[Jeanne McCartin | SeacoastOnline | Aug 21, 2014]
“It archives burlesque but we are evolving it, if you will. Done right, it’s empowering performance art that celebrates a woman’s own sexuality and power, rather than objectification”
For each burlesque performer on stage there are multiple dancers working their moves at home or in a studio.
Burlesque’s national resurgence started about a decade ago. Iron Heart Circus was the local vanguard, with its first public show in 2009.
It, and those to follow, ignored the national debate over exploitation versus empowerment and did as they pleased; they took control.
That attitude, the evident camaraderie and additional benefits, attracted others, some perhaps less daring, but interested in what the dance form has to offer.
Dabbler and pro agree: neo-burlesque is about self expression, and a woman’s strength rather than a man’s gratification, whether it’s for a fun bachelorette party, a significant other or stage performance.
“It’s about being someone that maybe you’re too afraid to be, or being someone that’s an inspiration too you,” says trained, formally traditional dancer Ashley Tucker of the Seacoast’s Lady Luck Burlesque. “It’s like my persona Lady Pavlova, after Anna.”
With a laugh she adds, “It’s no different than being a super hero I guess.”
Sheri Gayer, of Derry, visited Kittery, Maine, with nine best friends for a bachelorette chair dance party run by Lady Luck.
“It was something different to do that didn’t involve a bar or a club, that we could do at night and do together,” Gayer says.
The experience was fun and bonding.
“We laughed a long time,” she says. “And we used the choreography we learned at the wedding like a flash mob.”
There’s a “classy, sexy appeal” to burlesque, unlike some fringe dance forms. It also beacons to an aspect of self that can be lost to other roles.
“I’m happily married, have no interest in dating, but it gives you a confidence you forgot you had,” Guyer says. “When you become a mom and wife you forget what it was like to …; put on the best outfit, do your hair and makeup and go out for a night.”
It can boost less attended areas of a marriage, she adds. “It re-sparks the goddess or something. It’s not that I necessarily put that away, but the ins and outs of everyday — well, you forget,” she says. “It makes you feel attractive again.”
…
“It archives burlesque but we are evolving it, if you will. Done right, it’s empowering performance art that celebrates a woman’s own sexuality and power, rather than objectification”
And that, simply, is attractive.