Lights are dim and the audience is full. Excited murmurs ripple throughout the crowd waiting in anticipation. The show begins with some rules and guidelines for the audience. We are entering into the performers’ space, and in order to earn that privilege we first agree to respect the people and the space. As the show begins you can sense the anticipation. Performers, both groups and soloists, come out. A shoulder peeks playfully from beneath a nightgown, and I see an impressive number of nipple pasties. This night is a joyful celebration of bodies and sexuality. I feel free. What surprised me the most as I sat in the Shiva was the humor and joy in each of the performers as they came to the stage. With each of the set and each new group of performers, a new theme was introduced. A different story was being told. Beyond the humor, burlesque is refreshingly real. It is honest and beautiful and fun. Each of the performers is loving their time on stage. Their enthusiasm brings us all together.
No other organization at Vassar occupies the same space as Burlesque has created over the past year and a half. Madeleine begins by likening Burlesque to an affinity space. But not quite that. Affinity spaces serve the purpose of providing a place for personal exploration. They are safe, private, and communal. In many ways, Burlesque is an affinity space but it is also a performance group. When asked why Vassar needed a group like Burlesque, Madeleine, the president and one of the co-founders of the group, simply stated how performance groups in Vassar needed “some fucking humanity.” Kaitlin, the vice president, expresses her growing annoyance with the lack of explorative space within Vassar’s existing drama and performance groups. Burlesque serves the purpose of bridging this growing gap, allowing performance to serve as an expression of community.
Instead of holding auditions, Burlesque holds interviews for prospective new performers. In a sense, the goal of Burlesque is to mold an intentional community with a focus on performance. So much goes on behind the scenes beyond what the audience sees. Throughout the fall semester, the group participated in workshops focusing on different topics including body image, sex positivity, and community bonding. The heavy nature of these topics leads to difficult conversations that clearly have served the double purpose of creating a tight bond in this community. A key part of leading these meetings, Madeleine points out, is figuring out how to “balance heaviness and levity.” This is relatively high-stakes work as they are in uncharted territory. In creating these vulnerable spaces, they are trying to reconcile and draw together over 30 very different bodies and experiences. These bodies, though different, are not in competition with each other but rather reflective of each individual’s story.
Burlesque’s vulnerability bares itself in two ways as the performers’ bodies and their personal stories are revealed through their performances. Madeleine describes her experience performing as terrifying but also “wildly liberating” as an act of reclamation of self. She describes how the vulnerability she engages with allows her to put on a radical performance. Looking forward, Madeleine and Kaitlin have high hopes and expectations. Community will always be a central pillar for Burlesque, and they are figuring out how to guide and accommodate their ever-growing community. Madeleine, smiling proudly, asserts what is already obvious: “we aren’t going anywhere.”
All photos by Daisy Moffat
