awkwardly around a robot.
“People shove on a corset or suspenders,” Rosco sighs, “and dance around like a Pussycat Doll and call it burlesque. It gives the whole scene a bad name.”
This mainstream popularization of the genre means that professional burlesque performers are constantly stigmatized as being glorified lap-dancers, as burlesque striptease performer Saidhbh O’Malley acknowledges.
“In many ways, there isn’t a great deal of difference between burlesque and strip clubs. But it’s when you look at the purpose of the shows you can see where the difference is. Stripping is sexualizing the female form in an explicit way whereas burlesque is more of a ‘naughty suggestion’ of what might be on show. It’s the art of the tease, the art of hinting at what might be below the costume by revealing and covering.”
The neo-burlesque movement, however, is revealing more than it’s covering, with near-naked performers engaging in choreography that displays a submissive/dominant relationship with another performer, or using fire, swords or other dangerous equipment.
“Neo-burlesque can be traced to the Jim Rose circus, which wanted to bring back the freakshow,” explains Rosco. “It was an incredible mix of a Vegas-showgirl style act with aspects of masochism, and sparked off the new burlesque-grotesque movement,” explains Rosco.
The Jim Rose Circus gained notoriety in the 1990s, touring with Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson. Acts included the Amazing Mister Lifto, who hung heavy weights from his various body piercings, including those in his nipples and genitalia; and Bebe the Circus Queen who would create showers of sparks by using an electric grinder against her trademark metal chastity belt. Similar S&M and fetish-style acts are now being incorporated into the new burlesque troupes, with varying results.
“Some of them do it well,” says Rosco, “like there’s a new group Sadistic Sedition who employ suspension in their acts – like, literally using meat-hooks on themselves. They’re playing up the whole fetish side, and because they do it well it avoids being seedy and does bring something different and exciting to the genre. But they’re one of the few groups who can pull it off.”
Sadistic Sedition come up frequently in conversations about the development of the neo-burlesque scene, and the group are touted as “the next big thing” in neo-burlesque. The only problem is that Sadistic Sedition don’t consider themselves a burlesque group.
“We’re not burlesque,” explains group member Lisa Behan. “We’re a dark dance troupe. who perform combining dance, gore and fetish aesthetics including body suspension.We live and breathe the alternative lifestyle and explore the darker side of performance through dance and theatrical make-up and costume.”
However you define what people are doing artistically, the niche fetish and burlesque scenes share many of the same venues, photographers and audiences. As a result, there is a blurring of genres which raises issues for women on the burlesque scene. If fetish acts like Sadistic Sedition are assumed to represent the norms of the neo-burlesque scene, new performers could easily think that to get an edge on the competition, they too need to strip off and perform in a more overtly sexualized way. And increasingly performers are being put in potentially compromising situations as they become the target of unsavoury men posing as photographers.
“There are so many amateur photographers without any qualifications,” Rosco explains. “Since everything went digital, anyone can buy a halfway decent camera and take advantage of new burlesque models. I have a list as long as my arm of photographers who have bossed girls around, given them really nasty little outfits to wear during shoots, or pressured them to go topless. Less experienced models think that this is the norm, and can be left feeling really intimidated and violated.”
While performers may believe that neo-burlesque is intrinsically different from glamour modeling, stripping or lap-dancing, to an audience of men the differences may be immateria. For many men one opportunity to ogle young women in revealing outfits is the same as another.
Not that they don’t have enough opportunity to do so at the actual shows. Emily Aoibheann says she was felt feeling disheartened and alienated after performing a thoughtful and artistic piece at The Sinner’s Circus this year, only to have a male member of the audience tell her “your tits looked great.”
“And this was from a man who is heavily involved in the burlesque scene, who knows what it’s about,” she says.
The departure of The Tassel Club to London may be a factor in the crisis on the scene. The monthly event prided itself on showcasing the most popular professional performers. Now however, burlesque shows are more focused on providing a forum for new performers, and both Emily and Rosco feel that while standards slipping, but so is respect for the performers.
“The Tassel Club charged nearly €40 on the door, and so the people who went really cared,” says Rosco. “There was a mutual understanding and respect between the audience and performers and so the performers felt safe. But now events charge only €10 to €15 on the door, so more and more you’re getting drunk lads randomly wandering in thinking they’re getting a nice bit of tits and ass.”
“I always thought,” Emily says, “that there was a healthy dialogue about feminist issues in burlesque – representation, sexualisation and all that – and an attempt to make a clear distinction between burlesque and erotic dancing. But now I believe that this dialogue only exists between women. Women perform, women are objectified, and it’s male privilege that they don’t have to talk about these issues.
“When you’re not used to or comfortable with the naked body, you tend to sexualize it,” she adds. “So while burlesque should be this playful, non intrusive and non-threatening way to explore sexuality, people tend to pervert it.”
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. In an increasingly sexualized society, if young women remove their clothing and perform suggestive or explicit acts there is danger of objectification. Until the Irish neo-burlesque scene clarifies its aims and objectives the issue is unlikely to be resolved.