Catch21 Productions | Burlesque Battles

Burlesque Battles

There’s a small little political commotion going on right now in clubs and the art world in Britain. You probably noticed it briefly in the papers – you saw a small column to the side somewhere, noticed the word ‘burlesque’, looked a little closer and saw no smut (alas!) and moved on. This is probably happening to you again right now… but please do continue to read!

The Issue...

The issue regards Camden Council’s decision to classify burlesque dance as adult entertainment, therefore banning it from most clubs and
theatres, which unlike strip joints don’t possess special licenses.
Camden is traditionally seen as one of the most left and liberal
councils, but like many British middle-class establishments with
dubiously fashionable socialist leanings, the place appears to be a
bastion of blinkered conservatism.

Why...?
The genius behind this is Councillor Don Williams, who admits he’s
never been to a burlesque show but says it’s all about ‘protecting the
kids’ so to speak. Well don’t get me a wrong; I admit I am all for
clamping down on freedoms on the odd occasion. You wont find me
shedding a tear if we adopted Sweden’s zero tolerance towards
prostitution, but Burlesque doesn’t pose a risk to anyone, unless the
occasional tumble in high heels count.

There is however ample evidence to show that strip clubs do pose a
threat to the public. Or rather women (but by talking about 52% of the
population, one always risks being accused of talking about a niche
market!). Stripping attracts a whole range of people, but essentially
these are almost all men. While some men just see it as a bit of fun,
it no doubt also attracts a certain type of man who can only claim to
‘love’ women in a most limited and crude sense which doesn’t include
the feeling the Beatles had in mind. Indeed, in Camden, a 2003 study
showed that the number of rapes in the area increased by 50% and
indecent assaults by 57% after four lap-dancing venues opened. While
it may be ‘empowering’ for the odd stripper, it does women in general
no favours.

What Burlesque is...
However Burlesque is something altogether different. It’s theatre –
essentially a weird and wonderful fusion of cabaret, dance, comedy,
art and politics. The philosopher Roger Scruton explained the
difference between a Titian painting of a nude and a pornographic
image by stating that the control lay in the nude’s gaze in the
former, while it lies in the mind of the viewer in the latter. The
same analogy works when comparing Burlesque with Lap dancing. The
erotic in the former is often suggested but never revealed, and the
power is always in the hands of the performer.

Burlesque dancers, unlike strippers come in all shapes, ages and sizes
and as Natasha Forrest, a former lap dancer, articulates it, they ‘use
creativity and originality, rather than youth and beauty, to charm
their audiences, and do not rely on their ability to turn people on
for the bulk of their wages…burlesque ironically pokes fun at
traditional gendered sexual roles while stripping relies on these
roles for its core existence’. Indeed, burlesque performer Vikki
Butterfly (seen recently in the Verve’s Love is Noise music video)
looks like something out of a Victorian music-box and dances to music
like Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. If you are hoping for the kind of
in-yer-face titillation you find in Nelly’s videos you’ll be
disappointed; this may explain why burlesque audiences are often made
up largely of ladies and camp gents.

The Problem...
Now this is not the crowd who will be making women feel unsafe at
night. However as the owner of the Proud Galleries (which until
recently hosted Burlesque nights) admitted - these burlesque nights in
Camden are now being replaced by much more overt, sexualized dancers
who pander to an almost exclusively male audience. So are women safer
after these changes in law have been put in place? Well seemingly not
then!

I could find only one example, in another bastion of tolerance along
Camden Council’s guidelines, The Guardian , claiming that there was
evidence that Burlesque was a ‘misogynist sham’. A journalist hack,
who used to be in a cabaret troupe with me no less, had decided to
make up a bizarre story of her exploitation at the hands of our
producers to nab a story. I knew from the first line describing
herself ‘As a shy, bewildered teenager,’ that something seriously
disingenuous was going on here (I don’t want to give her a reputation
but the pics of her naked chest on Facebook are still there so..) as
she went on to describe performers crying daily in the loos and how
her insecurities were used by cruel ‘managers (who) convinced me that
stripping was the perfect answer.’ As a voluntary cabaret group run by
two rather camp, gentle performers, it was anything but what she
described and most performers, male and female, chose not to take off
quite as much as she opted for. But whatever!

What is concerning however is what her article and Camden Council are
championing. Western art has always used the human body as a central
motif. Camden Council’s decision is essentially a step backwards in
that it is a direct censorship of art. I am not in fact against
censorship per se. What makes it absurd is that children (yep, those
ones Councillor Williams is so concerned about) watch far more
pornographic and misogynist images on TV every day in the form of
adverts, music videos and the like. Hence the misogynist claims in the
Guardian article are somewhat obsolete. If we want to tackle the
issue, clamping down on cabaret performers seems an odd place to
start.

Whether you agree with my point of view or not, politics at a local
level like this always creeps into the bigger picture. So if there is
a burlesque show near you and you are walking home alone late at
night, I’d say be careful of certain individuals nearby... but I’d
have your local councillors in mind!