James Pederson
Marina Marz: “[Burlesque] gives me the ability to own my own space.”
The audience at FIVE Nightclub is transfixed as O.D. — a ninja-like character who appears to be devoid of race or gender — writhes onstage in a pale bodysuit dotted with LED lights. As the techno beat drops, the figure bends back to peel off the first layer of its exoskeleton. The crowd is stunned for a moment, and then begins to cheer.
Mercury Stardust shuffles across the stage and down the runway, vivid blue hair covered by a black wig. Tonight, he is a timid and awkward prom date — until he hears a song he likes. He begins to dance, and his movements become more and more frenzied as he strips.
After the crowd settles, Marina Marz enters in a bright red bra and plaid skirt, with several textbooks pressed to her chest. She slides around a chair using moves borrowed from pole dancing and struts down the runway to Escape the Fate’s “Situations.” At the song’s conclusion, she throws back her shoulders — transformed from a schoolgirl to a powerful, rebellious force.
The performers (identified by their stage names) are part of the Dirty Five Burlesque troupe, which has become a regular feature at the nightclub. But FIVE isn’t the only place hosting a booming burlesque scene: the Brink Lounge, the Cardinal Bar, Broom Street Theater and the Bartell Theatre have also been in on the action.
Madison is home to a tight-knit burlesque community that is brimming with ideas. The frequency of shows — 45 this year alone — indicates a growing pool of performers and an engaged audience. In April, Mercury Stardust spearheaded the first Wisconsin Burlesque Festival, which sold out two shows at the Bartell Theatre. In addition to special events, FIVE hosts burlesque every Thursday night.
Marz, who just graduated from UW-Madison with a degree in theoretical math, says performing burlesque gives her a sense of control. “It’s where I get my power from,” says Marz. “It gives me the ability to own my own space, which was so hard for me to do for a long time.”
In the popular imagination, burlesque is a throwback — a combination of Ziegfeld Follies, ostrich feather fans and Gypsy Rose Lee, performed mostly for the titillation of a male audience. But burlesque has gone through several evolutionary phases. The art form developed alongside vaudeville in the 1920s and 1930s, but by the 1960s, burlesque faded as audiences went to strip clubs to seek illicit entertainment.
James Pederson
Mercury Stardust, founder of the Wisconsin Burlesque Festival.
Elements from vaudeville and 20th-century burlesque, such as feather boas, survive, but today’s objects of desire have taken hold of the art form to tell their own stories. And, says Stardust, performers have become more diverse, in terms of race, gender identity and body type: “People want to see other humans who look like them doing the things that they wish they had the confidence to do.”
Today’s performers are building on a foundation laid more than a decade ago. In the 1990s, a movement called Neo-Burlesque arose, where body-positive feminists began to mix pop culture, modern music and costumes with classic burlesque tricks. Cherry Pop Burlesque sold out shows at the Majestic Theatre in 2004 and 2005, and soon after, Foxy Veronica’s Peach Pies began to perform at the Inferno Nightclub; the Peach Pies held a reunion at the High Noon Saloon in July.
Some burlesque performers distance themselves from strippers because of the way tips are received. Burlesque performers are paid like musicians (a percentage of ticket sales or from tips placed in buckets), but body tipping is forbidden. “There’s always this weird dichotomy in the burlesque world,” says Stardust. “Are we strippers? What do we think about strippers? You can get really hung up on definitions, and you can lose sight of what’s important: We love our bodies and we teach others to love their bodies.”
Stardust was a self-described high school “theater nerd,” who studied theater in college. After clowning and touring with a cabaret show called Chez Bouche, he discovered burlesque when he caught a performance of “Vegas’ Only Nude Magician,” 78-year old Dusty Summers. “The confidence of this woman was on par with any of the greatest performers I’ve ever seen,” he recalls.
Marz, who teaches burlesque at Miss Pole studio, describes herself as a “funnel” to the Madison scene. Her classes cover the basics of performance technique and introduce students to local performers. She enjoys watching characters and storylines emerge. “The stories don’t always have to make sense, but they’re still stories,” Marz recently told a group of women students, some still in college and some who were middle-aged. “For a lot of people the hardest thing about burlesque is being themselves.”
Burlesque performers on Madison’s stages are not seeking fame or to make their careers: They perform for little money and prepare for shows after full-time jobs because they love the imaginative range burlesque offers.
“Burlesque has less to do with being risque and more to do with wanting to feel connected with the world that you are living in,” says Stardust. “It’s art that is not filtered through anything.”
